Stoc. Why, Madam, you know, at present, Publick Interest is very low, and private Securities very difficult to get—and I am sorry to say, I am afraid there are some in the Alley who are not the honestest Men in the Kingdom. In short, there is one way to dispose of Money with Safety and Advantage, and that is—to put it into the Charitable Corporation.
Chloe. The Charitable Corporation! pray what is that?
Stoc. That is, Madam, a method, invented by some very wise Men, by which the Rich may be charitable to the Poor, and be Money in Pocket by it.
The Charitable Corporation.
This company, erected in 1707, professed to lend money at legal interest to the poor upon small pledges; and to persons of better rank upon security of goods impawned. Their capital, at first limited to £30,000, was by licenses from the crown increased to £600,000, though their charter was never confirmed by act of parliament. In 1731, George Robinson, esquire, member for Marlow, the cashier, and John Thompson, warehouse-keeper of the corporation, disappeared in one day. The alarmed proprietors held several general courts, and appointed a committee to inspect their affairs, who reported, that for a capital of above £500,000 no equivalent was found; inasmuch as their effects did not amount to the value of £30,000, the remainder having been embezzled. The proprietors, in a petition to the house of commons, represented that, by a notorious breach of trust, the corporation had been defrauded of the greatest part of their capital; and that many of the petitioners were reduced to the utmost misery and distress: they therefore prayed parliament to inquire into the state of the corporation, and the conduct of their managers, and extend relief to the petitioners. On this petition a secret committee was appointed, who soon discovered a most iniquitous scene of fraud, perpetrated by Robinson and Thompson, in concert with some of the directors, for embezzling the capital, and cheating the proprietors. Many persons of rank and quality were concerned in this infamous conspiracy. Sir Robert Sutton and sir Archibald Grant were expelled the house of commons, as having had a considerable share in those fraudulent practices, and a bill was brought in to restrain them and other delinquents from leaving the kingdom, or alienating their effects.[453] In 1733, parliament granted a lottery in behalf of the sufferers. On the 1st of August in that year, books were opened at the bank to receive, from those who had given in their names, the first payment of one pound per ticket in the “Lottery for the relief of the Charitable Corporation;”[454] and in 1734 “it was distributed among them, amounting to nine shillings and ninepence in the pound on their loss.”[455]
The “London Journal” of October 30, 1731, observing on the general disposition to adventure says:—
The natural life of man is labour or business; riches is an unnatural state; and therefore generally a state of misery. Life, which is a drug in the hands of idle men, never hangs heavily on the hands of merchants and tradesmen, who judiciously divide their time between the city and country.
This is so true, that a wise man would never leave his children so much money as to put them beyond industry; for that is too often putting them beyond happiness. The heaping up riches for posterity is, generally speaking, heaping up destruction; and entailing of large estates, entailing vice and misery.