Douglas Watt John Law and the Mississippi Bubble

February 22, 2017

Law was a financial innovator, monetary theorist, gambler and art collector, as well as being described as ‘one of the greatest promoters of despotism ever seen in Europe.’

The son of an Edinburgh goldsmith, he became Comptroller General of France in 1720. But the bursting of the Mississippi Bubble, which Law’s ‘System’ had inflated, ended his political career.

Douglas Watt is a writer and historian with a particular interest in financial bubbles. He is the author of The Price of Scotland, a financial study of Scotland’s ill-fated Darien Venture.

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