Millionaire: The Philanderer, Gambler, and Duelist Who Invented Modern Finance (21 page)

Since leaving France, Law had certainly received offers of employment from Denmark and Russia, which so far he had turned down. But his threat was far from idle: if England refused him entry and Orléans continued to deny him funds to settle his debts, he would have no choice but to “look for a protector to avoid a prison sentence, which might endure all my life.” The threat of debtor’s prison was ever present, and presumably the experience of Newgate in his youth heightened his terror of returning. Significantly, a stipulation of his request to return was that his creditors in Britain should allow him a few months’ grace to arrange his affairs before pressing for payment. The total loss to Londonderry from a drastic wager made in Paris, which anticipated that East India stock would fall, was nearly £600,000, and his inability to repay it had forced Middleton, his banker, to close his business at around the same time that Law left Paris.

Londonderry and Ilay contacted Lord Carteret, who conferred with the king, but when by late summer there was still no clear decision and his creditors were clamoring ever more menacingly, Law decided, with typical impulsiveness, to risk it. Later he wrote, “I had no invitation from the King nor from his ministers but the situation of my affairs made me take the course of going there with these uncertainties.”

Leaving Venice at the end of August, and carefully avoiding Holland and parts of Germany where he knew angry creditors might apprehend him, Law took a circuitous route through Bohemia to Hanover, then northward to Copenhagen. He had intended to spend some time in the Danish court—the diplomat Guldenstein was an old friend who, since Law’s departure from France, had repeatedly offered him a role in government. Law had refused on the grounds that his plan was to live quietly: “Having worked in the most beautiful theatre in Europe under the most enlightened Prince, having taken my project to the point where it could make a nation happy, and having little to support me against the cabals of court and the factions of the state I will take no more engagements.”

The English Baltic squadron was anchored at Elsinore and preparing to sail home before winter, so there was no time to see Guldenstein at the Danish court. Admiral John Norris, commander of the fleet, allowed Law to board his vessel
Sandwich
for the return passage. The ship set sail on October 6, arriving a fortnight later at the naval base of the Nore in the Thames estuary. It was the first time Law had set foot on English soil for twenty-six years.

His friends Ilay and Londonderry were waiting for him and escorted him to London, where, as he had feared, there were mixed feelings about the prodigal’s return. On arrival he wrote to Katherine, “I don’t expect to be well received at court; for which reason I think not to go, having nothing to ask.” Apart from the South Sea catastrophe, for which he was widely blamed, it was also feared “his stay in London could only help people with evil intentions to whip up jealousies”—that France would frown on England for offering Law sanctuary. The controversy was sufficiently fierce to be raised twice in the House of Lords, Earl Coningsby complaining that Law “had done so much mischief in a neighbouring kingdom; and [who] being so immensely rich as he was reported to be, might do a great deal more hurt here, by tampering with many who were grown desperate by being involved in the calamity occasioned by the fatal imitation of his pernicious projects.” Above all, stated Coningsby, Law should be shunned for renouncing “not only his natural affection to his country, and his allegiance to his lawful sovereign by being naturalized in France, and openly countenancing the Pretender’s friends; but which was worst of all, and weighed most with him, that he had also renounced his God by turning into a Roman Catholic.” Carteret stood up for Law. He was here having received the benefit of the king’s clemency, he was no longer a fugitive from British justice, having been granted his pardon in 1717, and it was the right of every subject to return to his native land.

By November the ferment had begun to settle as Law’s influential supporters gained ground and persuaded the establishment that, far from endangering the relationship with France, Law might actually help it. The diplomat Sutton noted, “The retreat of Mr. Law to England does not seem to displease the court. . . . Law will do nothing to trouble the good intelligence and harmony between the two courts.” By the end of the month this argument had prevailed, and Law was permitted to return to the bar of the King’s Bench to plead pardon, attended by the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Ilay, and several other influential friends. The
London Journal
of December 2 contained the following report of the momentous event: “On Tuesday November 28 (the last day of term) the famous Mr. Law appeared at the King’s Bench Bar, and pleaded his pardon for the Murder of Beau Wilson on his knees.”

Thus officially pardoned, Law took lodgings in Conduit Street. He still longed to see Katherine and hoped that his move might help: “I can’t think the Regent will detain you when he knows I’m first here. I think His Royal Highness and those who serve him honestly should be pleased that I am here, where I may be useful to him; knowing his intentions to live in friendship with the King.”

Although he had been granted a modest pension by the regent, and London bankers restored limited credit to his accounts, he still battled for settlement of debts incurred on the company’s behalf, for which many held him personally responsible. He was distraught that his brother’s friend, the London banker George Middleton, had been forced into bankruptcy as a result of his losses on Law’s account, and had already tried to speed up the settlement of these debts from Venice: “I would have you get the Marquis de Lassay and my brother to meet with you, to concert what can be done to satisfy M. Middleton, I have wrote to M. le Duc, who will speak to the Regent about what is due by the King, his R.H. had agreed to have a million per month given out of the 15 millions the company was to pay,” he had written to Katherine. But the regent had seemingly forgotten his promises, and despite numerous letters to Bourbon, Dubois (the French first minister), Lassay, and others, nothing was done.

Little by little Law was welcomed back into fashionable London society. People were fascinated by his reputation, longed for the opportunity to meet him—and were invariably charmed by him when they did. Writing to the Earl of Oxford, William Stratford noted,

I was fetched from the Audit House yesterday to three gentlemen who had brought me a letter from Dr. Cheyney. I was once thinking not to have gone home, but when I did, the gentlemen proved to be the famous Mr. Law and his son, and Lord Sommerville, a young Scotch lord. Though I was no stranger to Law’s character, yet I did not grudge a bottle of wine, for the sake of a little conversation with one who has made so much noise in the world.

In the new year of 1722 he was a regular visitor at court. He spoke frequently with the king—presumably in German, since George spoke little English—and mingled with the prince of Wales and other royal offspring. To Katherine he described the royal children as “handsome, genteel, and well fashioned. If my daughter was here I believe [she] would be liked by them.” In between the social rounds he spent his time quietly, enjoying a regular ride with his son on the horses they had acquired; he told Katherine that he felt much revived by the exercise.

But the passing months brought little real improvement. His financial affairs were still unresolved; the company debts remained unsettled. One creditor, a moneylender called Mendez to whom Middleton had been forced to turn to raise money against Law’s debts, had now taken out a writ against him and could have him arrested at any time. Despite repeated applications for a passport, Katherine was still refused permission to leave France. “I own to you these reflections animate me sometimes to that degree, that I’m not master of my passion,” he wrote helplessly, valiantly trying to rekindle her hope that they would soon be reunited with the suggestion that yet another refusal to grant her passport might mean he would soon be recalled to France. “I’m in hopes to hear the regent will allow you to come out of France; if not, I suppose his intention may be to have me go over, for I hear the people of that country are much changed in their way of thinking upon my subject.” At other times, when his sense of desperation was overwhelming, he vented his wretchedness in letters to Orléans or Bourbon. “I am aware of the treatment I have had from France. The imprisonment of my brother and of those who showed some attachment to me, the retention of Mme. Law and my daughter, but above all the indifference that Your Royal Highness has shown on my subject has hurt me more than the state to which I am reduced,” he wrote to the regent, who as usual failed to respond.

Added to concerns about his financial affairs and Katherine, his relationship with his brother William had become severely strained. As soon as Law had left France, William had written long, grumbling letters to him in Venice, to which Law had sternly replied, “I would have you reflect that what you have had has been by my means, and if I have engaged you in measures that you don’t now approve, I have followed these measures for myself and children, reproaches are not proper at present, you should propose expedients.” The divide widened after William’s arrest, when he had recklessly sent his wife Rebecca to Venice to beg for help. Rebecca was pregnant and Law referred to the journey as
“la sottise,”
foolishness. Nonetheless he provided her with statements detailing his involvement and shared what little money he had—borrowed from Las say—with her. Since Law’s return to Britain the rancor between the brothers had deepened further over outstanding debts and disagreements about property bought by Middleton. At first Law had felt that the hardship of his incarceration excused his brother: “My brother must have gone mad; perhaps prison has turned his head,” he suggested to a friend. Middleton had tried to intervene, telling William of “some conversation I have had lately with your brother. I find him a little disobliged with you, which I believe proceeds in some measure from your writing him in a way or manner not altogether agreeable to him.” Middleton urged William to make up his differences with Law. “Now as he was by far the most valuable friend you possibly could have, and still expressed himself with much concern for you, ’till of very late, I humbly think you would do well to consider sedately, how far it may be proper for you to disoblige him, as well as how much the world will blame you.” But Middleton’s letter seems to have had little if any effect, and Law was infuriated to discover that some of the malicious and unfounded rumors concerning his supposed secret funds outside France had originated from William. “What must my enemies think when they see the conduct of my brother?” he wondered. Even when the situation in France improved slightly and his brother’s release was imminent, a frostiness remained, and compared with letters to other friends, Law’s tone in letters to William was markedly detached. “I have wrote several times to the Regent, and to the Cardinal [Dubois] about your enlargement; and I expect to have heard of your being at liberty. I suppose you will soon, his R.H. having promised to do me and you justice.”

Watching developments closely was Sir Robert Walpole, the first lord of the Treasury and chancellor of the Exchequer, who, having risen to power in the aftermath of the South Sea debacle, was now Britain’s prime minister in all but name. Despite Law’s financial vulnerability, Walpole felt that he might soon be invited back to France. “If the Duke of Orleans is disposed to recall him [Law] as Mr. Law’s friends here are very sanguine in hoping,” he wrote to the diplomat Sir Luke Schaub,

it is not our business to obstruct it. . . . If Mr. Law does not return there can be no doubt but that the power might fall into worse hands; and if any who are neither Englishmen by birth or affection should prevail, we should have a less chance than by admitting one who has sundry ties to wish well to his native country.

The conviction that he would soon be back in power also helped buy time from Law’s creditors. Some moneylenders had enough confidence in his prospects to offer him primes option loans: for a £10 loan he would repay £100, but only if he returned to France. He admitted he would be tempted by the offer “if they wanted to give me enough to settle my commitments.”

The pace of progress was excruciatingly slow. Eventually, in October 1723, almost two years after his arrival in London, Law’s departure for Paris, accompanied by Walpole’s brother, seemed imminent. “I have so ordered my brother’s journey to Paris with him that he thinks Horace goes with his advice,” wrote Walpole. But it was not to be. Preparations were under way and Law was awaiting final instructions from Paris when, on December 2, inauspicious news reached London. Orléans, worn out by debauchery and the pressures of government, had suffered a massive heart attack at the age of forty-nine and collapsed and died in the arms of one of his mistresses, the Duchesse Marie Thérèse de Falaris.

Law’s hopes of return to France died with him. Bourbon took over the reins of power, but his ambitious and scheming mistress, Madame de Prie, who had lent Law her coach when he escaped from France, had grown hostile to him. The recall for which he had hoped never came, and payment of his pension was suspended. The charity of friends and wins at the tables were again his only means of support. Profound humiliation shines through his letter to the Countess of Suffolk: “Can you not prevail on the Duke to help me something more than the half year? Or is there nobody that could have the good nature enough to lend me one thousand pounds? I beg that, if nothing of this can be done, that it may only be betwixt us two, as I take you as my great friend.”

A poignant letter to Bourbon from the following summer of 1724 resounds with turmoil at his circumstances: “There is scarcely an example, perhaps not one instance, of a foreigner like him [Law], who acquired in so high a degree the confidence of the Prince, who made so large a fortune in so upright a manner, and who, on leaving France, reserved nothing for himself and his family, not even what he had brought into the kingdom with him.” As time passed, rancor at this injustice yielded to a sense of remorse at the opportunities he had let slip: