so small, that it would, if brought forth, make no perceptible
addition to the circulation. But, in the earlier part of the reign
of William the Third, all the greatest writers on currency were of
opinion that a very considerable mass of gold and silver was hidden
in secret drawers and behind wainscots.

'The natural effect of this state of things was that a crowd of
projectors, ingenious and absurd, honest and knavish, employed
themselves in devising new schemes for the employment of redundant
capital. It was about the year 1688 that the word stockjobber was
first heard in London. In the short space of four years a crowd of
companies, every one of which confidently held out to subscribers
the hope of immense gains, sprang into existence--the Insurance
Company, the Paper Company, the Lutestring Company, the Pearl
Fishery Company, the Glass Bottle Company, the Alum Company, the
Blythe Coal Company, the Swordblade Company. There was a Tapestry
Company, which would soon furnish pretty hangings for all the
parlours of the middle class, and for all the bedchambers of the
higher. There was a Copper Company, which proposed to explore the
mines of England, and held out a hope that they would prove not less
valuable than those of Potosi. There was a Diving Company, which
undertook to bring up precious effects from shipwrecked vessels, and
which announced that it had laid in a stock of wonderful machines
resembling complete suits of armour. In front of the helmet was a
huge glass eye like that of a Cyclops; and out of the crest went a
pipe through which the air was to be admitted. The whole process was
exhibited on the Thames. Fine gentlemen and fine ladies were invited
to the show, were hospitably regaled, and were delighted by seeing
the divers in their panoply descend into the river and return laden
with old iron and ship's tackle. There was a Greenland Fishing