its return cargo and came home, bringing its sheaves with it in a
reasonable time, though the Antonios of the period sometimes had awkward
moments if their ships were delayed by bad weather, and they were liable
on a bond to Shylock. But it was quite another matter to lend money in a
distant country when communication was slow and difficult, and social
and political conditions had not gained the stability that is needed
before contracts can be entered into extending over many years.
International moneylending took place, of course, in the middle ages,
and everybody knows Motley's great description of the consternation that
shook Europe when Philip the Second repudiated his debts "to put an end
to such financiering and unhallowed practices with bills of
exchange."[3] But though there were moneylenders in those days who
obliged foreign potentates with loans, the business was in the hands of
expert professional specialists, and there was no medieval counterpart
of the country doctor whom we have imagined to be developing industry
all over the world by placing his savings in foreign countries. There
could be no investing public until there were large classes that had
accumulated wealth by saving, and until the discovery of the principle
of limited liability enabled adventurers to put their savings into
industry without running the risk of losing not only what they put in,
but all else that they possessed. By means of this system, the risk of a
shareholder in a company is limited to a definite amount, usually the
amount that has been paid up on his shares or stock, though in some
cases, such as bank and insurance shares, there is a further reserve
liability which is left for the protection of the companies' customers.

In the eighteenth century a great outburst of gambling in the East
Indian and South Sea companies, and a horde of less notorious concerns
was a short-lived episode which must have helped for a very long time to
strengthen the natural prejudice that investors feel in favour of