and the directors opened their books for a subscription of a million, and then for a second million, and the frantic speculators took it all. Swift described ’Change Alley as a gulf in the South Seas:— “Subscribers here by thousands float, And jostle one another down, Each paddling in his leaky boat, And here they fish for gold and drown. “Now buried in the depths below, Now mounted up to heaven again, They reel and stagger to and fro, At their wits’ end, like drunken men. “Meantime, secure on Garraway cliffs, A savage race, by shipwrecks fed, Lie waiting for the foundering skiffs, And strip the bodies of the dead.” The directors used every art to keep up the price of the stock. It rose finally to £1,000 per share. A few weeks afterwards it was down to £175, then to £135, and the Bubble had burst. To detail the various plans tried or suggested to bolster up the company, the Parliamentary inquiries, or the stringent measures adopted to punish the directors, would be out of place here. Suffice it to say that a bill was brought in for restraining the South Sea directors and officers from leaving the kingdom for a twelvemonth. They were forbidden to realise on their estates and effects, neither must they will or remove them. Eventually they were obliged to disgorge their gains. “A sum amounting to two million and fourteen thousand pounds was confiscated from their estates towards repairing the mischief they had done, each man being allowed a certain residue in proportion to his conduct and circumstances, with which he might begin the world anew. Sir John Blunt was only allowed £5,000 out of his fortune of upwards of £183,000; Sir John Fellows was allowed £10,000 out of £243,000; Sir Theodore Janssen £50,000 out of £243,000; Mr. Edward Gibbon £10,000 out of £106,000; Sir John Lambert £5,000 out of £72,000.” After every effort on the part of the Committee of Investigation, a dividend of about 33 per cent. was divided among the unfortunate proprietors and stock-holders. It took long before public credit was restored. [Illustration: COMMODORE ANSON.] CHAPTER III. THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).