The Humbugs of the World by P.T. Barnum — Read

John Bull's great money humbug -- ​The south sea bubble in 1720.

The "South Sea Bubble" is one of the most startling lessons which history gives us of the ease with which the most monstrous, and absurd, and wicked humbugs can be crammed down the throat of poor human nature. It ought also to be a useful warning of the folly of mere "speculation," as compared with real "business undertakings. " The history of the South Sea Bubble has been told, before, but it is too prominent a case to be entirely passed over. It occupied a period of about eight months, from February 1, 1720, to the end of the following September. It was an unreasonable expansion of the value of the stock of the "South Sea Company. " This Company was formed in 1711; its stock was at first about $30,000,000, subscribed by the public and handed over by the corporators to Government to meet certain troublesome public debts. In return, Government guaranteed the stockholders a dividend of six percent, and gave the Company sundry permanent important duties and a monopoly of all trade to the South Pacific, or "South Sea. " This matter went on with fair success as a money enterprise, until the birth of the "Bubble," which was as follows: -- In the end of January, 1720, probably in consequence of catching infection from "Law's Mississippi Scheme" in France, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England made competing propositions to the English Government, to repeat the original South Sea Company financiering plan on a larger scale. The proposition of the Company, which was accepted by Government, was: to assume as before the whole public debt, now amounting to over one hundred and fifty millions of dollars; and to be guaranteed at first a five percent dividend, and afterward a four percent one, to thestockholders by Government. For this privilege, the Company agreed to pay outright a bonus of more than seventeen million dollars. This plan is said to have been originated and principally carried through by Sir John Blunt, one of the Company's directors. Parliament adopted it after two months' discussion -- the Bubble having, however, been swelling monstrously all the time.