Chronicles and characters of the stock exchange

by of the Bank of England John Francis

I must confess, I in part agree that this is an effectual way; but I am far from thinking it the only way to deal with a consideration of usurers, who, having sold the whole nation to usury, keep the purse-strings of poor and rich in their hands, which they open and shut as they please.

But before I come to the needful ways for restraining those people, I think it will be of some service to expose their practices to common view, that the people may see a little what kind of dealers they are.

And first, they have this peculiar to them, and in which they outdo all the particular pieces of public knavery that ever I met with in the world, viz., that they have nothing to say for it themselves; they have, indeed, a particular stock of hardware, as the braziers call it, in their faces, to bear them out in it; but if you talk to them of their occupation, there is not a man but will own it is a complete system of knavery; that it is a trade founded in fraud, born of deceit, and nourished by trick, cheat, wheedle, forgeries, falsehoods, and all sorts of delusions; coining false news, this way good, that way bad; whispering imaginary terrors, frights, hopes, expectations, and then preying upon the weakness of those whose imaginations they have wrought upon, whom they have either elevated or depressed. If they meet with a cull, a young dealer that has money to lay out, they catch him at the door, whisper to him, “Sir, here is a great piece of news, it is not yet public, it is worth a thousand guineas but to mention it; I am heartily glad I met you, but it must be as secret as the black side of your soul, for they know nothing of it yet in the coffee-house; if they should, stock would rise ten per cent. in a moment, and I warrant you South Sea will be 130 in a week’s time after it is known.” “Well,” says the weak creature, “pr’ythee, dear Tom, what is it?” “Well, really, Sir, I will let you into the secret, upon your honor to keep it till you hear it from other hands; why, it is this,—the Pretender is certainly taken, and is carried prisoner to the castle of Milan; there they have him fast. I assure you, the government had an express of it from my Lord St——s, within this hour.” “Are you sure of it?” says the fish, who jumps eagerly into the net. “Sure of it! why, if you take your coach and go up to the secretaries’ office, you may be satisfied of it yourself, and be down again in two hours, and, in the mean time, I will be doing something, though it is but little, till you return.”

Away goes the gudgeon with his head full of wildfire, and a squib in his brain, and, coming to the place, meets a croney at the door, who ignorantly confirms the report, and so sets fire to the mine; for, indeed, the cheat came too far to be balked at home; so that, without giving himself time to consider, he hurries back full of the delusions, dreaming of nothing but of getting a hundred thousand pounds, or purchase two; and even this money was to be gotten only upon the views of his being beforehand with other people.

In this elevation he meets his broker, who throws more fireworks into the mine, and blows him up to so fierce an inflammation, that he employs him instantly to take guineas to accept stock of any kind, and almost at any price; for the news being now public, the artist made their price upon him. In a word, having accepted them for fifty thousand pounds more than he is able to pay, the jobber has got an estate, the broker two or three hundred guineas, and the esquire remains at leisure to sell his coach and horses, his fine seat and rich furniture, to make good the deficiency of his bear-skins; and, at last, when all will not go through it, he must give them a brush for the rest.

There are who tell us, that the Exchange Alley improvements made upon the news of the Pretender’s being taken, were part of the plot, that the late Earl of Mar having concerted the voyage of Voghera, and how and in what manner the report of the Pretender’s being there should spread, who it should amuse, and how at one blow it should spread east to Vienna, and northwest to Paris, and so on, forgot not to contrive it, as at once should serve political ends in Italy and at Vienna: so, on the other hand, it should not fail to serve a private view in Exchange Alley; and, at the same time that he deceived some of the Whigs who he owed a large grudge to for shrewd turns at Preston and Dumblain, he might also raise a tax upon them towards the incident changes of his wandering circumstances.

I do not aver this story to be true, but the concert is so exact, and the nature of it so agreeable to the stock-jobbing art, nay, and to the artists also, whose correspondents are very punctual, especially since it is said that Mr. T——’s chief agent was formerly my Lord M——r’s broker; that I won’t affirm it may be true; but this I will venture to say of it, that if we are often served thus, the Pretender may very easily raise a hundred thousand pounds a year in Exchange Alley, for the carrying on an invasion, and lay the tax wholly upon his enemies the Whigs, which, by the way, I leave them to consider of.

But now that I make good the charge, viz., that the whole art and mystery is a mere original system of cheat and delusion, I must let you see, too, that this part of the comedy may be very well called, “A Bite for the Biter,” for which I must go back to the broker and his gudgeon; the moneyed gentleman finding himself let into the secret, indeed, and that he was bitten to the tune of £300,000 worse than nothing. After he had, unhappily, paid as far as his ready money would go, of which piece of honesty they say he has heartily repented, and is in hopes all that come after him will forgive him for the sake of what followed, stopped short, as he might well, you’ll say, when his money was all gone, and bethinks himself, What am I doing! I have paid away all this money like a fool; I was drawn in like an ass, by the eager desire of biting my neighbours to a vast sum, and I have been fool enough in that; but I have been ten thousand times a worse fool to pay a groat of the money, especially since I knew I could not pay it all. Besides, who but I would have forgot the nature of the thing I was dealing in, and of the people I was dealing with? Why, is it not all a mere body of knavery? Is not the whole system of stock-jobbing a science of fraud? and are not all the dealers original thieves and pickpockets? Nay, do they not own it themselves? Have not I heard T. W., B. O., and F. S., a thousand times say they know their employment was a branch of highway robbing, and only differed in two things; first, in degree, viz., that it was ten thousand times worse, more remorseless, more void of humanity, done without necessity, and committed upon fathers, brothers, widows, orphans, and intimate friends; in all which cases, highwaymen, generally touched with remorse, and affected with principles of humanity and generosity, stopped short, and chose to prey upon strangers only. Secondly, in danger, viz., that these rob securely; the other, with the utmost risk that the highwayman run, at the hazard of their lives, being sure to be hanged first or last, whereas these rob only at the hazard of their reputation, which is generally lost before they begin, and of their souls, which trifle is not worth the mentioning. Have not I, I say, heard my broker, Mr. ——, say all this and much more, “That no man was obliged to make good any of their Exchange Alley bargains, unless he pleased, and unless he was in haste to part with his money, which, indeed, I am not; and have not all the brokers and jobbers, when they have been bitten too hard, said the same thing, and refused to pay?

“Pray, how much did old Cudworth, Ph. C—p—m, and Mr. G——g, eminent jobbers, monarchs in their days of Exchange Alley, break for? And how much did they ever pay? One, if I mistake not, compounded at last for one penny per pound, and the other two for something less.

“In a word, they are all a gang of rogues and cheats, and I’ll pay none of them. Besides, my lawyer, Sir Thomas Subtle, tells me there is not a man of them dares sue me; no, though I had no protection to fly to; and he states the case thus:—