“In a word, they are all a gang of rogues and cheats, and I’ll pay none of them. Besides, my lawyer, Sir Thomas Subtle, tells me there is not a man of them dares sue me; _no, though I had no protection to fly to_; and he states the case thus:— “‘You have, Sir,’ says Subtle, ‘contracted to accept of stock at a high price; East India at 220, Bank at 160, South Sea 120, and the like. Very well. They come to put it upon you, the stock being since fallen. Tell them you cannot take it yet; if they urge your contract, and demand when you will take it, tell them you will take it when you think fit. “‘If they swagger, call names,—as rogue, cheat, and the like,—tell them, as to that, you are all of a fraternity; there is no great matter in it whether you cheat them, or they cheat you; ’tis as it happens in the way of trade; that it all belongs to the craft; and, as the Devil’s broker, Whiston, said to parson Giffard, tell them you are all of a trade. If they rage, and tell you the Devil will have you, and such as that, tell them they should let the Devil and you alone to agree about that, it is none of their business; but when he comes for you, tell them you would advise them to keep out of the way, or get a protection, as you have against them. “‘After this, it is supposed they will sue you at law. Then leave it to me; I’ll hang them up for a year or two in our courts; and if ever in that time the stock comes up to the price, we will tender the money in court, demand the stock, and saddle the charges of the suit upon them. Let them avoid it if they can.’ “This is my lawyer’s opinion,” says he to himself, “and I’ll follow it to a tittle; and so we are told he has; and I do not hear that one stock-jobber has begun to sue him yet, or intends it; nor, indeed, dare they do it.” This experiment, indeed, may teach understanding to every honest man that falls into the clutches of these merciless men, called stock-jobbers; and I give the world this notice, that, in short, not one of their Exchange Alley bargains need be otherwise than thus complied with. And, let these buyers of bear-skins remember it, not a man of them dare go to common law to recover the conditions; nor is any man obliged, farther than he thinks himself obliged in principle, to make good one of his bargains with them. How far principle will carry any man to be just to a common cheat, that has drawn him into a snare, I do not, indeed, know; but I cannot suppose it will go a very great length, where there is so clear, so plain, and so legal a door to get out at. It must be confessed that, if the projected story of the taking of the Pretender was acted in concert between Rome and Exchange Alley, between my Lord Mar and a certain broker, as fame reports,—either the broker is the devil of a Jacobite, or my Lord the devil of a broker,—it must be acknowledged it was a far-fetched trick, and answered the end in Exchange most admirably.