Page:The humbugs of the world - An account of humbugs, delusions, impositions, quackeries, deceits and deceivers generally, in all ages (IA humbugsworld00barnrich).djvu/229



In the “good old times,” people were just as eager after money as they are now; and a great deal more vulgar, unscrupulous, and foolish in their endeavors to get it. During about two hundred years after the discovery of America, that continent was a constant source of great and little money humbugs. The Spaniards and Portuguese and French and English all insisted upon thinking that America was chiefly made of gold; perhaps believing, as the man said about Colorado, that the hardship of the place was, that you have to dig through three or four feet of solid silver before the gold could be reached. This curious delusion is shown by the fact that the early charters of lands in America so uniformly reserved to the King his proportion of all gold and silver that should be found. And if gold were not to be had, these lazy Europeans were equally crazy about the rich merchandize which they made sure of finding in the vast and solitary American mountains and forests.

In a previous letter, I have shown how one of those delusions, about the unbounded wealth to be obtained from the countries on the South Sea, caused the English South Sea bubble.