JUDAH MANASSEH LOPEZ, THE JEW USURER—HIS TRICK ON THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM—SUSPICIONS CONCERNING HIM.—THE INCREASE OF LONDON.—POPULATION OF LONDON.—PROCLAMATIONS.—HALLEY’S MOVEMENT IN LIFE ASSURANCE—HIS TABLES.
Among the frequenters of St. Paul’s, when the noble, the merchant, and the citizen congregated in its walk, was an old man known to all who met there in their daily avocations as Judah Manasseh Lopez. A Lombard, a Jew, and a usurer, it was difficult to say whether the outward respect he received from his customers was not counterbalanced by the curses he received from the public. The bullying mien of the self-dubbed captain sunk into a more subdued tone as he asked for loans or deprecated payment. The spendthrift who was dicing away his paternal inheritance, and who had security to offer for the money he wanted, was more indifferent, while the goldsmith shrunk from his approach with a contemptuous expression he did not always care to conceal. This man employed his wealth in the purchase and sale of annuities. He lent to merchants when their vessels failed to bring them returns in time to meet their engagements. He advanced cash on the jewels of those whom a disturbed period involved in conspiracies which required the sinews of war. But annuities were his favourite investment; and to him, therefore, resorted all that were in difficulties and were able to deal with him. With the highest and the lowest he trafficked. He was feared by most, and respected by none. One remarkable feature in his business was, that no one found it easy to recover the property he had pledged, provided it much exceeded the amount advanced. In an extremity, Buckingham, the favourite of Charles, applied to and received assistance from the Jew on the deposit of some deeds of value. When the time approached which had been stipulated for repayment, Lopez appeared before the Duke in an agony of grief, declaring his strong-room had been broken into, his property pilfered, and the Duke’s deeds carried away. But Buckingham had dealt too much with men of this class to believe the story on the mere word of such a Jew. He, therefore, kept the usurer while he ordered some retainers to proceed to the city and to search out the truth, placing the Hebrew at the same time under watch and ward, with an utter indifference to his comfort. When the messengers returned, they avouched that all Lombard Street was in an uproar at the violation of its stronghold. Still the Duke was dissatisfied, and refused to part with his prey until he had received full value for his deposit. In vain the Hebrew fell on his knees, in vain did he call on Father Abraham to attest his innocence, for in the midst of one of his most solemn asseverations Buckingham was informed that a scrivener was urgent in soliciting an audience, and he saw at the same time that a cloud came over the face of Lopez. The request of the scrivener being granted, to the Duke’s astonishment he produced the missing document, explaining to his Grace that Lopez, believing the scrivener too much in his power to betray him, had placed it in his charge until the storm should blow over, but that, fearing the Duke’s power and trusting to his protection, he had brought it to York House. On the instant Buckingham confronted the two. The Jew’s countenance betrayed his crime, and, fawning on the very hem of the Duke’s garment, he begged forgiveness, and crouched like a dog to procure it. From that time it is probable that the Duke had his loans on more equitable terms and on smaller security, as he dismissed the Jew with a consideration the latter did not deserve.
But darker and more dangerous things were hinted of this man. He was well versed in medical lore. He was reputed to possess subtle drugs; and it was often noticed that the healthiest of those to whom he was bound to pay life annuities were sometimes cut off in a remarkable way, and that, too, after they had been closeted with him. Whether Lopez granted insurances on lives is unknown, but he lived himself to a bad old age, hated as much as he was feared, and sought after as much as he was despised.
Such men made large profits. They knew nothing and they cared nothing for the chances of life. Their charges covered all risks. And so little was known of the number of the people, that a few desultory facts concerning this and a previous period, being gathered from various sources, may not be unacceptable or uninstructive. Up to this time, and long after, the population of London and of England was a riddle. The utmost exaggeration prevailed in all the accounts which we possess concerning it. Fitzstephen writes of London being peopled with a multitude of inhabitants; and adds, that, in the fatal wars under King Stephen, 80,000 men were mustered. Allowing for the martial fury of the time, this would give a population of 400,000 in the twelfth century dwelling in London. Everything points to the fact that the metropolis augmented more than the authorities thought good.
The progressive increase of London was a continual source of alarm. In 1581 a proclamation was issued, forbidding any new buildings. Elizabeth caused a statute to be passed to the same effect, because “such multitudes could hardly be governed, by ordinary justice, to serve God and obey her Majesty;” and because “such great multitudes of people in small rooms, being heaped up together, and in a sort smothered, with many families of children and servants, in one tenement, it must needs follow, if any plague or any universal sickness come among them, it would presently spread through the whole city.” These proclamations were continued. James said, so many people “cumbering the city were a general nuisance;” adding, that the single women who came from the country marred their reputations, and that the married lost them. Still the people flocked, in spite of proclamations, and in opposition to statutes. Old country establishments crowded by the score to “upstart London,” “pinching many a belly to paint a few backs, and burying all the treasures of the kingdom in a few citizens’ coffers.” At last some effect was produced, not however by the proclamation, but by fining one Mr. Palmer a thousand pounds. Still, if we may judge by what Howel writes, the city of London continued to increase “For the number of human souls breathing in city and suburbs, London may compare with any in Europe in point of populousness.” This he estimates, taking “within that compass where the point of the Lord Mayor’s sword reacheth,” at a million and a half of souls. Foreigners could scarcely understand the huge concourse which thronged London, and which for a long time baffled our earlier political economists, who wondered how it was that the annual deaths outbalanced the annual births. Our satirists were very hard on the new comers. Ben Jonson describes them as “country gulls,” who come up every term to learn to take tobacco and see new notions. They paid heavily for their lesson in London life; and many an annuity was wrung out of the fat land of the country gentleman from his visit to the metropolis. Sir Richard Fanshawe, in an elegant and elaborate poem,—an evidence that the subject occupied public attention,—asks,
“Who would pursue
The smoky glory of the town,
That may go till his native earth,
And by the shining fire sit down