in the region for a period of thirty years. The trading started slowly and was in any case limited in extent by the terms of the assiento, but it was hoped that it would lead to breaking into the traditionally closed Spanish markets in America. Investors in the UK, enticed by extravagant promises of profit from the company promoters, bought thousands of shares. By 1717, the South Sea Company was so wealthy that it assumed the public debt of the UK government. This accelerated the inflation of the share price further, as did the Bubble Act 1720, which (possibly with the motive of protecting the South Sea Company from competition) prohibited the establishment of any companies without a Royal Charter. The share price rose so rapidly that people began buying shares merely in order to sell them at a higher price, which in turn led to higher share prices. This was the first speculative bubble the country had seen, but by the end of 1720, the bubble had "burst", and the share price sank from £1000 to under £100. As bankruptcies and recriminations ricocheted through government and high society, the mood against corporations, and errant directors, was bitter. Prohibition The Bubble Act 1720's prohibition on establishing companies remained in force until 1824. Case of Sutton's Hospital (1612) 77 Eng Rep 960 Keech v Sandford [1726] EWHC Ch J76 Attorney General v. Davy (1741) 2 Atk 212 The Charitable Corporation v Sutton (1742) 26 ER 642 Whelpdale v Cookson (1747) 27 ER 856 R v Richardson (1758) 97 ER 426 Even in 1776, Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations that mass corporate activity could not match private entrepreneurship, because people in charge of others' money would not exercise as much care as they would with their own. As he put it, Colonialism and imperialism 1752: African Company of Merchants (abolished 1821) 1792: Sierra Leone Company 1824: Van Diemen's Land Company 1835: South Australian Company 1839: New Zealand Company 1847: Eastern Archipelago Company 1881: British North Borneo Company 1886: Royal Niger Company 1888: Imperial British East Africa Company 1889: British South Africa Company Development of modern company law By the 1820s the Industrial Revolution had gathered pace, pressing for legal change to facilitate business activity. Restrictions were gradually lifted on ordinary people incorporating until, under the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844, it was possible through a simple registration procedure to