But the East India stock was the main point. Every man’s eye, when he came to the market, was upon the brokers who acted for Sir F——. Does Sir F—— sell or buy? If Sir F—— had a mind to buy, the first thing he did was to commission his brokers to look sour, shake their heads, suggest bad news from India; and at the bottom it followed, “I have commission from Sir F—— to sell out whatever I can”; and perhaps they would actually sell ten, perhaps twenty thousand pounds. Immediately the Exchange (for they were not then come to the Alley) was full of sellers; nobody would buy a shilling; till perhaps the stock would fall six, seven, eight, ten per cent., sometimes more. Then the cunning jobber had another set of men employed on purpose to buy, but with privacy and caution, all the stock they could lay their hands on; till, by selling ten thousand pounds at four or five per cent. loss, he would buy a hundred thousand pounds stock at ten or twelve per cent. under price; and, in a few weeks, by just the contrary method, set them all buying, and then sell them their own stock again at ten or twelve per cent. profit. These honest methods laid the foundation, we will not say of a fine great stone house, on a certain forest, but it certainly laid the foundation of an opulent family, and initiated the crowds of jobbers in that dexterity in tricking and cheating one another, which, to this day, they are the greatest proficients that this part of the world ever saw. By this exactly-concerted intelligence, he then knew how to turn the wages (a sort of jobbing then in mode, and which grew so infamous that they were at length obliged to suppress it by Act of Parliament) which way he pleased, and by which he got an immense sum of money. How often did the gentleman run down true news as if it had been false, and run up false news as if it had been true, by the force of his foreign intelligencers! How often coin reports of great actions, to serve a turn! It is too late a trick to be forgot by many that were bit by it to the bone. In a word, the putting false news upon us is nothing but an old trade revived,—though, it must be confessed, this of the Pretender has been a masterpiece,—and the worthy projector who has the credit of it must pass for a dexterous manager as any the university of Exchange Alley has bred up for thirty years past.