The people seemed wild with speculation. All sorts of companies were established; one with ten million dollars capital to import walnut-trees from Virginia; one with five million dollars capital for a "wheel for perpetual motion." An unknown adventurer started "a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." Next morning this great man opened an office in Cornhill, and before three o'clock one thousand shares had been subscribed for at ten dollars a share, and the deposits paid. He put the ten thousand dollars in his pocket, set off the same evening for the Continent, and was never heard of again. He had assured them that nobody would know what the undertaking was, and he had kept his word.
The South Sea stock rose in one day from 130 per cent to 300, and finally to 1,000 per cent. It then became known that Sir John Blount, the chairman, and some others had sold out, making vast fortunes. The price of stock began to fall, and at last the crisis brought ruin to thousands. The poet Gay, who had been given £20,000 of stock, and had thought himself rich, lost all, and was so ill in consequence that his life was in danger. Some men committed suicide on account of their losses, and some became insane. Prior said, "I am lost in the South Sea. The roaring of the waves and the madness of the people are justly put together." The people were now as wild with anger as they had been intoxicated with hope for gain. They demanded redress, and the punishment of the directors of the South Sea Company. Men high in position were thrown into the Tower after it was found that the books of the company had been tampered with or destroyed, and large amounts of stock used to bribe men in office. The directors were fined over ten million dollars, and their fortunes distributed among the sufferers. Sir John Blount was allowed but £5,000 out of a fortune of £183,000. The fortune of another, a million and a half pounds, was given to the losers. One man was treated with especial severity because he was reported to have said that "he would feed his carriage horses off gold."
Mr. Guy, fearing that there was trickery when the stock rose so rapidly, sold out when the prices were from three to six hundred, and thereby saved himself from financial ruin. He was now very rich, having always lived economically. When he was a bookseller it is said that he always ate his dinner on his counter, using a newspaper for a tablecloth.