The scheme originated in the reign of Queen Anne, in the year 1711, a fund being formed on the chimerical notion that the English would be allowed to trade to the coast of Peru. Sir John Blunt, who was bred a scriviner, devised the scheme, and communicated it to Aislabie, the chancellor of the exchequer. The pretence of this scheme was to discharge the national debt by reducing all the funds into one stock. The Bank of England and the South Sea Company vied with each other, and the latter ultimately offered such high terms that the proposal of the Bank was rejected, and the Company’s stock rose considerably. It produced a kind of national delirium. Sir John Blunt took this hint from Law’s scheme, which was that a royal bank be erected by subscription, and, having a fund in hand to answer bills on demand, the scheme began to take, and established its credit by its punctual discharge, till it increased to such extraordinary magnitude as to pay bills for one million and a quarter sterling a day. In this project of Law, however, there was something substantial; an exclusive trade to Louisiana promised advantage, though the design was defeated by the frantic eagerness of the people. Law himself had become the dupe of the regent, who transferred the burden of fifteen hundred million of francs of the king’s debt to the shoulders of the people, while the projector was sacrificed as the scape-goat of political iniquity. The South Sea scheme promised no commercial advantage of any consequence; it was buoyed by nothing but the folly and rapacity of individuals, who became so blinded with the prospect of gain as to become easy dupes. When the projector found that the South Sea stock did not rise to his expectation, he circulated reports that Gibraltar and Port Mahon would be exchanged for some places in Peru, by which the South Sea trade would be protected and enlarged. This report acted like a contagion; persons of all ranks crowded to subscribe; the Exchange Alley was filled with a strange concourse of statesmen, clergymen, dissenters, whigs, tories, physicians, lawyers, &c. &c., and even females. All other professions and employments were neglected. Other companies without foundation were got up to deceive, and all found favour with the mad public. There were actually some shares of a fictitious company, called Globe Permits, each of which came at last to be currently sold for sixty guineas and upwards, and yet were only square bits of card, on which were the impression of a seal in wax, having the sign of the Globe tavern. A burlesque upon this reigning folly appeared in an advertisement for a company with a capital of two millions for melting down sawdust and chips, and casting them into clean deal boards without knots.