Description
His signature, on a receipt for a dividend, cut from a ledger. Strip of paper 2½ x 10 inches. Michaelmas, 1719. Sir Theodore Janssen (1658-1748), merchant, knighted by King Wiliam III, and a leading director of the South Sea Company. Sir Robert Walpole made scapegoats of the directors after the collapse of the South Sea Company, and Janssen was forced to hand over about a quarter of a million pounds. He was expelled from the House of Commons. Janssen was the author of a tract entitled ‘General Maxims in Trade…’ [1713], which was reproduced in the first volume of The British Merchant [1721].