The Great Mississippi Bubble

"A TIME OF UNEXAMPLED PROSPERITY"

In the course of a voyage from England, I once fell in with a convoy of
merchant ships bound for the West Indies. The weather was uncommonly bland;
and the ships vied with each other in spreading sail to catch a light,
favoring breeze, until their hulls were almost hidden beneath a cloud of
canvas. The breeze went down with the sun, and his last yellow rays shone
upon a thousand sails, idly flapping against the masts.

I exulted in the beauty of the scene, and augured a prosperous voyage; but
the veteran master of the ship shook his head, and pronounced this halcyon
calm a "weather-breeder." And so it proved. A storm burst forth in the
night; the sea roared and raged; and when the day broke, I beheld the late
gallant convoy scattered in every direction; some dismasted, others
scudding under bare poles, and many firing signals of distress.

I have since been occasionally reminded of this scene, by those calm, sunny
seasons in the commercial world, which are known by the name of "times of
unexampled prosperity." They are the sure weather-breeders of traffic.
Every now and then the world is visited by one of these delusive seasons,
when "the credit system," as it is called, expands to full luxuriance,
everybody trusts everybody; a bad debt is a thing unheard of; the broad way
to certain and sudden wealth lies plain and open; and men are tempted to
dash forward boldly, from the facility of borrowing.

Promissory notes, interchanged between scheming individuals, are liberally
discounted at the banks, which become so many mints to coin words into
cash; and as the supply of words is inexhaustible, it may readily be
supposed what a vast amount of promissory capital is soon in circulation.
Every one now talks in thousands; nothing is heard but gigantic operations
in trade; great purchases and sales of real property, and immense sums made
at every transfer. All, to be sure, as yet exists in promise; but the
believer in promises calculates the aggregate as solid capital, and falls
back in amazement at the amount of public wealth, the "unexampled state of
public prosperity."

Now is the time for speculative and dreaming or designing men. They relate
their dreams and projects to the ignorant and credulous, dazzle them with
golden visions, and set them madding after shadows. The example of one
stimulates another; speculation rises on speculation; bubble rises on
bubble; every one helps with his breath to swell the windy superstructure,
and admires and wonders at the magnitude of the inflation he has
contributed to produce.

Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its sober
realities. It renders the