"The more acute stockjobbers imagined justly that prices could not continue to rise forever. Bourdon and La Richardière, renowned for their extensive operations in the funds, quietly and in small quantities at a time, converted their notes into specie, and sent it away to foreign countries. They also bought as much as they could conveniently carry of plate and expensive jewellery, and sent it secretly away to England or to Holland. Vermalet, a jobber, who sniffed the coming storm, procured gold and silver coin to the amount of nearly a million of livres, which he packed in a farmer's cart, and covered over with hay and cow-dung. He then disguised himself in the dirty smock-frock, or blouse, of a peasant, and drove his precious load in safety into Belgium. From thence he soon found means to transport it to Amsterdam."
(Description of events leading up to the collapse of the French financial system in 1720.)
Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, "The Mississippi Scheme" (1841).
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