The Lord Mayor, with a precipitancy that argued but little for the prudence of the chief magistrate, had this letter posted up in front of the Mansion-house. The effect on the Stock Exchange was immediate; and consols rose eight per cent, from 63 to 71. The delusion, however, was brief; and the intelligence of the rise had no sooner reached Downing Street in its turn, than a messenger was dispatched to undeceive the city, and the city-marshal was employed to read the contradiction in the streets. The confusion in the Stock Exchange was now excessive; but the committee adopted the only remedy in their power. They ordered the Stock Exchange to be shut, and came to a resolution, that all bargains made in the morning should be null and void. Immediately after, another attempt of the same kind was made; and the Lord Mayor was requested by the people of the Stock Exchange to inquire into its reality from the government. The inquiry was answered by Mr Addington, of course denying it altogether, and finishing with this rebuke to civic credulity:--"I feel it my duty distinctly to caution your lordship against receiving impressions of the description alluded to, through any unauthorized channel of information." The funds immediately fell to 63 once more. And yet it remains a delicate question, whether any committee can have the power of declaring the bargains null and void. Of course, where the inventors of the fraud have been parties, they have no right to gain by their own fraud; but where individuals, wholly unacquainted with the fraud, have gained, there seems no reason why a _bona fide_ transaction should not stand. * * * * *