and fourth remained at home, the two eldest carrying on their father's business, Francis, born April 18, 1740, came early to London, where, after finishing his education at “Mr. Fuller's Academy in Lothbury," he set up in business as an importer of wool and dyestuffs, also acting as agent for the Larkbear cloth factory. Starting with a fixed determination to become rich, and having a fair amount of money to begin with, he was uniformly successful in all his designs: nothing failed that he undertook, and whatever he touched became gold. Having amassed a fortune by dealing in cloth, wool, and dyestuffs, he resolved to quintuple the fortune by dealing in money itself—that is, to be a banker. As was natural, the successful man also became the honoured man, a leading director of the East India Company, and the friend and adviser of the Premier, Lord Shelburne, who invariably followed his counsel in matters of finance. After obtaining a seat in Parliament for Exeter, the son of Johann Baring was made a baronet, under patent of May 29, 1793, by William Pitt, Shelburne's successor in the government after the short interregnum of the Duke of Portland. Valuing the friendship of the shrewd man of finance, William Pitt, as much as the Earl of Shelburne, listened to the counsel of Sir Francis Baring, both statesmen delighting to style the reputed possessor of two millions on all occasions "the Prince of Merchants."

If not so high in fame, nor so wealthy, as Sir Francis Baring, Mr. John Julius Angerstein was not by any means in lesser repute at Lloyd's, being looked upon by all the members as one of the pillars of the coffee-house. As mentioned in a preceding chapter, Mr. Angerstein was born of German parents at St. Petersburg in 1735, and was therefore the senior of Sir Francis Baring by five years. Like the latter, he became during the war period one of Pitt's financial advisers, and originated important measures in several instances. In a biographical sketch of Mr. Angerstein which appeared at the time the Patriotic Fund was started in an annual magazine, going by the title of

"Public Characters," the following somewhat quaint account is given of one of these measures. "Another prominent object of public good," says the writer, “was effected by the zeal and activity of the subject of this memoir, in respect to the subject of the issuing of Exchequer Bills. In or about the year 1793 there was an alarming want of confidencethe worst want that commerce can experience. This arose from a variety of causes, and, among the rest, the nonarrival of fleets long expected from various quarters. The great public evil originating from the then situation of France is also too obvious to every man acquainted with public business to require mention here; for trade dropped, and was shorn of half its honours and advantages from that circumstance alone. To re-establish commercial credit, therefore, Mr. Angerstein, after much opposition from some of the first merchants of the city-the motives for which we will not at this distance of time scrutinize-was the sole means of procuring for Mr. Pitt a loan through the medium of Exchequer Bills. This had for its object the assisting merchants to realize a sum of money which lay dormant in colonial produce to an amount almost incalculable. The measure was fully adequate to the exigence; yet it is but simple justice to remark that Mr. Angerstein was equally disinterested in the application and the success arising from it, except in respect to the private gratification which always results to a good citizen from the establishment and diffusion of public good."

The eulogistic biographer of Mr. Angerstein finishes by stating that in his position at Lloyd's he had made himself equally "eminent as a broker and underwriter. In this last character, when his name appeared on a policy, it was a sufficient recommendation for the rest to follow where he led without further examination, and accordingly underwriters were eager to see policies sanctioned by his subscription, which speedily acquired so great an authority that, by way of distinction, they were called Julians." "This commercial celebrity," the writer goes on, "increased daily.

The circle of his connections in trade, the weight of his name, and the powers of his active and ready mind gradually expanded, until Mr. Angerstein attained that high degree of commercial importance which is considered among the greatest distinctions of this island." The finale sounds the panegyric of Lloyd's. "And so Lloyd's Coffee-house is now an empire within itself-an empire which, in point of commercial sway, variety of powers, and almost incalculable resources, gives laws to the trading part of the universe; and if combining its authority with the great mass of business below [the Royal Exchange] there is not a place upon the face of the earth that can vie with this palladium of English merchants."

T

HE rapid growth of Lloyd's during the war, and the fortunes accumulated by many of its members, such as Sir Francis Baring, Mr. J. J. Angerstein, Mr. Thomson Bonar, and others, had the natural consequence of engendering a desire for competition, and there were many attempts, towards the end of the eighteenth and in the early part of the nineteenth century, to establish a powerful rival of Lloyd's in the form of a new marine insurance company on a large scale. To do this, it was required, in the first instance, to upset the two charters granted under the Act of 6 George I. cap. 18, sanctioned June 24, 1720, which bestowed upon the London Assurance Corporation and the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation a monopoly to carry on the business of marine insurance as joint-stock companies, or, in other words, in a different way as practised at Lloyd's. Among the earliest promoters of a new great marine insurance company were the directors of the Globe Fire and Life Insurance Company, established in 1797, who were anxious to add the marine department to the other two branches. It was thought at first that there would be no great difficulties in getting a charter for marine insurance, seeing that the two corporations of 1720 availed themselves to a very limited extent of their

joint monopoly, preferring the safer business of fire insurance to that of underwriting, and shunning rather than seeking transactions out of the ordinary routine, which, if capable of bringing large profits, involved corresponding risks. Besides, the two charters of 1720 expressly reserved the right of the government, under the sanction of Parliament, to terminate all the special privileges bestowed upon the London Assurance Corporation and Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation, either by merely giving them three months' notice of such intention, and repaying the "consideration money" obtained from the companies, or without any notice whatever, or repayment of moneys, if it was found that the granted monopolies were "hurtful or inconvenient to the public." Relying upon the latter phrase, sweeping enough to justify immediate suppression of the privileges granted in 1720, which, if not "inconvenient" to the public at large, were decidedly "inconvenient" to a section of it, that represented in the Globe, the directors of the latter company applied in 1798 to Parliament, asking for a repeal of the Act 6 George I. cap. 18, in as far as it restricted other-joint stock undertakings from carrying on the business of marine insurance.

The petition of the directors of the Globe, instead of being favourably entertained, as expected, met with the most intense opposition, coming, however, less from the London Assurance and Royal Exchange Corporations, immediately concerned in the matter, than from Lloyd's. The two old chartered companies of 1720, looked upon at the outset, if not as direct foes, yet as very unpleasant rivals, by the members of Lloyd's, had long lost this character, and become attached friends and auxiliaries of the private underwriters and brokers. It was evident, indeed, that it was under the protection of the charters granted under the Act 6 George I. cap. 18, that Lloyd's had risen to greatness. Marine insurance being forbidden to all joint-stock companies except the two chartered corporations, and these two engaging at the same time, with a rather limited capital, in fire and life insurance, to the comparative neglect of the third branch, the business of marine insurance, while increasing to