The edifice of Law, in France, began to totter; the ruin of the fictitious companies in England soon involved all reasonable and legitimate speculations. In a few weeks the stock of the South Sea Company fell below three hundred pounds sterling; the suddenness of the catastrophe seriously involved the English speculators. Everywhere families were ruined, fortunes the most solid were shaken, and character and reputations were lost. "The very name of the South Sea Company became odious," says a contemporary. { 166} In vain was Walpole, who had recently retired to his country house at Houghton, recalled to London to seek a remedy for the evils which he had foreseen; but the ruin was beyond his efforts and power. Public anger and indignation knew no bounds. The king, who was in Hanover, returned precipitately, and Parliament was convoked for the 8th of December. "I avow," said Lord Molesworth, to the House of Commons, "that the ordinary laws do not reach the directors of the South Sea Company, but extraordinary crimes call aloud for extraordinary remedies. The Roman lawgivers had not foreseen the possible existence of a parricide; but as soon as the first monster appeared, he was sewed in a sack and cast headlong into the Tiber; and I shall be content to inflict the same treatment on the authors of our present ruin."
The calm good sense of Walpole, as well as his prudent foresight, powerfully advanced his ascendancy in Parliament. He succeeded in controlling the unchained passions. "If London was on fire, wise men would endeavor to extinguish the flames before they sought the incendiaries. We have a matter of still greater urgency: to save the public credit." Able and wise measures had been presented to Parliament, but public vengeance was not satisfied; a thorough inquiry ended in the discovery of grave evidences of corruption and bribery. The discussions became so violent that the doors of the House were closed and the keys placed upon the table. The German favorites of the king, the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Platen, the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Sunderland and Mr. Aislabie the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and many other inferior officers of the government, were found to be seriously compromised. A parliamentary quarrel between Lords Wharton and Stanhope agitated the latter so violently that he had an apoplectic fit and died the next day, to the great regret of the public who had never doubted his honesty.