Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/302

28O THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL here, and they must fall soon after you have brought Interest to Four per cent. at Paris. If the' Report proves true that they have again restored Bank Bills, I reckon it will be as broad as it is long in Process of time, and that Scaramouch will do what is intended. I have desired Martin Harrold and Sir John Lambert to draw a sum, at least, as much as may answer the Sterling wanted here for the primitive cost of all bargains; and then we may take our chance for the rest. You will take care to provide Bank Bills to answer your Occasions. You are still to pursue the same Views, but you are at the centre of Motion, and will discover sooner than can be done here the motions of Scaram6uch.' By' this Turn' is meant the Arr?t and their gain thereby. ' London, 15 May, 1721. I have another affair to acquaint you of; which is that when Jos. Gage was here in the Mint, tho' I sent him a message I should not lay any action against him, yet, as I have been since informed, he laid the greatest Stress of a Future fortune on his Pretensions upon you and me. By which you may see that if the affair of Lady Mary was to be carried against us, Gage would in his Turn come upon us. Now if the worst should happen, there is no medium but your flying or going to Prison. I think the latter case the more eligible. You remember upon our first broaching these schemes you were content to stand in the Gap; and if you observed what I formerly recommended to you, of putting these matters on your books, as transacted for my account, I take it that it will be your own interest to take an imprisonment of a twelve month rather than see all our schemes pulled to pieces; for, by standing the Tack, you have s, maintenance secured to your Family, and if all were turned the other way you would be in an ordinary condition. And, let the case turn as it would, you could be kept in Prison no longer than the counter- operation or Lawsuit here were depending;and the reinstating your house in Business after the majority would be still practicable and easy. This letter, according to Lord Montgomery's Bill, ' is a positive proof that the schemes mentioned therein to be first broached by the said Cantilion the elder and John Hughes... were to lend moneys to severall persons upon French India Actions and to take high premiums or advanced prices on French crowns, and to sell out such Actions, and to remit the produce thereof into Foreign Countries in order to turn the same into Sterling money for their own profit; and after the bills and notes which the said Cantilion and Hughes had taken from persons with whom they dealt in that manner should become payable, they intended to oblige such persons to pay the whole money thereon, and not to disclose that they had sold the said Actions and raised anything thereby; and that the said John Hughes was at the first broaching of the said schemes "content to