The consequence of this was, that (supposing the dividend permanent and secure) an action then became as well worth 5000 livres as at first it was worth 500 livres; accordingly to 5000 did it rise, upon the promise of the new dividends.
But what could be the motive of the company to promise this dividend, only three months after their establishment? Surely, not the profits upon a trade which was not as yet opened. Surely, not the profits upon the King’s farms; for these profits it was greatly their interest to conceal.
Their views lay deeper. The Regent perceived that the spirit of the nation was too much inflamed, to suffer them to enter into an examination of the wonderful phænomena arising from the establishment of the bank, and company of the Indies. If the company promised 200 livres dividend, the public concluded that their profits would enable them to pay it; and really in this particular the public might be excused.
The plan, therefore, concerted between the Regent and the company seems to have been, to raise the actions to this great value, in order to suspend a greater quantity of notes in circulation.
This was to be accomplished, 1. by the Regent’s purchasing the actions himself from the company; 2. by borrowing back the notes he had paid for them, in order to fill up the loan which the company had agreed to make; 3. to pay off all the public creditors with those notes so borrowed back; and 4. when the nation was once filled with bank paper, to sell the actions he had purchased from the company, to withdraw his own paper, and then destroy it.
By this operation the whole debts of France were to be turned into actions; and the company was to become the public debtor, instead of the King, who would have no more to pay but 48 millions of interest to the company.
By this operation also, the Regent was to withdraw all the bank notes which he had issued for no other value but for the payment of debts; which notes were demandable at the bank; and for the future, he was to issue no more (I suppose) but for value preserved.
CHAP. XXX.
Inquiry into the Motives of the Duke of Orleans in concerting the Plan of the Missisippi.
Now if we examine the motives of the Regent, with regard to this plan, and suppose that he foresaw all that was to happen in consequence of it; and if we also suppose that he really believed that the company never could be in a situation to make good the dividend of 200 livres, which they had promised upon their actions; in a word, if we put the worst interpretation upon all his actions, we must conclude that the whole was a most consummate piece of knavery.