The whole of this Work is contained in the Bankers’ Magazine for 1850.
CHRONICLES AND CHARACTERS
OF THE
STOCK EXCHANGE.
BY
JOHN FRANCIS.
AUTHOR OF
THE HISTORY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND, ITS TIMES AND TRADITIONS.
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED STOCK TABLES FROM 1732 TO 1846; DIVIDENDS ON BANK
OF ENGLAND STOCK FROM 1694 TO 1847, &c.
BOSTON:
WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS,
111 Washington Street.
1850.
[Pg iii]
INSCRIBED,
BY PERMISSION,
TO SAMUEL GURNEY, Esq.
THIS VOLUME, RECORDING CITY SCENES, AND RELATING TO CITY TRANSACTIONS,IS, TO SAMUEL GURNEY, ONE OF LONDON’S MOST EMINENT CITIZENS,RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY
HIS MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,
JOHN FRANCIS.
[Pg v]
PREFACE.
To gather the many remarkable incidents connectedwith the National Debt; to present an anecdoticalsketch of the causes which necessitated, and thecorruptions which increased it; to reproduce its principalcharacters; to detail the many evils of lotteries;to relate the difficulties in the early history ofrailways; to popularize those loans, of which thePoyais, with its melancholy tragedy, and the Greek,with its whimsical transactions, were such strikingexemplars; and to group these subjects around theStock Exchange, is the object of a portion of thepresent volume.
Any work which tends to familiarize the originand progress of the National Debt, which shows thatit was raised for no idle cause, and increased for notrifling purpose, may be useful in the considerationof that encumbrance which must, sooner or later, bereduced or repudiated.
[Pg vi]
The volume does not profess to be statistical,—thereare abundant works of a financial kind uponthe subject. Mr. Van Sommer’s valuable Tables, towhich the writer acknowledges his obligations, andwhich, with Mr. Wilkinson’s Law of the PublicFunds, should be possessed by every member of theStock Exchange; the works of McCulloch, of Hamilton,of Grellier, of Fenn, render such a productionunnecessary. The present volume is a popular narrativeof the money power of England, intended tobe at once interesting and suggestive.
Shooter’s Hill.
[Pg vii]