the first crash - dale, richard

[...]... merchants and “moneyed men”; second by their loyalties, the Tories favouring the old Catholic monarchy and the Whigs the Hanoverian succession; and nally by their ideologies, the Tories harking back to the divine right of Kings and the Whigs supporting personal freedom, the rights of the people and a constitutional monarchy In the context of this political divide, the South Sea Company was sponsored by... wrote a pamphlet entitled The Villainy of Stock Jobbers Detected Defoe subsequently accused these gentlemen of standing ready “as occasion o ers, and pro t presents, to stock-jobb the nation, cozen the Parliament, ru e the Bank, run up and down stocks, and put the dice upon the whole town”.9 The low public esteem of the stock-jobbing community appears to have persisted judging by the de nition of a stock... one hand to another And since casualties dispose of things at this arbitrary rate, since the world is but a kind of lottery, why should we Gamesters be grudged the drawing of a Prize?8 The original South Sea project, a high-risk venture aimed at tapping the riches of the New World, was designed to appeal to the gaming instincts of the age Furthermore, the prime initiator and executor of the project,... which the fee is a shilling, or a pint of wine.7 The co ee house men also complained about the cost (put at £10–20 per annum) of subscribing to the growing number of newspapers which they felt obliged to take in for the bene t of their customers Finally, they argued that in providing a readership for the newspapers, the co ee houses indirectly contributed to the papers’ advertising revenues, which, in the. .. privileges Once the success of these initiatives had been established, it was only one short step further for the government to propose the chartering of a new company to acquire the state’s existing debt obligations in a large-scale debt– equity swap This was the context in which the South Sea Company was born, as described in chapter 3 The use of private companies to fund the government had in the meantime... Spread, like a low-born mist, and blot the sun Statesman and patriot ply alike the stocks, Peeress and butler share alike the box; The judge shall job, the bishops bite the town, And mighty Dukes pack cards for half-a-crown; See Britain sunk in Lucre’s sordid charms.11 NOTES 1 See Carswell (1993) 2 Scott (1912) 3 See Dickson (1967) 4 Neal (1990) 5 Anderson (1764: 123) 6 By the end of the seventeenth... more detail below, stock-jobbers (Garraways and Jonathan’s in Exchange Alley) The London co ee houses ful lled several important functions First and foremost, they were a source of political, economic and nancial information Indeed, prior to the liberation of the press through the expiry of the Licencing Act in 1695, they were perhaps the main source of news: several houses made their own news sheets... nancial centres than to the English provinces, as re ected in the prominence given to Continental news by the London press The political landscape of early eighteenth century England mirrored, to a large extent, divisions in society The two major political parties, the Whigs and the Tories, were differentiated first by their respective economic interests, the Tories representing the traditional landed... coup de grâce, the newspaper proprietors’ response to the co ee house men culminated in a proposal to set up their own chain of co ee houses These would undercut the established co ee men by charging only 1½ for a dish of co ee and they would hang a sign outside stating “All the Papers taken in Here”.13 Threat had been met with counter-threat In the event there was a stand o and neither threat appears... Furthermore, in London it may be supposed that literacy was considerably higher than in the rest of the country The illiterate could also have access to newspaper information, thanks to the practice of reading papers aloud in public places such as co ee houses As one observer remarked: … the greatest part of the people do not read books, most of them cannot read at all, but they will gather together . presents, to stock-jobb the nation, cozen the Parliament, rue the Bank, run up and down stocks, and put the dice upon the whole town”. 9 The low public esteem of the stock-jobbing community. underlying economic fundamentals? Are the Wall Street crash of 1929, the global crash of 1987, the bursting of the Japanese nancial bubble in the 1990s and the subsequent international dot.com. grudged the drawing of a Prize? 8 The original South Sea project, a high-risk venture aimed at tapping the riches of the New World, was designed to appeal to the gaming instincts of the age. Furthermore,