to Niagara, to be examined in presence of a Chippeway chief, and several principal warriors of the nation. The 'patrolling squaw and the Pawnee girl were present. The result was an acquittal by the Chippeway warriors. But, as colonial justice demanded a more regular trial, Ramsay was sent to Montreal, where he suffered an imprisonment of several months. He was finally liberated and assoilzied, no accuser appearing against him.

The scene of these bloody incidents is no longer the habitation of Red Men. Chippeway and Pawnee hunt the moose no more on the shores of Lake Erie.

[We derive the foregoing from the same manuscript volume to which we were indebted for A Seaman's Tale.]

LAW, THE PROJECTOR.

Now and then, in the common course of events, we find obscuro men, but of enlarged conceptions, bringing themselves into notice by the mightiness of their projects, and if not attaining a high degree of honour, at least gaining no small share of permanent notoriety. John Law, who flourished at the beginning of last century, was one of these extraordinary individuals.

Law, who was the son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, was distinguished in youth for his power of arithmetical calculation, but this might not have been of consequence in advancing his fortunes, but for an accidental circumstance. Having killed a person in a duel, he fled from Britain to France, a country much more congenial to his habits. He afterwards returned to his native country, but finding no opening for his schemes, he went back to Paris, which henceforth became the scene of his exploits. Law's genius took the direction of financiering. He had notions about national credit and paper-money of the most extravagant kind. There was nothing in the way

of national aggrandisement that a well-managed apparatus of paper issue could not accomplish. With these ideas in his head, he contrived, after a few years' delay, to gain the favour of the Duke of Orleans, at the time regent of France, and by that personage was permitted to set up a joint-stock bank in Paris, in May 1716. This concern was prosperous, and increased his credit as a projector. It soon appeared that the bank was but the first of a series of gigantic financial and commercial undertakings, such as had never before entered into the conception of any human being. Unquestionably, the consent of the regent to the progressive development of these plans was founded on the belief, instilled into his mind by Law, that the government of France might be freed through them of the enormous load of debt then pressing upon it, and which absorbed one-half of the national revenues for the mere payment of interest.

Ample proof of the complete understanding between the regent and Law, is presented in the history of the great project which the latter set on foot, with the duke's approval, in the year following the commencement of the bank. He had long entertained the notion, that a rich field for commercial enterprise was to be found in the yet uncolonised and but partially explored regions on the banks of the Mississippi, and particularly in the district of Louisiana, which, having been visited and so named by a French voyager, was held upon that footing to belong to France. An impression prevailed that this country was full of magnificent mines, and rich in all respects beyond description. Law, accordingly, persuaded the regent to establish a great company for the purpose of trading to this part of the world, and to give numerous privileges to the body, along with the sovereignty of Louisiana, under certain conditions preservative of the king's nominal superiority. This was the too famous Mississippi Scheme. The funds of the West Indian Company, as it was called, were to consist of a capital of 100,000,000 livres, to be raised in shares of 500 livres each. And now the company repaid in part their obligations to the regent, by

taking the subscriptions in government paper, or billets d'etat, which, on account of the miserable way in which the interest was paid by the state, bore in the market at that time scarcely a fourth of their ostensible value. The consequence was, that the depreciated government paper rose to full credit with the people, who from that moment began to place implicit confidence in Law, and to thirst universally for a share in his wonderful projects, and the profits which promised to follow from them. But before the eagerness for participating in his speculations rose to its full extent, he had incorporated with the Mississippi Scheme others of even tenfold magnitude. He prevailed on the government to take his bank into its own hands, and became director-general of the establishment, under its new form of the Royal Bank. This appears to have been effected chiefly for the purpose of having the state's guarantee for an enormous issue of paper-money, amounting to 1,000,000,000 livres. In December 1718, and in May 1719, our projector got a further transfer of the charter and privileges, first of the Senegal Company, and then of the China and India Companies; out of which, in conjunction with the West Indian Company, a great 'Company of the Indies' was formed, with the exclusive right of trading to the four quarters of the world.' Existing claims were of course paid by the new body. In the course of 1719, the public revenues, also, which were usually called farms, and had been long in the hands of contractors or farmers-general, were transferred to the management of the Company of the Indies. The company, on their part, took upon themselves vast obligations, and one, among others, to lend the king or government the enormous sum of 15,000 millions of livres. Separate funds were raised in succession for all the company's purposes, in the shape of actions or shares, amounting to 600,000 in all, of which 200,000 were at the rate of 500 livres each; 50,000 at 550 livres; 50,000 at 1000 livres; and 300,000 at 5000 livres. To pay the interest of this enormous total, the company, it was said, had an annual income of above 80,000,000 livres, and

they at least boldly declared themselves able to pay an annual dividend of 200 livres a share.

This great company, supported by the whole credit of government, engrossing such immense sources of revenue, and possessed of such extensive property, became gradually the object of the most absorbing interest to all France. The ample profits which it seemed to promise, excited the cupidity of the people to an extraordinary extent, and a system of trafficking in shares commenced, which has no parallel in the annals of speculation or stock-jobbing. The rage for shares actually raised them to more than sixty times their original value, judging of that value by the former price of the billets d'etat, or purchase-money, in the market. Almost all the original proprietors made splendid fortunes at the very outset, and the knowledge of this led to the wildest bidding on each new creation of shares. Clergy and laity, peers and plebeians, statesmen, princes, and even females of every class, were alike seized with the stock-jobbing frenzy. The negotiations for the sale and purchase of shares were at first carried on in the Rue Quinquempoix, which was besieged by such crowds, that houses, rented at 800 livres a year, actually yielded from 6000 to 16,000 livres a month. The eagerness of the speculators to commit bargains to writing was such, that a humpbacked man made 150,000 livres in a few days, by letting out his hump as a writing-desk. A murder, which took place in the Rue Quinquempoix, caused the paper traffic to be transferred to the Place Vendome. The superb hotels of which that magnificent square (or rather octogon) consisted, not being calculated for the establishment of offices for transacting business, a number of tents were for that purpose pitched in the area. Of these, some served for the accommodation of the stock-jobbers, others were destined for places of refreshment, and a third set was occupied by gamesters playing at quadrille, and drawing lotteries of jewels. All the world flocked to this spot, ladies of the highest quality delighted to walk there of an evening, and the concourse was so great, that the

famous fair of Beaucaire appeared a desert in comparison. The business was productive of so much noise and disturbance, that the chancellor complained he was prevented from attending to the causes in the Chancery, which is situated in the Place Vendome. Mr Law then agreed with the Prince of Carignan for the purchase of the Hôtel de Soissons, at the enormous price, as is said, of 1,400,000 livres; and in the gardens belonging to that edifice, about 600 pavilions, each rated at 500 livres a month, were disposed in regular order, beautifully interspersed with trees and fountains. To oblige the brokers to make use of them, an ordonnance was issued, prohibiting, under severe penalties, any bargain for stock to be concluded, except in one of these pavilions. Mr Law,' continues his biographer, now blazed a meteor of unequalled splendour, having arrived at a pitch of power and consequence that required a strength of intellect almost supernatural to be able to support it undazzled. He saw himself perpetually followed by, and his levee constantly crowded with, princes, dukes, and peers, maréchals and prelates, who all humbled themselves before his shrine with the utmost submission, while he treated them at times in a style of consummate haughtiness. The Baron de Pollnitz observes in his memoirs, that he has seen dukes and peers of France waiting in Mr Law's ante-chambers like the meanest subjects, and that, at last, there was no getting near him without feeing the Swiss porters for entrance at the gate, the lackeys for admittance into the ante-chamber, and the valets for the privilege of access to his presence-chamber or closet.'

The influence and authority of Law were rendered still more extensive by his appointment, on the 5th of January 1720, to the office of comptroller-general of the French finances, preparatorily to which he had formally adopted the Catholic faith. In plain language, he became prime minister of the country. By this time, his operations began to be a subject of alarm to the British government, who began to court his favour in various underhand ways. There is evidence that the Prince