THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE AISLABIE (John, 1670-1742, Treasurer of the Navy and Chancellor of the Exchequer, supporter of South Sea Company scheme in 1719, expelled from the house on its failure), George BAILLIE (1664-1738, Scottish politician who sat in the Parliament of Scotland from 1691 to 1707 and in the British House of Commons from 1708 to 1734), John WALLOP (1690-1762, 1st Earl of Portsmouth, MP) and Sir William CLAYTON, (1671-1752, afterwards Baron Sundon, whose wife controlled much of George II's court patronage)

Signatures on the end of a Treasury Document with some printed text on the verso, 5" x 3", no place, no month but 20th

Aislabie supported the South Sea Company's scheme for paying off the National Debt, 1719, and on its failure was 'expelled the House'. When Sunderland fell in 1720 after the South Sea Bubble, Wallop was put out of the Treasury. He was compensated with a peerage, being created Viscount Lymington. Baillie was appointed Commissioner for Trade and Plantations by Queen Anne and in 1714 King George I appointed him one of the Lords of Admiralty. In 1717 he was elevated to Lord of Treasury as a junior Lord Commissioner of the Treasury until 1725. In 1720. Clayton was elected to the South Sea committee of the House of Commons, and spoke against Walpole's proposals for restoring public credit and discharging a civil list debt in January and July 1721.
The South Sea Company was a British joint-stock company founded in January 1711, created as a public-private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of the national debt. To generate income, in 1713 the company was granted a monopoly to supply African slaves to the islands in the "South Seas" and South America. When the company was created, Britain was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and Spain and Portugal controlled most of South America. There was thus no realistic prospect that trade would take place, and as it turned out, the Company never realised any significant profit from its monopoly. However, Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt, and peaked in 1720 before suddenly collapsing to little above its original flotation price. The notorious economic bubble thus created, which ruined thousands of investors, became known as the South Sea Bubble.

Item Date:  1719

Stock No:  41439      £225

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