The trials that were had resulted in the imprisonment, expulsion or degradation of Aislabie, Craggs, Sir George Caswell (a banker and member of the House,) and others. Blunt, a Mr. Stanhope, and a number more of the chief criminals were stripped of their wealth, amounting to from $135,000 to $1,200,000 each, and the proceeds used for the partial relief of the ruined, except amounts left to the culprits to begin the world anew. Blunt, the chief of all the swindlers, was stripped of about $925,000, and allowed only $5,000. By this means and by the use of such actual property as the Company did possess, about one-third of the money lost by its means was ultimately paid to the losers. It was a long time, however, before the tone of public credit was thoroughly restored. The history of the South Sea bubble should always stand as a beacon to warn us that reckless speculation is the bane of commerce, and that the only sure method of gaining a fortune, and certainly of enjoying it, is to diligently prosecute some legitimate calling, which, like the quality of mercy, is "twice blessed." Every man's occupation should be beneficial to his fellow-man as well as profitable to himself. All else is vanity and folly. CHAPTER XXVII. BUSINESS HUMBUGS.--JOHN LAW.--THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.--JOHNNY CRAPAUD AS GREEDY AS JOHNNY BULL. In the "good old times," people were just as eager after money as they are now; and a great deal more vulgar, unscrupulous, and foolish in their endeavors to get it. During about two hundred years after the discovery of America, that continent was a constant source of great and little money humbugs. The Spaniards and Portuguese and French and English all insisted upon thinking that America was chiefly made of gold; perhaps believing, as the man said about Colorado, that the hardship of the place was, that you have to dig through three or four feet of solid silver before the gold could be reached. This curious delusion is shown by the fact that the early charters of lands in America so uniformly reserved to the King his proportion of all gold and silver that should be found. And if gold were not to be had, these lazy Europeans were equally crazy about the rich merchandise which they made sure of finding in the vast and solitary American mountains and forests. In a previous letter, I have shown how one of those delusions, about the unbounded wealth to be obtained from the countries on the South Sea, caused the English South Sea bubble. A similar belief, at the same time, in the neighboring country of France, formed the airy basis of a similar business humbug, even more gigantic, noxious, and destructive. This was John Law's Mississippi scheme, of which I shall give an account in this chapter. It was, I think, the greatest business humbug of history.