This is the proper place for speaking of the famous Company formed for carrying on trade with the Spanish possessions in the Pacific, which received, upon its calamitous failure, the name of South Sea Bubble. This Company was formed, chartered, and prospered and fell, soon after the return of Rogers and Dampier. It originated in 1711, with Harley, the Lord Treasurer, his object being to improve public credit, and to provide for the payment of the floating debt, amounting to £10,000,000. He allured the nation's creditors by promising them the monopoly of trade with the Spanish coast in America. They greedily swallowed the glittering bait, and dreamed of El Dorado and Peruvian Golcondas. This spirit spread throughout the nation, and, in 1719, rose to a fever heat of speculation. Sir John Blunt, once a scrivener, now a prominent South Sea Director, conceived the idea of consolidating all the public funds into one, and made the proposal to the Government. The Bank of England and the South Sea Company displayed the utmost eagerness to outbid each other in the offers made for this magnificent privilege. The South Sea Company finally bid seven millions and a half, and the bill then passed the two houses of Parliament triumphantly. The Directors immediately opened a subscription of a million, and then a second, both of which were eagerly filled. Every engine was set at work to delude the public: mysterious rumors were rife of secret treasures in America, of overtures made to Stanhope to exchange Gibraltar for a diamond-mine in Peru, and of inexhaustible piles of wealth which were only waiting to be snatched up by the fortunate subscribers to the South Sea stock. The Directors began to quote dividends of twenty, thirty, fifty per cent. They claimed that, being the only national creditor, they could soon dictate to Parliament and rule the country. The stock rose from one hundred and twenty-six to one thousand. The mania was universal,--statesmen, washerwomen, Churchmen, Dissenters, ladies of high and low degree, being all smitten alike. Other bubbles were started by other companies, some of them for the most extravagant objects, such as The Company to make Salt Water Fresh, to Build Hospitals for Bastards, to Obtain Silver from Lead, to Extract Oil from the Seeds of Sunflowers, to Import Jackasses from Spain and thus improve the Breed of English Mules, to Trade in Human Hair, and for a multitude of other equally absurd purposes. The subscriptions thus opened amounted at one period to no less than three hundred millions sterling.