From  a  perfect  stranger  to  him,  and  without  any  other
recommendation  than  a  casual  coffee-house  acquaintance
and  his  own  good  opinion,  he  took  me  into  his  favour
and  care,  and  into  as  high  a  degree  of  intimacy  as  ever
was  shown  by  one  man  to  another.'  ^  Between  them
they  made  '  The  London  Journal '  a  great  success.  The
South  Sea  Bubble  was  at  that  time  almost  full  blown,
and  even  Walpole's  prudent  warnings  and  threats  could
not  deter  the  people  from  the  fascinations  its  blowers
offered  to  them.  The  crash  came,  however,  in  1720,
and  then  Trenchard  and  Gordon,  who  in  the  earlier
numbers  of  their  '  Journal '  had  vainly  joined  in
Walpole's  expostulations,  found  ready  listeners  to  their
reiterated  demands  for  '  public  j  ustice  on  the  wicked
managers  of  the  fatal  scheme.'  The  series  of  articles,  in
the  form  of  letters  signed  Cato,  which  they  wrote,
attracted  immediate  and  wide  attention.
The  Cato  letters,  numbering  a  hundred  and  forty-
four,  and  running  from  November  1720  till  December
1723  dealt  with  many  other  subjects  besides  the  South
Sea  Bubble  and  its  blowers.  One  had  reference  to  a
proposal  favoured  by  some  tyrannical  Whigs  for
reviving  the  censorship  of  the  press  in  order  to  put  a
stop  to  the  libels  and  seditious  talk  then  plentiful  in  it.
On  this  matter  Cato  spoke  sensibly.  '  As  long  as  there
are  such  things  as  printing  and  writing,'  he  said,  '  there
will  be  libels  ;  it  is  an  evil  arising  out  of  a  much  greater
good,  and  as  for  those  who  are  for  locking  up  the  press
because  it  produces  monsters,  they  ought  to  consider

^  Gordon's  preface  to  the  reprint  of  Cato's  Lettem.
112  IN   WALPOLE'S   DAYS  ch.  iv.
