Unfortunate as these bubble assurance companies might be, unformed and unintelligent as their conductors proved, and ruinous as they were to the people who trusted them, they were a movement in the right direction. The principle of life assurance is so eminently social, and so important to those who wish to invest their savings for their successors, that any effort or endeavour to move this science from the hands of usurers and speculative merchants was to be rejoiced at. Hitherto it had been entirely in the hands of the monied man. Many had been honourable in their dealings, but they were ignorant of the trade in which they invested their money, while a bad business year or the destruction of a fleet,—a civil war or the arbitrary demands of a monarch,—might ruin alike assurer and assured.
Others who traded in it were harpies; who took advantage of the wants of the applicants, who measured their terms by the requirements of their customers, who demanded to the last penny, and claimed on the earliest day. Such men did more harm to the feeling of security in these transactions than can now be possibly imagined; but the above two classes only could supply the requirements of the people in the early annals of annuities and assurance.
CHAP. V.
ROYAL EXCHANGE AND LONDON ASSURANCE—THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS.—BUBBLE ERA.—EPIGRAMS.—OPPOSITION TO THE NEW COMPANIES.—ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.—LIST OF ASSURANCE COMPANIES.—EXTRAORDINARY CHARACTER OF MANY.—REMARKABLE CAREER OF LE BRUN.—DIRECTORS IN TROUBLE.
The rise of the Royal Exchange and London Corporations forms no uninteresting picture of the time in which they were produced. The bubbles of 1712 had not long passed away, when some of the first merchants of London, willing to secure to themselves the advantages which the Amicable as a life, and the Sun as a fire, office possessed, met in Mercers’ Hall, to petition the crown for a charter to effect marine and other assurances. The petition was well timed, as upwards of 150 underwriters had recently failed; many merchants having fallen to the ground with them, there was every reason in the public clamour for a safer and more secure mode of investment. About the same time also another body, of “knights, merchants, and citizens of London,” had petitioned with the same object. A junction of the two was arranged, and, under the title of the Royal Exchange Assurance, they endeavoured to obtain a charter. This was at the commencement of that remarkable period in commercial history known as the South Sea bubble. The above proposition, however, was well grounded; and so many were prevented from subscribing, that, under the title of the London Assurance, a company of equal magnitude was commenced.
Their petitions made slow progress; but the Royal Exchange, without waiting the issue, commenced business, and, in nine months, had insured property to the amount of 2,000,000l. sterling. While these companies were in progress, the great bubble era came. With it, excepting as regards assurance, this volume has nothing to do. But the public found this pressed closely on its attention. When men were willing to receive a company with fair promises in the place of fair prospects,—when persons ran about the Alley exclaiming, “Give us something to subscribe to; we care not what it is,”—a practice so sound as assurance was certain to be applied in every form that the hurried ingenuity of speculators could devise. Besides the proposed assurances on the lives of men, cattle were brought into use, and 2,000,000l. were demanded for assuring horses. Of this it was said:—
“You that keep horses to preserve your ease,
And pads to please your wives and mistresses,