to obstruct his own
fortune. He was then importuned to sell as much as would
purchase a hundred a year for life, "which," says Fenton,
"will make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton
every day." This counsel was rejected; the profit and
principal were lost, and Gay sunk under the calamity so low
that his life became in danger.--_Johnson's Lives of the
Poets_

The ministry were seriously alarmed at the aspect of affairs. The
directors could not appear in the streets without being insulted;
dangerous riots were every moment apprehended. Despatches were sent off to
the king at Hanover, praying his immediate return. Mr. Walpole, who was
staying at his country seat, was sent for, that he might employ his known
influence with the directors of the Bank of England to induce them to
accept the proposal made by the South-Sea company for circulating a number
of their bonds.

The Bank was very unwilling to mix itself up with the affairs of the
company; it dreaded being involved in calamities which it could not
relieve, and received all overtures with visible reluctance. But the
universal voice of the nation called upon it to come to the rescue. Every
person of note in commercial politics was called in to advise in the
emergency. A rough draft of a contract drawn up by Mr. Walpole was
ultimately adopted as the basis of further negotiations, and the public
alarm abated a little.

On the following day, the 20th of September, a general court of the
South-Sea company was held at Merchant Tailors' Hall, in which resolutions
were carried, empowering the directors to agree with the Bank of England,
or any other persons, to circulate the company's bonds, or make any other
agreement with the Bank which they should think proper. One of the
speakers, a Mr. Pulteney, said it was most surprising to see the
extraordinary panic which had seized upon the people. Men were running to
and fro in alarm and terror, their imaginations filled with some great
calamity, the form and dimensions of which nobody knew:

"Black it stood as night--
Fierce as ten furies--terrible as hell."

At a general court of the Bank of England held two days afterwards, the
governor informed them of the several meetings that had been held on the
affairs of the South-Sea company, adding that the directors had not yet
thought fit to come to any decision upon the matter. A resolution was the