Editing South Sea Company (section)

=== Initial speculation ===
The scheme to thus consolidate all government debt and to manage it better in the future held out the prospect of all existing creditors being repaid the full nominal value of their loans, which at the time before the scheme was publicised were valued at a discounted rate of £55 per £100 nominal value, as the lotteries were discredited and the government's ability to repay in full was widely doubted. Thus bonds representing the debt intended to be consolidated under the scheme were available for purchase on the open market at a price that allowed anyone with advance knowledge to buy and resell in the immediate future at a high profit, for as soon as the scheme became publicised the bonds would once again be worth at least their nominal value, as repayment was now more certain a prospect. This anticipation of gain made it possible for Harley to bring further financial supporters into the scheme, such as James Bateman and [[Theodore Janssen]].<ref>Carswell, pp. 54–55</ref>

[[Daniel Defoe]] commented:<ref>Defoe, Daniel, ''An Essay on the South-Sea Trade'' ... , 2nd ed., (London, England: J. Baker, 1712), [https://books.google.com/books?id=NZ5VAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA40 pp. 40–41.]</ref><br />
{{quote|Unless the Spaniards are to be divested of common sense, infatuate, and given up, abandoning their own commerce, throwing away the only valuable stake they have left in the world, and in short, bent on their own ruin, we cannot suggest that they will ever, on any consideration, or for any equivalent, part with so valuable, indeed so inestimable a jewel, as the exclusive trade to their own plantations.|source=''An Essay on the South-Sea Trade''}}

The originators of the scheme knew that there was no money to invest in a trading venture, and no realistic expectation that there would ever be a trade to exploit, but nevertheless the potential for great wealth was widely publicised at every opportunity, so as to encourage interest in the scheme. The objective for the founders was to create a company that they could use to become wealthy and that offered scope for further government deals.<ref>Carswell, p. 56</ref>