From the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1737
I am ready to grant that there are several men of great overgrown fortunes still in the City. But who are they? Do they consist of honest merchants and fair adventurers? Or are they composed of usurers, stockjobbers, and managers of great-moneyed companies who live like drones upon the labour of the industrious hive, and are so far from encouraging trade that they have already dried up some of its most beneficial springs? In short I believe it will appear, upon the least enquiry, that there never was a greater scarcity of money in this town than at present, excepting what is locked up in private coffers, or circulated amongst bankers and brokers in the Funds, which hardly ever comes to trade.
Re-printed in The Oldie for January 2014 and submitted by Jane Garland
Some things never change