The shop-keeper flung down his scales and off to the
share-market; the merchant embarked his funds and his credit; the
clerk risked his place and his humble respectability. High and low,
rich and poor, all hurried round the Exchange, like midges round a
flaring gas-light, and all were to be rich in a day.
And, strange to say, all seemed to win and none to lose; for nothing
was at a discount except toil and self-denial, and the patient
industry that makes men rich, but not in a day.
One cold misgiving fell. The vast quantities of gold and silver that
Mexico, mined by English capital and machinery, was about to pour into
our ports, would so lower the price of those metals that a heavy loss
must fall on all who held them on a considerable scale at their
present values in relation to corn, land, labor and other properties
and commodities.
"We must convert our gold," was the cry. Others more rash said: "This
is premature caution--timidity. There is no gold come over yet; wait
till you learn the actual bulk of the first metallic imports." "No,
thank you," replied the prudent ones, "it will be too late then; when
once they have touched our shores, the fall will be rapid." So they
turned their gold, whose value was so precarious, into that
unfluctuating material, paper. This solitary fear was soon swallowed
up in the general confidence. The king congratulated Parliament, and
Parliament the king. Both houses rang with trumpet notes of triumph, a
few of which still linger in the memories of living men.
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