PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THOSE CONCERNED IN THE LOTTERY AT HAMBURGH.

The next object that excited the resentment of the commons was the scheme of a lottery to be drawn at Hamburgh in the king’s German dominions. The house appointed a committee to inquire into this and other lotteries at that time on foot in London. The scheme was published, on pretence of raising a subscription for maintaining a trade between Great Britain and the king’s territories on the Elbe; but it was a mysterious scene of iniquity, which the committee, with all their penetration, could not fully discover. They reported, however, that it was an infamous fraudulent undertaking, whereby many unwary persons had been drawn in, to their great loss: that the manner of carrying it on had been a manifest violation of the laws of the kingdom: that the managers and agents of this lottery had, without any authority for so doing, made use of his majesty’s royal name, thereby to give countenance to the infamous project, and induce his majesty’s subjects to engage or be concerned therein. A bill was brought in to suppress this lottery; and to oblige the managers of it to make restitution of the money they had received from the contributors. At the same time the house resolved, That John lord viscount Barrington had been notoriously guilty of promoting, abetting, and carrying on their fraudulent undertaking; for which offence he should be expelled the house. The court of Vienna having erected an East-India company at Os-tend, upon a scheme formed by one Colebrooke an English merchant, sir Nathaniel Gould represented to the house of commons the great detriment which the English East-India company had already received, and were likely further to sustain, by this Ostend company. The house immediately resolved, That for the subjects of this kingdom to subscribe, or be concerned in encouraging any subscription, to promote an East-India company now erecting in the Austrian Netherlands, was a high crime and misdemeanor; and a law was enacted for preventing British subjects from engaging in that enterprise. By another act, relating to the South-Sea company, the two millions of stock which had been annihilated were revived, added to the capital, and divided among the proprietors. A third law passed, for the more effectual execution of justice in a part of Southwark called the Mint, where a great number of debtors had taken sanctuary, on the supposition that it was a privileged place. On the twenty-seventh clay of May the session was closed, with a speech that breathed nothing but panegyric, acknowledgment, and affection to a parliament which had complied with all his majesty’s wishes.

GEORGE I, 1714—1727