were reasons why action could not be taken against her. The curious may turn to Thackeray’s wonderful picture of the Court of Hanover in the “Four Georges,” where he will be rewarded by one of the most startling and dramatic stories which history has ever had to tell. In the midst of these times, inauspicious for solid business proposals, if ever times were, the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation was born. A Mr. Case Billingsley, of the firm of Bradley and Billingsley, Solicitors, himself a member of the Mercers’ Company, proposed a scheme for marine insurance, and gave to it the title of the “Public Assurance Office.” He opened a list at the Mercers’ Hall on the 12th August, 1717, and asked for a subscription of £1,250,000, of which £100,000 was to be paid up. The list was closed in January of the following year. But during the months when the list was open, the proposer of a rival scheme, Sir John Williams, amalgamated with him. The list being closed, Case Billingsley applied to the Attorney General for a Charter. A Charter was refused, although in this case Sir Robert Walpole supported it; Billingsley had moreover the support of Lord Onslow, a member of the Government, and of Lord Chetwynd, who was interested in a similar scheme. A good many people did not look further than the end of their noses. Lady Cowper, the wife of Lord Chancellor Cowper, frankly wrote of both Onslow’s and Chetwynd’s proposals as “Bubbles,” and stated that they were on the same plane as the South Sea Company--frauds upon the public--no more, no less. Billingsley, however, and his Directors did not lie down under the refusal. They cast about and bought up for a song an old Charter of Queen Elizabeth’s time, which had nothing whatever to do with Assurance in any form. It was a Charter of the Mines Royal, Mineral and Battery Works, which in itself was an amalgamation dating back three years. Under this Charter, with its curious coat of arms of a miner working by candle light and extracting from the earth a veritable sleet of golden drops, the Billingsley Assurance Company set up to practice Marine Insurance. From the outset it is clear that the Company did a profitable business, for it declared, and so far as we know paid, a dividend in 1719.