CHAPTER V.
Life of Thomas Guy.—Imposition in Sailors’ Tickets.—Foreign Loan attempted.—Sir John Barnard.—Expresses of the Jobbers.—Foreign Commissions.—Origin of Time-Bargains.—Attempt to stop them.—Its Inadequacy.—Proposal to reduce the Interest on the National Debt.—Opposition of Sir Robert Walpole.—New Mode of raising Loans.—Comparative Interest in Land and Funds.—Punishment of Manasseh Lopez.—The first Reduction of Interest.—Life of Sir John Barnard.
In 1724 died the founder of Guy’s Hospital, and a sketch of this remarkable man’s career is a curious picture of the period. The son of a lighterman and member of the senate,—one year the penurious diner on a shop-counter, with a newspaper for a table-cloth, and the next the founder of the finest hospital in England,—at one time a usurious speculator, and at another the dispenser of princely charities,—the wearer of patched garments, but the largest dealer in the Alley,—beginning life with hundreds, and ending it with hundreds of thousands,—Thomas Guy was one of the many remarkable men who, tempted from their legitimate pursuit, entered into competition with the jobbers of the Stock Exchange, and one of the few who devoted their profits to the benefit of a future generation.
His principal dealings were in those tickets with which, from the time of the second Charles, the seamen had been remunerated. After years of great endurance and of greater labor, the defenders of the land were paid with inconvertible paper, and the seamen—too often improvident—were compelled to part with their wages at any discount which the conscience of the usurer would offer. Men who had gone the round of the world, like Drake, or had fought hand to hand with Tromp, were unable to compete with the keen agent of the usurer, who, decoying them into the low haunts of Rotherhithe, purchased their tickets at the lowest possible price; and skilled seamen, the glory of England’s navy, were thus robbed, and ruined, and compelled to transfer their services to foreign states.
In these tickets did Thomas Guy deal; and on the wrongs of these men was the vast superstructure of his fortune reared. But jobbing in them was as frequent in the high places of England as in ’Change Alley. The seaman was poor and uninfluential, and the orders which were refused payment to him were paid to the wealthy jobber, who parted with some of his plunder as a premium to the treasury to disgorge the remainder. By these means, and by fortunate speculations during the South-Sea bubble, Mr. Guy realized a fortune of £500,000.
It must be borne in mind, that, a century and a quarter ago, half a million was almost a fabulous fortune. It was only to be acquired by speculation in the funds, and by ventures which merely commercial dealings failed to produce. In the literature of the past century, a “plum” is mentioned as the great prize of a lifetime, and as the extent of mercantile ambition. The enormous sums lately realized were then almost unknown, or arose from some chivalrous adventure, such as marked the lives of a Robert Clive or a Warren Hastings; and it was left for the present century to witness the achievement of fortunes which in the past would have been beyond credence.
In attaining so great a result, Mr. Guy was doubtless assisted by his penurious habits; but he did not possess a penurious mind. The endower of a princely charity, the founder of alms-houses, the enricher of Christ’s Hospital, the support of his relations, and the friend of the poor, must be regarded as one of those contradictory characters which, at all periods and in all portions of the world, have marked the human race. His dealings in the Stock Exchange were continued to a late period of his existence. In 1720, he speculated largely in the South-Sea Stock; and in 1724 he died, at the age of eighty-one, leaving by will £240,000 to the hospital which bears his name. His body lay in state at Mercer’s Chapel, was carried with great funeral pomp to St. Thomas’s Hospital, and on February 13th, 1734, just ten years after his death, a statue was erected to his memory in the square of that asylum, partially raised by profits from the hard earnings of English seamen.
It was, indeed, to this improvidence in supplying funds to meet the demands for the navy that the South-Sea Company owed its origin. So largely had the unpaid sailors’ tickets increased, that nine millions were unprovided for. Cash was scarce, the holders were clamorous, and Parliament, as a premium for forbearance, erected them into that body which ended so disastrously for the commercial interests of England.
In 1730, a loan of £400,000 was attempted for the Emperor of Germany. ’Change Alley was ready to advance it on sufficient interest and sound security; but Sir Robert Walpole brought in a bill to prohibit his Majesty’s subjects and others resident in the kingdom from advancing money to any foreign state, without license from the king under his privy seal. The opposition experienced by the minister was very strong. The great city commoner spoke against the bill, and it required all the power of Sir Robert Walpole to counterbalance the influence of Sir John Barnard in a matter pertaining to business.
It was very natural that men’s minds should be turned to that portion of the town which, ever and anon, gave signal symptoms of great frauds, great gains, and great gambling; and Sir John Barnard endeavoured, in 1732, to draw the attention of the House of Commons to the dealings and the doings of the Stock Exchange. It had, even at this early period, a complete and organized system. The expresses of its rich members came from every court in Europe, and beat—as the expresses of jobbers always have—the messengers of the government. Sir Robert Walpole not only declared this, but with great naïveté added, “It is because they are better paid and better appointed.” The very fact that brokers did beat the government despatches was regarded as a crime; and the public continued, year by year, to pour its maledictions on the frequenters of ’Change Alley.