Too calm and cold to be
betrayed into deserting his principles, he confined the issue within
the bounds he had prescribed, and when they were all out seldom saw
one of them again. By this means he actually lowered the Bank of
England notes in public estimation, and set his own high above them in
the town of ----. Deposits came in. Confidence unparalleled took the
place of fear so far as he was concerned, and he was left free to work
the other part of his plan.
To the amazement and mystification of old Skinner, he laid out ten
thousand pounds in Exchequer bills, and followed this up by other
large purchases of paper, paper, nothing but paper.
Hardie senior was nervous.
"Are you true to your own theory, Richard?"
The youth explained to him that blind confidence always ends in blind
distrust. and then all paper becomes depreciated alike, but good paper
is sure to recover. "Sixty-two shillings discount, sir, is a
ridiculous decline of Exchequer bills. We are at peace, and elastic,
and the government is strong. My other purchases all rest upon certain
information, carefully and laboriously amassed while the world was so
busy blowing bubbles. I am now buying paper that is unjustly
depreciated in Panic, i.e., in the second act of that mania of
which Bubble is the first act." He added: "When the herd buy, the
price rises; when they sell, it falls. To buy with them and sell with
them is therefore to buy dear and sell cheap. My game--and it is a
game that reduces speculation to a certainty--is threefold:
"First, never, at any price or under any temptation, buy anything that
is not as good as gold.
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