The first fraud in exchequer-bills occurred within a year of their creation; when receivers-general, members of Parliament, and deputy accountants formed a confederacy fraudulently to indorse some of these securities, to which their position gave them access. The robbery was discovered; and a Mr. Reginald Marryot, one of the accomplices, saved himself by discovering the plot. The House of Commons expelled from its members the men whose dishonor was increased by their position; and, as the estate of Mr. Charles Duncombe, one of the accused, was worth £400,000, they fined him £200,000, being the amount wrongfully circulated. In the House of Lords it fell to the Duke of Leeds to give the casting vote. Mr. Duncombe’s estate was saved, but the Duke’s credit suffered, for he gave his decision in favor of the defaulter; and it was said that Mr. Duncombe paid no inconsiderable sum for the benefit he received at the hands of his Grace. The charge was never brought home; but the Duke’s after-conduct gave a sufficient coloring to the suspicion. The first foreign loan was negotiated in ’Change Alley in 1706. The victories of the Duke of Marlborough had raised the pride of the English people; and even ’Change Alley possessed a somewhat similar feeling. When, therefore, his Grace proposed a loan of £500,000 to the Emperor, for eight years, at 8 per cent., on the security of the Silesian revenue, it was received with acclamation, and was filled in a few days by the first commercial names of England.