"Whilst such were the transactions in the markets for goods, and whilst there was an extension of the system of loans to the transatlantic states, some of them affording little or no security, but almost all coming out at a premium, an enlarged field was presented for the spirit of gambling to enter upon. New mining, insurance, and other schemes, were set on foot, on the principle of joint-stock companies, in immense number. "The earliest South American mining speculations or associations formed in this country had been entered into with considerable circumspection, the parties with whom they originated having, by local information and connexion, secured comparatively beneficial contracts, and priority of the working of mines known to be most productive. These apparent advantages being made known, attracted numerous persons to buy shares from the original subscribers at a progressively increasing premium. The great gains--or rather premiums in anticipation of gains--thus obtained by one or two of these associations, held out an inducement to the formation of new ones. "It is well known how numerously mining and other joint-stock companies sprung up, and how successful they were for some time in catching and turning to account the disposition for hazardous adventure which now pervaded the nation. The operators on the share market made the new schemes the basis for an enormous extent of gambling. Many persons, quite removed from all connexion with business--retired officers, widows, and single women of small fortune--risked their incomes or their savings in every species of desperate enterprize. The competition and scramble for premiums in concerns which ought never to have been but at a discount, were perfectly astounding to those who took no part in such transactions. These operations in shares had an effect like that of speculations in goods, in adding to the mass of the circulation of paper and of credit; and this, be it still kept in mind, concurrently with the addition which had been made to the Bank of England issues. "It is not possible to compute, with even any approach to accuracy, the amount of the addition to the total of the circulating medium by these united causes; but if I were called upon to hazard an estimate, I should conjecture that the whole amount of the circulating medium, including the transactions on credit without the intervention of paper, must have been, on the average of the four months ending April, 1825, _little if at all short of fifty per cent. above what it had been in the corresponding period of 1823_. The approximation of this estimate to the truth is rendered probable by the consideration that, upon the principles which determine money prices and nominal values, such a general rise of prices, amounting in some instances to above 100 per cent., without even the allegation of any general scarcity, could not have taken place without an immense expansion of the circulating medium."