speculators still carried them on, and the deluded people still
encouraged them. On the 12th of July, an order of the Lords Justices
assembled in privy council was published, dismissing all the petitions
that had been presented for patents and charters, and dissolving all
the bubble companies. The following copy of their lordships' order,
containing a list of all these nefarious projects, will not be deemed
uninteresting at the present day, when there is but too much tendency
in the public mind to indulge in similar practices :-

"At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 12th day of July, 1720.
Present, their Excellencies the Lords Justices in Council.

"Their Excellencies, the Lords Justices in council, taking into
consideration the many inconveniences arising to the public from
several projects set on foot for raising of joint stock for various
purposes, and that a great many of his Majesty's subjects have been
drawn in to part with their money on pretence of assurances that their
petitions for patents and charters, to enable them to carry on the
same, would be granted: to prevent such impositions, their
Excellencies, this day, ordered the said several petitions, together
with such reports from the Board of Trade, and from his Majesty's
Attorney and Solicitor General, as had been obtained thereon, to be
laid before them, and after mature consideration thereof, were
pleased, by advice of his Majesty's Privy Council, to order that the
said petitions be dismissed, which are as follow :--

"1. Petition of several persons, praying letters patent for
carrying on a fishing trade, by the name of the Grand Fishery of Great
Britain.