Throughout the summer of this year, 1720, speculation was in the air. The example of John Law’s Mississippi scheme in Paris had created a rage for it. Law was a Scottish adventurer, who had some years before established a bank in Paris, and afterwards proceeded to form a West Indian company, which was to have the sole privilege of trading with the Mississippi. It was at first an enormous success, and Law was one of the most courted men in Europe. “I have seen him come to court,” says Voltaire, “followed humbly by dukes, by marshals and by bishops.” He became so arrogant that he quarrelled with Lord Stair, the English ambassador, and the fact that Lord Stair was recalled shows how great was the financier’s power. A great number of Frenchmen amassed large fortunes, and Law’s office in the Rue Quincampoix was thronged from daybreak to night with enormous crowds. One little hunchback in the street was said to have earned no less than 50,000 francs by allowing eager speculators to use his hump as their desk! As soon as the South Sea Bill had received the royal assent in Parliament, the South Sea Company opened large subscriptions, which were filled up directly. For no reason whatever, its trade, which did not exist, was regarded as a certain road to fortune. The whole of London went mad on the South Sea, and in August the stock, which had been quoted at 130 in the winter, rose to 1,000. Third and fourth subscriptions were opened, the directors pledging themselves that, after Christmas, their dividends should not be less than 50 per cent. Nothing was talked of but the South Sea, and it was gratefully remembered that Oxford, the fallen Minister, had started it. “You will remember when the South Sea was said to be Lord Oxford’s bride,” wrote the Duchess of Ormonde to Swift. “Now the King has adopted it and calls it his beloved child, though perhaps you may say, that if he loves it no better than his son, it may not be saying much.”[110]