THE SOUTH-SEA BUBBLE.

the passing of the act, the account of stock was made up and adjusted with Mr. Knight, and the pretended purchasers were paid the difference out of the company’s cash. This fictitious stock, which had been chiefly at the disposal of Sir John Blunt, Mr. Gibbon, and Mr. Knight, was distributed among several members of the government and their connexions, by way of bribe, to facilitate the passing of the bill. To the Earl of Sunderland was assigned 50,000l. of this stock; to the Duchess of Kendal, 10,000l.; to the Countess of Platen, 10,000l.; to her two nieces, 10,000l.; to Mr. Secretary Craggs, 30,000l.; to Mr. Charles Stanhope (one of the secretaries of the Treasury), 10,000l.; to the Sword-blade company, 50,000l. It also appeared that Mr. Stanhope had received the enormous sum of 250,000l. as the difference in the price of some stock, through the hands of Turner, Caswall, and Co., but that his name had been partly erased from their books, and altered to Stangape. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had made profits still more abominable. He had an account with the same firm, who were also South-Sea directors, to the amount of 794,451l. He had,