If operations had been confined to the South Sea Company ruin might have been averted, or at least postponed, but the town was seized with the lust for speculation. A variety of other bubbles were started simultaneously, and so great was the infatuation that they were seized upon by an eager public. To give the Government its due, it had striven to prohibit such undertakings, describing them in a proclamation as “mischievous and dangerous”. But the proclamation was not worth the paper it was written on, and immediately after the King’s departure for Hanover, the Prince of Wales himself lent his name as governor of a Welsh copper company. “It is no use trying to persuade him,” declared Walpole, whose own hands were far from clean, “that he will be attacked in Parliament, and the ‘Prince of Wales’s Bubble’ will be cried in ’Change Alley.” The Prince eventually withdrew, but not until the company was threatened with prosecution, and he had netted a profit of £40,000. The Duchess of Kendal and Lady Darlington were also deeply pledged, and with the examples of such exalted personages before them, the greed of the people at large cannot be wondered at. ’Change Alley repeated the scene in the Rue Quincampoix; it was crowded from morning to night, and so great was the throng that the clerks had to set up tables in the streets. The whole town seemed to turn into ’Change Alley. In the mad eagerness for speculation all barriers were broken down; Tories, Whigs and Jacobites, Roman Catholics, Churchmen and Dissenters, nobility, squires from the country, clergymen, ladies of quality and ladies of no quality at all, all turned gamblers, and rushed to ’Change Alley. The news-sheets of the day were full of nothing else, and the theatres reflected the popular craze. To quote a topical ballad:-- Here stars and garters do appear, Among our lords the rabble; To buy and sell, to see and hear, The Jews and Gentiles squabble. Here crafty courtiers are too wise For those who trust to fortune; They see the cheat with clearer eyes, Who peep behind the curtain. Our greatest ladies hither come, And ply in chariots daily; Oft pawn their jewels for a sum To venture in the Alley. Young harlots, too, from Drury Lane, Approach the ’Change in coaches To fool away the gold they gain By their impure debauches.