Jonathan’s was, especially, the Coffee House which stock jobbers frequented. Addison, in the first number of the _Spectator_, says, “I sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of Stock Jobbers at Jonathan’s”; and Mrs Centlivre has laid one of the scenes in her _Bold Stroke for a Wife_, at Jonathan’s: where, also, was subscribed the first foreign loan, in 1706. There was a Stock Exchange hoax in the reign of Queen Anne. A man appeared, galloping from Kensington to the City, ordering the turnpikes to be thrown open for him, and shouting loudly that he bore the news of the Queen’s death. This sad message flew far and wide, and dire was its effects in the City. The funds fell at once, but Manasseh Lopez and the Jews bought all they could, and reaped the benefit when the fraud was discovered. In 1715, too, a false report that the Pretender had been taken, sent the Funds bounding up, to the great profit of those who were in the secret of the hoax. About this time the demon of gambling was rampant, every one wanted to find a short road to wealth; naturally, there were plenty of rogues to ease them of their money, but the most colossal stroke of gambling was the South Sea Bubble, the only parallel to which, in modern times, is the Railway Mania, in 1846. The South Sea Company was started in 1711, to have the monopoly of trade to the South Seas, or South Coast of America, a region which was, even then, believed to be an _El Dorado_. As a trading company it was not successful, but, having a large capital, it dealt with finance. On 22nd Jan. 1720, a proposal was laid before Parliament that the Company should take upon themselves the National Debt, of £30,981,712, 6s. 6-1/2d. at 5 per cent. per annum, secured until 1727, when the whole was to be redeemable, if Parliament so chose, and the interest to be reduced to 4 per cent., and “That for the liberty of increasing their Capital Stock, as aforesaid, the Company will give, and pay into his Majesty’s Exchequer, for the purpose of the Public, and to be applied for paying off the public debt provided for by Parliament, before Christmas, 1716, the sum of three millions and a half, by four equal quarterly payments, whereof the first payment to be at Lady Day 1721.” On April 7, the South Sea Company’s Bill received the Royal Assent, the £100 shares being then about £300.