Chronicles and characters of the stock exchange

by of the Bank of England John Francis

1. That stock-jobbing, as it is now practised, and as is generally understood by the word stock-jobbing, is neither less or more than high-treason in its very nature, and in its consequences.

2. That the stock-jobbers, who are guilty of the practices I am going to detect, are eventually traitors to King George, and to his government, family, and interest, and to their country, and deserve to be used at least as confederates with traitors, whenever there are any alarms of invasions, rebellions, or any secret practices against the government, of what kind soever.

This is a black charge, and boldly laid, and ought therefore to be effectually made out, which shall be the work of a few pages in the following sheets.

1. I lay down this as a rule, which I appeal to the laws of reason to support, that all those people who, at a time of public danger, whether of treasonable invasion from abroad, or traitorous attempts to raise insurrections at home, shall willingly and wittingly abet, assist, or encourage the traitors invading or rebelling, are equally guilty of treason.

2. All those who shall endeavour to weaken, disappoint, and disable the government in their preparations, or discourage the people in their assisting the government to oppose the rebels or invaders, are guilty of treason.

All that can be alleged in contradiction to this,—and perhaps that could not be made out neither,—is, that they are not traitors within the letter of the law; to which I answer, if they were, I should not satirize them, but impeach them. But if it appears that they are as effectually destructive to the peace and safety of the government, and of the king’s person and family, as if they were in open war with his power, I do the same thing, and fully answer the end proposed.

As there are many thieves besides housebreakers, highwaymen, lifters, and pickpockets, so there are many traitors besides rebels and invaders, and, perhaps, of a much worse kind; for, in a dispute between a certain lord and a woman of pleasure in the town, about the different virtue of the sexes, the lady insisted that the men were aggressors in the vice, and that, in plain English, if there were no whore-masters, there would be no whores; so, in a word, if there were no parties at home, no disaffection, no traitors among ourselves, there would be no invasions from abroad.

Now, I will suppose for the purpose only, that the people I am speaking of were not disaffected to the government; I mean, not originally and intentionally pointing their intention at the government; nay, that they are hearty Whigs, call them as we please; yet, if it appear they are hearty knaves, too, will do any thing for money, and are, by the necessity of their business, obliged, or by the vehement pursuit of their interest, that is to say, of their profits, pushed upon things as effectually ruinous and destructive to the government, as the very buying arms and ammunition by a protest Jacobite, in order to rebellion, could be, are they not traitors even in spite of principle, in spite of the name of Whig; nay, in spite of a thousand meritorious things that might otherwise be said of them, or done of them?

A gunsmith makes ten thousand firelocks in the Minories, the honest man may be a Whig, he designs to sell them to the government to lay up in the tower, or to kill Spaniards, or any of the rest of the king’s enemies; a merchant comes and buys some of them, and says they are for the West Indies, or to sell into France. But upon inquiry, it appears they are bought for rebellion; the undesigning gunsmith comes into trouble, of course, and it will be very hard for him to prove the negative, that when he has furnished the rebels with arms, he had no share in the rebellion.

To bring this home to the case in view, who were the men who, in the late hurry of an expected invasion, sunk the price of stock fourteen or fifteen per cent.? Who were the men that made a run upon the Bank of England, and pushed at them with some particular pique, too, if possible, to have run them down, and brought ’em to a stop of payment? And what was the consequences of these things? Will they tell us that running upon the bank, and lowering the stocks, was no treason? We know that, literally speaking, those things are no treason. But is there not a plain constructive treason in the consequences of it? Is not a wilful running down the public credit, at a time when the nation is threatened with an invasion from abroad, and rebellion at home? Is not this adding to the terror of the people? Is not this disabling the government, discouraging the king’s friends, and a visible encouragement of the king’s enemies? Is not all that is taken from the credit of the public, in such an occasion, added to the credit of the invasion? Does not every thing that weakens the government strengthen its enemies? And is not every step that is taken in prejudice of the king’s interest a step taken in aid of the designed rebellion? The kindest thing that can be said of a certain triumvirate of jobbers, whose hands have been deepest in this part of the work, and who, indeed, had more obligations upon them than any other men in the town, to have assisted the public interest and advanced the credit of the nation, is, that they did not think what they did, and that this excuse may not serve them another time, I may soon furnish them with an anatomy of some of the conduct of that little body of Number Three, that when they see their mistakes with the eyes that other men see them, they may at their leisure give a better turn to the measures of unbounded avarice.