depths. Everything foreboded a catastrophe. In the height of the crisis, the Directors of the Company of the Indies stepped forward with the offer to take up all the depreciated notes of the Royal Bank, and to extinguish them at the rate of 50,000,000 francs a month for one year, provided its privileges were made perpetual. The Government accepted the offer, and issued a decree declaring the privileges accorded to the Company of the Indies to be perpetual. Thenceforth the Company assumed the title of 'Perpetual Company of the Indies.'
But the change in its condition was not confined to the grant of perpetuity of privileges. In October of the same year the Government made a return to cash payments; dissolved the connection between the Company and the Royal Bank; and enabled the former to reorganise itself on the footing of a commercial association independent of the State. On the retreat of Law, shortly afterwards, an inquiry took place—under the supervision of a Board appointed by the Government—into the affairs of the Company. The result of the investigations, cancellings, and changes effected by this Board was to leave the Company (1723) a private commercial association, with a capital of 112,000,000 francs in 56,000 shares. Two years later the capital was reduced, by the cancellation of 5,000 shares, to 102,000,000. At this figure it remained. But of all the great privileges conceded to it by Law, such as the coining of money, the collection of the revenues of the State, and others,
