t
might lend on bottomry or on personal security; but, if he did so, he
ran a great risk of losing interest and principal. There were a few
joint stock companies, among which the East India Company held the
foremost place; but the demand for the stock of such companies was far
greater than the supply. Indeed the cry for a new East India Company
was chiefly raised by persons who had found difficulty in placing their
savings at interest on good security. So great was that difficulty that
the practice of hoarding was common. We are told that the father of Pope
the poet, who retired from business in the City about the time of the
Revolution, carried to a retreat in the country a strong box containing
near twenty thousand pounds, and took out from time to time what was
required for household expenses; and it is highly probable that this was
not a solitary case. At present the quantity of coin which is hoarded
by private persons is so small that it would, if brought forth, make no
perceptible addition to the circulation. But, in the earlier part of the
reign of William the Third, all the greatest writers on currency were of
opinion that a very considerable mass of gold and silver was hidden in
secret drawers and behind wainscots.

The natural effect of this state of things was that a crowd of
projectors, ingenious and absurd, honest and knavish, employed
themselves in devising new schemes for the employment of redundant
capital. It was about the year 1688 that the word stockjobber was first
heard in London. In the short space of four years a crowd of companies,
every one of which confidently held out to subscribers the hope of
immense gains, sprang into existence; the Insurance Company, the Paper
Company, the Lutestring Company, the Pearl Fishery Company, the
Glass Bottle Company, the Alum Company, the Blythe Coal Company, the
Swordblade Company. There was a Tapestry Company which would soon
furnish pretty hangings for all the parlours of the middle class and
for all the bedchambers of the higher. There was a Copper Company which
proposed to explore the mines of England, and held out a hope that they
would prove not less valuable than those of Potosi. There was a Diving
Company which undertook to bring up precious effects from shipwrecked
vessels, and which announced that it had laid in a stock of wonderful
machines resembling complete suits of armour. In front of the helmet was
a huge glass eye like that of a cyclop; and out