So great was the desolation that it was found necessary for Parliament to intervene. Not that the great Company itself was in any way bankrupt, its shares were still at a large premium, they never fell below 175; not that any law of political economy had been broken; Government had never pledged itself to support the credit of the Company, or to force either its shares or its engagements on the public; but simply because private speculation had caused so vast an amount of misery, and because the nation was exasperated at it, interference became absolutely necessary. Examination into all the details of the plan no doubt proved a considerable amount of venality on the part of the ministry, of bribery and fraud on the part of the directors. But even thus it was freely acknowledged that under no old law had any crime been committed, and it required a retrospective Act of Parliament and the creation of a temporary crime to bring the directors within the reach of punishment. As Gibbon said, the steps taken were in fact an act of popular vengeance and contrary to justice. They consisted in the appropriation of the private property of the directors to the amount of £2,000,000 for distribution among the sufferers, the remission of the £7,000,000 due by the Company to Government, the payment of all the just liabilities to the Company, and a division of the capital that then remained, about thirty-three per cent., among the proprietors. [Sidenote: Punishment of the directors.] [Sidenote: Supremacy of Walpole. 1721.]