seats. The Regent, with the blindness of financial inability, continued to believe in the truth and efficacy of Law's financial system. He felt that he-the Regent -had made many blunders, and expressed himself as greatly distressed at their unhappy results.

During his last interview with Law he is reported to have said: "I confess that I have committed many faults. I committed them because I am a man, and all men are liable to error; but I declare to you most solemnly that none of them proceeded from wicked or dishonest motives, and that nothing of the kind will be found in the whole course of my conduct."

Very shortly after Law's departure from Paris he received a friendly letter from the Regent granting him permission to leave France whenever he pleased, and offering him such money as he required. Law respectfully declined the offer of money, but at once left for Brussels, and went from there to Venice, where the populace looked upon him with great curiosity. They assumed that he was very rich, but in this they were quite mistaken. Law at the climax of his success had invested his profits in land in France. He apparently believed absolutely and always in his schemes, strange as such belief seems to us now. When he left France he lost this landed property, and it is said that his sole possession was one solitary diamond, worth perhaps five or six thousand pounds sterling. During his days of success he had purchased an annuity of 200,000 livres (about £8000) on the lives of his wife and children. This annuity had cost him 5,000,000 livres, but this with his land, library and household effects were all confiscated.

The fickle public who had fawned at his feet a few months before would have been glad to see him hanged, and expressed great discomfort that he had been permitted to escape.

Law felt himself an exile, and continued to hope that he would be recalled to his adopted home, his beloved France. The death of the Regent, however, put an end

to this dream. He was pursued by his creditors from one city to another and finally found himself back in his native land. Even here he was not welcome. He was severely criticized by his fellow-countrymen as one who had renounced both his country and his religion, and was regarded as an undesirable citizen.

Law, now a broken man, an accepted failure, remained in England for four years, and then sought the hospitality of Venice, where in 1729 he died in poverty.

And thus ended one of the remarkable romances of business or finance-ended as far as its chief actor was concerned, but the far-reaching effects of his wild acts born of imagination, but nurtured by unwisdom, were felt for many years by the country which he had hoped to make rich.

XX

THE LATER ENGLISH MERCHANTS

SIR JOSIAH CHILD-1630-1699

OSIAH CHILD, afterwards Sir Josiah, made for himself a great name in Commerce, while his father was a successful merchant in London trading in the East and West Indies. Josiah, who was born. in 1630, began as a naval store-dealer in Portsmouth, and afterwards traded chiefly with the West Indies, bringing among other merchandise a large supply of American timber to England for use in His Majesty's dockyards; and so excellent were his importations that the Admiralty paid him the highest prices then on record for ships' masts. In 1665 Sir Josiah wrote a little book which he called Brief Observations Concerning Trade and the Interest of Money. This book provoked journalistic controversy, which continued for many years, but it became a standard work, and may looked upon as one of the forerunners of the modern science of political economy.

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The author treats first of the growth of neighbouring states, and says regarding the Netherlands: "The prodigious increase in their domestic and foreign trade, riches and multitude of shipping is the envy of the present and may be the wonder of all future generations; and yet the means whereby they had thus advanced themselves are sufficiently obvious, and the great manner imitable by most other nations, but more easily by us of

this kingdom of England." He then proceeds to give fifteen reasons for their success:

“First, they have in their greatest councils of state and war trading merchants . . . who had practical experience of trade.

"Secondly, their law of gavelkind whereby all their children possess an equal share of their father's estates after their decease, and so are not left to wrestle with the world in their youth with inconsiderable assistance of fortune as most of our youngest sons of gentlemen in England are, who are bound apprentices to merchants. Thirdly, their exact making of all their native commodities" whose standard is so well known abroad that buyers will accept them by the mark without opening. Fourthly, their giving encouragement to the inventors of new manufactures and the discoverers of any new mysteries in trade. . . ."

Fifthly, they encourage those who bring the commodities of other nations first in use amongst them. Sixthly, their economy and thrift.

Seventhly, the careful education of their children not only to know and understand Commerce, but to love and delight in it, an education which is given to girls and boys alike, so that when a girl marries she shall have the ability to continue her husband's business in the event of his death.

Another reason is the immense assistance given by their banks to their merchants.

Another, their "law-merchant," by which all controversies between merchants and traders are decided in four days. Another, their law of the transference of bills of debt from one man to another" by means whereof they can turn their stocks twice or thrice in trade for once we can in England."

Another, the low rate of interest charged "which in peaceable times exceeds not three per cent per annum, whereas the rate of interest in England is six per cent at the least."