This print was made for ‘The Governor and Company of Merchants of Great Britain Trading to the South Seas, and other parts of America, and for Encouraging the Fishery’. When the Company, better known as the South Sea Company, had been set up in 1711, it was hoped that it would challenge the financial strength of the Bank of England and the East India Company regarding the provision of loans for the government to support the national debt. It had a monopoly on trade with all Spanish territories, South America and the west coast of North America. The Company was also involved in Arctic whaling.

In 1713, the Company received the right to supply slaves to the Spanish colonies. In 1720, the government encouraged investors to trade governments stocks for South Sea Company shares and as these boomed, more and more people speculated in them, and the share price became higher. In July 1720, with company shares at a vastly inflated, unrealistic and unsustainable level, the share price and confidence in the South Sea Company collapsed.