Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich

by Thomas Levenson

All one hundred thousand of the Million Adventure’s tickets sold swiftly, the lottery was drawn and winners were named, and the Treasury got its million pounds, all in ample time for the summer campaigning season. But there were troubling hints for anyone paying close attention. The rates of return—double-digit interest on both the first two loans—reflect the sense of crisis evoked by the unprecedented cost of the war. But in the moment, what mattered was that England had discovered something genuinely new that could pay for its ambitions: in place of the personal obligations of untrustworthy kings, these Parliament-authorized and -backed loans amounted to the first true and permanent national debt.