have to pay five per cent. interest instead of seven or eight, besides having the power of redeeming the capital. [Sidenote: Competition of other companies.] So great were the advantages understood to be gained by this accession of capital in Government hands, that other companies wished to share in them. It was voted by a large majority that these advantages should be put up to public competition. The Bank of England and the South Sea Company set to work outbidding each other, the latter finally proposing terms which were virtually a payment to Government of seven millions and a half. This money was to be devoted to the public service, to pay off debts contracted to the end of the year 1722, and after that as much as possible of the capital of the South Sea Company itself. It is plain that for the success of this scheme two things were requisite. In the first place, a readiness on the part of the public to accept the Company's shares in exchange for their Government annuities; without that Government would not be freed, nor would the Company get its increased capital. But this exchange would of course bring in no ready money. Secondly, therefore, a large number of new shareholders would be required to subscribe, paying for their shares in ready money, in order to meet the demands of those holders of redeemable annuities who refused all exchange, and to cover the heavy premium of £7,000,000. Now both of these objects were dependent on the popularity of the Company's shares; and it was in this that the mistake of the arrangement lay; Government had in fact made too good a bargain. By an extensive system of bribes large sums of fictitious capital were invented and distributed gratis among influential members of the Government, and still more largely among the hungry Hanoverian courtiers, whose influence it was regarded as all important to secure. All fear of the success of the scheme was almost immediately removed. So great was the belief in the vast Company, backed up by this huge accession of Government credit, so well had the directors done their business, that a very large majority of the annuitants pressed with extreme haste to accept the terms offered, though those terms were very low. The public were then invited to subscribe the new capital. Five separate subscriptions of upwards of a million were in succession opened, and all filled, with equal rapidity. [Sidenote: The rage for stock-jobbing.]