In the same year, it was ascertained that the amount of foreign property in the British funds was twenty-two millions; and it is scarcely out of place to mention, that, by some patient calculator, it was found that one guinea invested at the Christian era, at five per cent., compound interest, would have increased to a greater sum than could be contained in five hundred millions of earths, all of solid gold.
In the early part of the present century an attempt was made to resist the tax paid to the city, of forty shillings per annum, by stock-brokers, as unreasonable and unjust. Various members of the body refused to pay; the corporation and the brokers were at issue; and, in 1805, a hundred summonses were applied for, though a few only were granted, to test the disputed right. Among these was one to Francis Baily, who undertook the championship; and from the conviction that the claim was unjust, refused in the above year to pay the sum demanded. As the justice, though not the law, is yet doubted by some, a brief retrospect of the various acts affecting brokers may not be out of place.
The act of 8 and 9 William III., c. 32,—alluded to in an earlier part of the volume,—was the first that could affect stock-brokers, as in that reign they and their misdeeds began to flourish. The following forms a portion of the preamble to the act:—
“Whereas divers brokers and stock-jobbers have lately set up and carried on most unjust practices, in selling and discounting tallies, bank-stock, bank-bills, shares and interest on joint stock, and other matters, and have and do unlawfully combine to raise or fall the value of such securities, for their own private advantage; and whereas the numbers of such brokers and stock-brokers are very much increased within these few years, and do daily multiply,—be it enacted, that from and after May, 1697, no person shall act as broker until licensed by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen of the said city of London.
“That the number of brokers shall not exceed one hundred, and that the admittance fees shall not exceed 40s.
“That the names of the brokers shall be publicly affixed on the Royal Exchange, in Guildhall, and other public places in the city.
“That any persons acting as brokers without being admitted as aforesaid, shall forfeit £500, and persons employing them £50; and that any person not being a sworn broker acting as such, shall forfeit £500, and for every offence stand three times in the pillory.
“That all brokers shall keep a book, to be called the Brokers’-book, to enter contracts, and in cases of omission, forfeit £50 for every offence.
“That they shall not receive more than ten shillings per cent. for brokerage. That, if they shall deal in any articles on their own account, they shall forfeit £500, and never act as brokers again.
“That no person buying or selling tallies, corn, or any other provision, or coal, shall be esteemed a broker within the meaning of the act.”