Brokers rid night and day from one end of the kingdom to the other, to engage gentlemen to bribe corporations, to buy off competitors, and to manage the elections. You will see the state of things at that time, and the danger this stock-jobbing wickedness had brought the public to, if you please to read the following exclamation of the honest freeholders at that time, which was presented to the public by way of complaint. The thing was laid before the king first, and before the Parliament afterwards; and it was his Majesty’s sense of the consequence, that made him resolve to bring the two East India Companies to unite their stocks; for, in a word, the stock-jobbers embroiled the whole nation. There was a book published some years ago, and when the stock-jobbing people were thought as willing, yet not quite so daring or so cunning, as they are now; it was entitled, “The Villany of the Stock-jobbers.” Indeed, it set them out in their true colors, and for some time gave them a little shock; for the truth was, they jobbed King William and the government at that time at such a rate, that, in spite of the invincible valor and resolution of the soldiery, in spite of the most glorious prince and most vigilant general the world had ever seen, yet the enemy gained upon us every year; the funds were run down, the credit jobbed away in Exchange Alley, the king and his troops devoured by mechanics, and sold to usury; tallies lay bundled up like Bath faggots in the hands of brokers and stock-jobbers; the Parliament gave taxes, laid funds, but the loans were at the mercy of those men; and they showed their mercy, indeed, by devouring the king and the army, the Parliament, and, indeed, the whole nation, bringing that great prince sometimes to that exigence, through unexpressible extortions that were put upon him, that he has even gone into the field without his equipage, nay, even without his army; the regiments have been unclothed when the king has been in the field, and the willing, brave English spirit, eager to honor their country, and follow such a king, have marched even to battle without either stockings or shoes, while his servants have been every day working in Exchange Alley, to get his own money of the Stock-jobbers, even after all the horrible demands of discount have been allowed; and, at last, scarce fifty per cent. of the money granted by Parliament has come into the Exchequer, and that late, too late for that service, and by driblets, till the king has been tired of the delay, and been even ready to give up the cause. We have just now had a test of their cunning on the subject of the invasion. These were the men that made the first advantage of the news; immediately those that were to put stock upon any man at a high price tendered it, the accepters, forced by the demand, call in their money on their hand, pay the difference, the price falls, a general run upon the Bank follows, and stock-jobbing began it.