public stock of the kingdom; but this is supposed of such as are
built on the honest basis of ingenuity and improvement, in which,
though I will allow the author to aim primarily at his own
advantage, yet with the circumstances of public benefit added.

Wherefore it is necessary to distinguish among the projects of the
present times between the honest and the dishonest.

There are, and that too many, fair pretences of fine discoveries,
new inventions, engines, and I know not what, which--being advanced
in notion, and talked up to great things to be performed when such
and such sums of money shall be advanced, and such and such engines
are made--have raised the fancies of credulous people to such a
height that, merely on the shadow of expectation, they have formed
companies, chose committees, appointed officers, shares, and books,
raised great stocks, and cried up an empty notion to that degree
that people have been betrayed to part with their money for shares
in a new nothing; and when the inventors have carried on the jest
till they have sold all their own interest, they leave the cloud to
vanish of itself, and the poor purchasers to quarrel with one
another, and go to law about settlements, transferrings, and some
bone or other thrown among them by the subtlety of the author to lay
the blame of the miscarriage upon themselves. Thus the shares at
first begin to fall by degrees, and happy is he that sells in time;
till, like brass money, it will go at last for nothing at all. So
have I seen shares in joint-stocks, patents, engines, and
undertakings, blown up by the air of great words, and the name of
some man of credit concerned, to 100 pounds for a five-hundredth
part or share (some more), and at last dwindle away till it has been
stock-jobbed down to 10 pounds, 12 pounds, 9 pounds, 8 pounds a