The immediate result of the Parliamentary authority thus given to what was purely a bubble scheme was to bring upon the Legislature a perfect deluge of petitions from all manner of projectors. Patents and monopolies were sought for the carrying on of fisheries in Greenland and various other regions; for the growth, manufacture and sale of hemp, flax, and cotton; for the making of sail-cloth; for a general insurance against fire; for the {192} planting and rearing of madder to be used by dyers; for the preparing and curing of Virginia tobacco for snuff, and making it into the same within all his Majesty's dominions. Schemes such as these were comparatively reasonable; but there were others of a different kind. Petitions were gravely submitted to Parliament praying for patents to be granted to the projectors of enterprises for trading in hair; for the universal supply of funerals to all parts of Great Britain; for insuring and increasing children's fortunes; for insuring masters and mistresses against losses from the carelessness or misconduct of servants; for insuring against thefts and robberies; for extracting silver from lead; for the transmutation of silver into malleable fine metal; for buying and fitting out ships to suppress pirates; for a wheel for perpetual motion, and--with which project, perhaps, we may close our list of specimens--"for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." Of course some of these projects were mere vulgar swindles. Even in that season of marvellous projection it is not to be supposed that the inventors of the last-mentioned scheme had any serious belief in its efficacy. The author of the project for the perpetual-motion wheel was, we take it, a sincere personage and enthusiast. His scheme has been coming up again and again before the world since his time; and we have known good men who would have staked all they held dear in life upon the possibility of its realization. But the would-be patentee of the undertaking of great advantage, nobody to know what it is, was a man of a different order. He understood human nature in certain of its moods. He knew that there are men and women who can be got to believe in anything which holds out the promise of quick and easy gain. If he found a few dozen greedy and selfish fools to help his project with a little money, that would, no doubt, be the full attainment of his ends. Probably he was successful. The very boldness of his avowal of secrecy would have a charm for many. One day would be enough for him--the {193} the day when he sent in his demand for a patent. The bare demand would bring him dupes. [Sidenote: 1720--The bubble bursts]