Famous Givers and Their Gifts

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

While in Parliament he built a town hall for the people of Tamworth. In 1708, after thirteen years of service, Mr. Guy was rejected. It is said that he promised the people of Tamworth, so much did he enjoy Parliamentary life, that if they would elect him again he would leave his whole fortune to the town, so they should never have a pauper; but for once they forgot their "incomparable benefactor," and Thomas Guy in turn forgot them.

"The cause of Guy's rejection," says the history of Tamworth, "is said to have been his neglect of the gastronomic propensities of his worthy, patriotic, and enlightened constituents, by whom the virtues of fasting appear to have been entirely forgotten. In the anger of the moment he threatened to pull down the town hall which he had built, and to abolish the almshouses. The burgesses, repenting of their rash act, sent a deputation to wait upon him with the offer of re-election in the ensuing Parliament, 1810; but he rejected all conciliation. He always considered that he had been treated with great ingratitude, and he deprived the inhabitants of Tamworth of the advantage of his almshouses." His will provided that persons from certain towns might find a home in his almshouses, his own relatives to be preferred, should any offer themselves; but Tamworth was left out of the list of towns.

Mr. Guy already had become very wealthy. During the wars of William and Anne with Louis XIV., the soldiers and seamen were sometimes unpaid for years, from lack of funds. Tickets were given them, and they were willing to sell these at whatever price they would bring. Mr. Guy bought largely from the seamen, and has been blamed for so doing; but his latest biographers, Messrs. Wilks and Bettany, in their interesting and valuable "Biographical History of Guy's Hospital," think he did it with a spirit of kindness rather than of avarice. "It is at least consistent with his general philanthropy to suppose that, compassionating the poor seamen who could not get their money, he offered them more than they could get elsewhere, and that this accounts for his being so large a purchaser of seamen's tickets. Instead of being to his discredit, we think rather that it is to his credit, and that he managed to benefit a large number of necessitous men, while at the same time, in the future, benefiting himself."

Mr. Guy also made a great amount of money in the South Sea Company. With regard to the South Sea stock, says the Saturday Magazine, "Mr. Guy had no hand in framing or conducting that scandalous fraud; he obtained the stock when low, and had the good sense to sell it at the time it was at its height."

Chambers's "Book of Days" gives a very interesting account of this "South Sea Bubble." Harley, Earl of Oxford, who had helped Queen Anne to get rid of her advisers, the Duke of Marlborough and the proud Duchess, Sarah, with a desire to "restore public credit, and discharge ten millions of the floating debt, agreed with a company of merchants that they should take the debt upon themselves for a certain time, at the interest of six per cent, to provide for which, amounting to £600,000 per annum, the duties for certain articles were rendered permanent. At the same time was granted the monopoly of trade to the South Seas, and the merchants were incorporated as the South Sea Company; and so proud was the minister of his scheme that it was called by his flatterers, 'The Earl of Oxford's Masterpiece.'"

The South Sea Company, after a time, agreed to take upon themselves the whole of the national debt, £30,981,712, about $150,000,000. Sir John Blount, a speculator, first propounded the scheme. It was rumored that Spain, by treaty with England, would grant free trade to all her colonies, and that silver would thus be brought from Potosi, and become as plentiful as iron; and that Mexico would part with gold in abundance for English cotton and woollen goods. It was also said that Spain, in exchange for Gibraltar and Port Mahon, would give up places on the coast of Peru. It was promised that each person who took £100 of stock would make fifty per cent, and probably much more. Mr. Guy took £45,500 of stock, probably the amount which the government owed him for seamen's tickets. Others who had claims "were empowered to subscribe the several sums due to them ... for which he and the rest of the subscribers were to receive an annual interest of six per cent upon their respective subscriptions, until the same were discharged by Parliament."

The speculating mania spread widely. Great ladies pawned their jewels in order to invest. Lords were eager to double and treble their money. A journalist of the time writes: "The South Sea equipages increase daily; the city ladies buy South Sea jewels, hire South Sea maids, take new country South Sea houses; the gentlemen set up South Sea coaches, and buy South Sea estates."

The people seemed wild with speculation. All sorts of companies were established; one with ten million dollars capital to import walnut-trees from Virginia; one with five million dollars capital for a "wheel for perpetual motion." An unknown adventurer started "a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." Next morning this great man opened an office in Cornhill, and before three o'clock one thousand shares had been subscribed for at ten dollars a share, and the deposits paid. He put the ten thousand dollars in his pocket, set off the same evening for the Continent, and was never heard of again. He had assured them that nobody would know what the undertaking was, and he had kept his word.

The South Sea stock rose in one day from 130 per cent to 300, and finally to 1,000 per cent. It then became known that Sir John Blount, the chairman, and some others had sold out, making vast fortunes. The price of stock began to fall, and at last the crisis brought ruin to thousands. The poet Gay, who had been given £20,000 of stock, and had thought himself rich, lost all, and was so ill in consequence that his life was in danger. Some men committed suicide on account of their losses, and some became insane. Prior said, "I am lost in the South Sea. The roaring of the waves and the madness of the people are justly put together." The people were now as wild with anger as they had been intoxicated with hope for gain. They demanded redress, and the punishment of the directors of the South Sea Company. Men high in position were thrown into the Tower after it was found that the books of the company had been tampered with or destroyed, and large amounts of stock used to bribe men in office. The directors were fined over ten million dollars, and their fortunes distributed among the sufferers. Sir John Blount was allowed but £5,000 out of a fortune of £183,000. The fortune of another, a million and a half pounds, was given to the losers. One man was treated with especial severity because he was reported to have said that "he would feed his carriage horses off gold."