Chapter 609: The aftermath
Southeast London.
A black carriage stopped outside the King's private castle, Windsor Castle. Little Pete got out of the carriage with a stern expression, looked up at the gray-white castle in front of him, and couldn't help but take a deep breath.
Now he must obtain the support of His Majesty the King, otherwise it will be difficult to survive this crisis.
Yes, the London Gas street lighting thing has turned into a serious political crisis.
Little Peter initially thought he only lost hundreds of thousands of pounds, but he soon learned that a large number of companies in London had closed down, thousands of workers were unemployed, and violent clashes broke out in the City Hall.
Until this moment, he still did not realize the seriousness of the matter.
As a result, a run broke out last Thursday at London's Manor Investment Bank and Lloyds Bank - these two banks had provided huge loans to subcontractors for the gas street lighting project. Can't take it back.
London citizens who received the news were worried that the two banks would go bankrupt, just like a large number of companies that had gone bankrupt recently, so they frantically rushed to the banks to withdraw money.
After only two days, Mano Investment Bank couldn't stand it any longer and announced that it would temporarily suspend its withdrawal operations. But this triggered even greater panic among depositors - it seemed that the bank was really out of money! The number of people who came to rush suddenly doubled several times.
This is the leverage effect of finance. A bank with a capital of millions of pounds will go bankrupt due to bad debts of less than 100,000 pounds, causing the entire capital chain to break.
Soon, the run began to spread to other banks - all banks that had financial dealings with the gas street light project became the target of public suspicion - and Little Pete finally couldn't sit still.
Although the Whigs have not yet taken advantage of this incident to launch an attack, Little Peter knew very well that they were looking for an opportunity to give themselves a fatal blow.
In fact, according to the current situation, banks will soon have widespread problems. Even if the opposition party does nothing, they will have to get out of No. 10 Downing Street.
Sir Stewart, dressed in black attire, came out of the castle. When Little Pete saw his handsome face, he felt a lot more at ease.
"His Majesty the King is waiting for you." Sir Stewart bowed to his side and signaled, "Please follow me."
Enter the gate of the castle and walked along the corridor for a while, Sir Stewart took advantage of the entourage behind him to pay attention. , reached out to hold Little Pete's hand, squeezed it twice gently, and whispered: "Don't be nervous, I have already mentioned this to His Majesty, and his reaction was quite calm. He has been paying close attention to North America recently. Things, but don’t mention Ireland...
“Oh, His Majesty’s condition is stable recently, you can chat with him for a while. "
Little Pete held his hand with his backhand, put it on his forehead and rubbed it, the feeling of peace of mind became even stronger.
He raised his eyes to look at Sir Stewart, his eyes full of The latter nodded slightly to him
Neither of them said anything more, but they both understood what the other meant.
Yes, they are a secret couple.
Little Peter's ability to gain the respect of George III was inseparable from the strong support of Stuart as the king's secretary.
Not long after, Stuart pushed open the door to the king's office and said into the room: "Your Majesty, Mr. Pitt is here."
"Oh, come in." There was a hoarse voice behind the desk. sound.
Little Pete looked up and saw George III sitting on a chair, wearing a "hospital gown" made of white thick linen. His face was covered with stubble, and there were strangulation marks on his face and neck. He looked quite tired. It looked like it had just been treated.
He hurriedly stepped forward and bowed: "Your Majesty."
George III waved his hand and motioned to the chair on the left: "Sit down. You are here for the London Gas Street Lights "Yes, Your Majesty."
"So, what are your plans?"
"Now some banks have been affected, so it will be a bit difficult..." Little Peter then told the story of the bank run.
George III sighed: "There must be a sum of funds to deal with depositors, and the first bankrupt bank must not appear."
As long as the bank can hold on, one or two at most Within months, people would have re-established confidence in the banks and the runs would have stopped.
But if a bank fails, panic will spread quickly, increasing the number of runs, and who knows how many more banks will fail later.
"Yes, Your Majesty." Little Pete nodded, "At least 700,000 pounds."
"Have you thought of a way?" The king knew that the prime minister was not asking for money from him, because he didn't have much money either.
Little Peter hesitated and said: "Mr. Henry Hope is the Dutch banker. Vienna has issued a wanted order for him. And he is still in London.
" If we hand him over to His Majesty Leopold II, it will greatly promote the relations between the two countries. "
George III touched the beard on his chin and said calmly: "As for things that are beneficial to diplomacy, just go ahead and do it. But I remember that he previously spent a sum of money to implement his plan. Is the remaining property enough for 700,000 pounds? ”
“It should not be enough. But the Dutch investor who came with him, Vankiewicz, was also involved in that trade plan. We can treat him as an accomplice. ”
George III nodded slightly: "After you have the funds, how are you going to solve other problems?"
"Last week we found the body of the owner of the Commercial Credit Bank." Little Pete said, "He committed suicide. He also left a suicide note saying that he wanted to expand his banking business through the gas street lighting project, but encountered technical difficulties and the project could not be delivered.
"After he exhausted the funds he had raised, he was no longer able to maintain it. Engineering, so he chose to commit suicide. "
George III sneered: "Oh, do you believe it? "
"I..." Little Peter thought about it, looked at the king and said, "We should choose to believe it. ”
If the British government accepts the statement in the suicide note, then the mastermind behind the whole incident will be arrested first. Although he is dead, at least the people's emotions will have an outlet. This is far better than letting the criminal go free, in which case someone will still bring the case more than ten years later.
Secondly, the defrauded funds were also recovered - they were all used by Goldmead on the street light project. Although the cost was inexplicably high, this gap did not need to be filled.
Seeing the king nod, Little Pete breathed a sigh of relief and continued: "The government will prosecute London Mayor Herbert and the officials involved in the gas street lamps..."
George III interrupted him and said: "No need to be like this, Herbert was just deceived by liars, just like everyone in the world makes mistakes. Just remove him from office."
Little Peter immediately understood the king intention.
Herbert almost certainly received a bribe to hand over this project to Lightning Company. If corruption is discovered again by then, people's anger towards the gas street lighting project will only become even greater.
(End of this chapter)