“Another manner of spending the vacation formerly, was in insuring the lives of such unfortunate gentlemen as might happen to stand accountable to their country for misconduct. I am not willing to disturb the ashes of the dead, or I could give an account of this cruel pastime, the parallel of which is not to be met with in the instance of any civilised nation; but I hope we shall hear no more of such detestable gaming; therefore, as a scene of this kind fully laid open might astonish, but could not convey instruction, humanity bids me draw the veil, and not render any set of men unnecessarily odious. “A practice likewise prevailed of insuring the lives of well known personages, as soon as a paragraph appeared in the newspapers announcing them to be dangerously ill. The insurance rose in proportion as intelligence could be procured from the servants or from any of the faculty attending, that the patient was in great danger. This inhuman sport affected the minds of men depressed by long sickness; for when such persons, casting an eye over a newspaper for amusement, saw their lives had been insured in the Alley at 90 per cent., they despaired of all hopes, and thus their dissolution was hastened. But to the honour of the principal merchants and underwriters, they caused an advertisement, some years since, to be fixed up at Lloyd’s Coffee-house, declaring that they would not transact business with any brokers who should be engaged in such infamous transactions. “Insuring of property in any city or town that is besieged, is a common branch of gambling insurance in time of war, but ingenious gamesters, ever studious to invent new and variegate old games, have out of this lawful game (for insurance in general is no more than a game at chance) contrived a new amusement, which is, for one person to give another 40_l._, and in case Gibraltar, for instance, is taken by a particular time, the person to whom the 40_l._ are paid is to repay 100_l._; but if, on the contrary, the siege is raised before the time mentioned, he keeps the 40_l._ “In proportion as the danger of being taken increases, the premium of insurance advances; and when the place has been so situated, that repeated intelligence could be received of the progress of the siege, I have known the insurance rise to 90_l._ for the 100_l._ A fine field this opens for spreading false reports, and making private letters from the Continent. But how infinitely more harmless to trifle with property than to affect the life of a fellow-subject, or to injure him with the public, to serve a private end! “Of sham insurances, that is to say, insurances without property on the spot, made on places besieged, in time of war, foreign ministers residing with us have made considerable advantages. It was a well known fact, that a certain ambassador insured 30,000_l._ on Minorca in the war of 1755, with advices at the same time in his pocket that it was taken.”