CHAPTER XII.
AFTER THE STORM.
[Sidenote: 1721—South Sea victims]
Swift wrote more than one poem on the South Sea mania. That which was written in 1721, and is called "South Sea," is a wonder of wit and wisdom. It shows the hollowness of the scheme in some new, odd, and striking light in every metaphor and every verse. "A guinea," Swift reminds his readers, "will not pass at market for a farthing more, shown through a multiplying glass, than what it always did before."
"So cast it in the Southern Seas,
And view it through a jobber's bill,
Put on what spectacles you please,
Your guinea's but a guinea still."
Other poets had not as much prudence and sound sense as Swift. Pope put some of his money, a good deal of it, into South Sea stock, contrary to the earnest advice of Atterbury, and lost it. Swift reflected faithfully the temper of the time in savage verses, which call out for the punishment by death of the fraudulent directors of the Company. Antaeus, Swift tells us, was always restored to fresh strength as often as he touched the earth; Hercules subdued him at last by holding him up in the air and strangling him there. Suspended a while in the air, according to the same principle, our directors, he admonishes the country, will be properly tamed and dealt with. Many public enemies of the directors gave themselves credit for moderation and humanity on the ground that they would not have the culprits tortured to death, but merely executed in the ordinary way.
Walpole set himself first of all to restore public credit. {203} His object was not so much the punishment of fraudulent directors as the tranquillizing of the public mind and the subsidence of national panic. He proposed one measure in the first instance to accomplish this end; but that not being sufficiently comprehensive, he introduced another bill, which was finally adopted by both Houses of Parliament. Briefly described, this scheme so adjusted the financial affairs of the South Sea Company that five millions of the seven which the directors had agreed to pay the public were remitted; the encumbrances to the Company were cleared off to a certain extent by the confiscation of the estates of the fraudulent directors; the credit of the Company's bonds was maintained; thirty-three pounds six shillings and eightpence per cent. were divided among the proprietors, and two millions were reserved towards the liquidation of the national debt. The Company was therefore put into a position to carry out its various public engagements, and the panic was soon over. Many of the proprietors of the Company complained bitterly of the manner in which they had been treated by Walpole. The lobbies of the House of Commons and all the adjacent places were crowded by proprietors of the short annuities and other redeemable popular deeds; men and women who, as the contemporary accounts tell us, "in a rude and insolent manner demanded justice of the members as they went into the House," and put into their hands a paper with the words written on it, "Pray do justice to the annuitants who lent their money on Parliamentary security." "The noisy multitude," we are told, "were particularly rude to Mr. Comptroller, tearing part of his coat as he passed by." The Speaker of the House was informed that a crowd of people had got together in a riotous and tumultuous manner in the lobbies and passages, and he ordered "that the Justices of the Peace for the City of Westminster do immediately attend this House and bring the constables with them." While the justices and the constables were being sent for, Sir John Ward was {204} presenting to the House a petition from the proprietors of the redeemable funds, setting forth that they had lent their money to the South Sea Company on Parliamentary security; that they had been unwarily drawn into subscribing for the shares in the Company by the artifices of the directors; and they prayed that they might be heard by themselves or their counsel against Walpole's measure—the bill "for making several provisions to restore the public credit, which suffers by the frauds and mismanagement of the late South Sea directors and others." Walpole opposed the petition, and said he did not see how the petitioners could be relieved, seeing that the resolutions, in pursuance of which his bill was brought in, had been approved by the King and council, and by a great majority of the House. Walpole, therefore, moved that the debate be adjourned, in order to get rid of the matter. The motion was carried by seventy-eight voices against twenty-nine. By this time four Justices for the City of Westminster had arrived, and were brought to the bar of the House. The Speaker informed them that there was a great crowd of riotous people in the lobbies and passages, and that he was commanded by the House to direct them to go and disperse the crowd, and take care to prevent similar riots in the future. The four justices, attended by five or six constables, desired the petitioners to clear the lobbies, and when they refused to do so, caused a proclamation against rioters to be twice read, warning them at the same time that if they remained until the third reading, they would have to incur the penalties of the Act. What the penalties of the Act were, and what the four justices and five or six constables could have done with the petitioners if the petitioners had refused to listen to reason, do not seem very clear. The petitioners, however, did listen to reason, and dispersed before the fatal third reading of the proclamation. But they did not disperse without giving the House of Commons and the justices a piece of their mind. Many exclaimed that they had come as peaceable citizens and {205} subjects to represent their grievances, and had not expected to be used like a mob and scoundrels; and others, as they went out, shouted to the members of Parliament, "You first pick our pockets, and then send us to jail for complaining."
[Sidenote: 1721—Relief measures]
The Bill went up to the House of Lords on Monday, August 7th, and the Lords agreed to it without an amendment. On Thursday, August 10th, Parliament was prorogued. The Lord Chancellor read the King's speech. "The common calamity," said his Majesty, "occasioned by the wicked execution of the South Sea scheme, was become so very great before your meeting that the providing proper remedies for it was very difficult. But it is a great comfort to me to observe that public credit now begins to recover, which gives me the greatest hopes that it will be entirely restored when all the provisions you have made for that end shall be duly put in execution." The speech went on to tell of his Majesty's "great compassion for the sufferings of the innocent, and a just indignation against the guilty;" and added that the King had readily given his assent "to such bills as you have presented to me for punishing the authors of our late misfortunes, and for obtaining the restitution and satisfaction due to those who have been injured by them in such manner as you judged proper." Certainly there was no lack of severity in the punishment inflicted on the fraudulent directors. Their estates were confiscated with such rigor that some of them were reduced to miserable poverty. They were disqualified from ever holding any public place or office whatever, and from ever having a seat in Parliament. Yet, severely as they were punished, the outcry of the public at the time was that they had been let off far too easily. Walpole was denounced because he did not carry their punishment much farther. There was even a ridiculous report spread abroad that he had defended Sunderland and screened the directors from the most ignoble and sordid motives, and that he had been handsomely paid for his compromise with crime. {206} Nothing would have satisfied some of the sufferers by the South Sea scheme short of the execution of its principal directors. Even the scaffold, however, could hardly have dealt more stern and summary justice on the criminals—as some of them undoubtedly were—than did the actual course of events. When the storm cleared away, Aislabie was ruined; Craggs, the Postmaster-general, was dead; Craggs, the Secretary of State, was dead; Lord Stanhope, who was really innocent—was really unsuspected of any share in the crimes of the fraudulent directors—was dead also; Sunderland was no longer a Minister of State, and the shadow of death was already on him. It was not merely the bursting of a bubble, it was the bursting of a shell—it mutilated or killed those who stood around and near.
[Sidenote: 1722—Sunderland's antipathy to Walpole]