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John Law

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:12,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD
John Law

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Auction Date:2019 Dec 04 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:15th Floor WeWork, Boston, Massachusetts, 02108, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Scottish economist (1671–1729) known as a monetary reformer and as the originator of the 'Mississippi scheme' for the development of French territories in America. Very rare ALS in French, signed “Law,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 8 x 11.5, April 19, 1721. Partly translated letter to an unidentified recipient, ostensibly Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon, which notes that Law has asked his common-law wife, Katherine Knowles, and his daughter to join him in Venice [he would never see them again], ‘pour avoid la consolation de ma famile dans ma retraite,’ but he fears that his creditors, ‘vrays ou pretendus,’ will use this opportunity to seize his assets, ‘ce qui metterait le desorde dans mes affaires’; he therefore asks that the Regent [Philippe d’Orleans] suspend any legal pursuits for three months, in order to give him time to organize his affairs. Law proposes to hand over all of his holdings to the Compagnie des Indes for them to pay his debts, on the sole condition that he is restored to his financial standing at the moment he entered the French royal service, promising to give the Compagnie a full schedule of his assets, and to live scrupulously off whatever the Compagnie will accord him. Law ends his letter with a pleading tone, assuring the Duke that those who believe he has stored assets outside France are mistaken and that he deserves protection if only for his good intentions, and concludes: “If I gave advice which was contrary to the good of the King or the people I was the first to be deceived, as I never had any other object than the public happiness and I am persuaded that I would have succeeded if I had been given support.” In fine condition, with light creasing.

In the early months (and years) of his exile, Law did not abandon hope of a recall to France, and his eager gratitude for Bourbon’s recommendation of him to Chavigny should be seen in this context. Law’s system had brought its architect extraordinary wealth—in the proposals to the Regent referred above, he mentions the value of his Mississippi shareholdings having reached 100 million livres in 1720; there were widespread rumors, which Law attempts to scotch here, that he had managed to secure extensive assets outside of France, but in reality the collapse of his system ruined him and he was to live out his last years between England and Italy, dying in poverty in Venice on March 21, 1729.