From at least the seventeenth century onwards the City of London was widely regarded as a place where a man and his money were easily parted and usually by the most villainous means imaginable. The place it occupied within contemporary culture was one that varied from amazement, because of its size and population, to distrust as a result of the activities conducted there. Such a view was driven both by the longstanding Christian antipathy towards usury, which inevitably brought any financial centre into disrepute, and the general suspicion of the middleman in any transaction, as the differential price led both buyer and seller to believe they had been cheated. In addition, there were specific events in the City of London that fuelled public hostility. The speculative boom in 1720, with the Mississippi Bubble in Paris and the South Sea Bubble in London, convinced many that there was something rotten associated with the rise and fall of stock and share prices, and the promotion of joint stock companies. Those events continued to colour popular perceptions from then on, and certainly way into the nineteenth century. At the time of another speculative boom in 1864 the British historical novelist, W. H. Ainsworth, thought it worthwhile to write a story based around John Law, the great Scottish financier whose schemes lay at the heart of the events in Paris. However, other aspects of the City's activities did experience a slow rehabilitation during the course of the eighteenth century, which was evident by the beginning of the nineteenth. Increasingly the City merchant was regarded by contemporaries as being an honourable person, having accumulated wealth through legitimate means. The business being conducted by merchants had relevance to most people, as they ranged from retailing through wholesaling to international trade, and so was accepted as necessary. If that business was then conducted in such a way as permitted the slow accumulation of a fortune, without the use of practices that appeared to cheat suppliers and customers, then the successful merchant could command the respect of their peers.