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A collection of EIGHT BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY ACTS plus ONE INTEREST RECEIPT relating to the Tontine Investment Strategies of 1692, 1765, and 1789. London: 1692-1790. Woodcut Royal coats of arms, headpiece ornaments, vignettes, and decorative initials. Text in Black Letter. The Eight Acts have been neatly extracted from bound volumes. The Interest Receipt is a printed document with manuscript additions. SEE IMAGE for details on ALL NINE DOCUMENTS. The Tontine investment strategy was used by European governments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for raising money to fund wars and pay down debt. The principles of the Tontine were based on an arrangement wherein investors bought into a managed fund and received interest payments as long as they or their designated beneficiary remained alive. Not surprisingly, subscribers generally nominated younger persons as their beneficiary. Over time, as beneficiaries died and were eliminated from the group of dividend recipients, annual payments to surviving subscribers increased. The last surviving beneficiaries shared the entire remaining dividends, and upon their death the Tontine ended. The Tontine system was apparently conceived in 1653 by Lorenzo de Tonti (1630-1695), a financier and exiled Neapolitan banker living in France, and father of the renown French-Canadian fur traders and explorers Henri de Tonti (c1649-1704) and Alphonse de Tonti (c1659-1727). Tontines were particularly attractive to governments because they could raise large amounts of money without having to repay the principal. In November of 1692, Parliament initiated the first British Tontine (known as King Williams Tontine) by means of the Million Act, 1692 (see Item 1) with the aim of raising Ten Hundred Thousand Pounds (i.e., £1 million) to fund the ongoing war with France. Although the Million Act, 1692 did not identify the proposed investment strategy as a Tontine, it was modelled on the principles of a Tontine by inviting investors to purchase a life Annuity with group survivorship benefits from the Exchequer for £100 per share. Investors were offered an interest rate of 10% (or £10 per annum) until 1700 and 7% (or £7 per annum) thereafter. However, the Million Act, 1692 offer was not fully subscribed by the deadline of 1 May 1693, and prompted another call for subscriptions of £100 (or multiples thereof) at an elevated interest rate of 14% (or £14 per annum) as set out in a supplementary Act in 1693 (see Item 2). But the offer remained undersubscribed, and the terms were revised and enhanced by additional Acts issued in 1694 (see Item 3) and 1695 (see Item 4 and Item 5) to help the government achieve its goal of raising £1 million. Of the 22,352 beneficiaries, only 5 survived to 1755. By 1783 only one beneficiary remained: a lady from Wimbledon, nominated as a beneficiary at the age of 10, enjoyed a few yearly dividend payments of £1081 before she died at the age of 100 years. Tontine interest payments to beneficiaries were made through the offices of the Exchequer, and were accompanied by official Receipts that stated the original contribution amount and date of purchase, annual interest rate, payment period, and amount paid (see Item 6). The second Tontine of 1765 (see Item 7), under King George III, attempted to raise £1.5 million towards the Navy and victualling debt, but in combination with a lottery and with more options for payment of dividends. The Tontine Act, 1765 met with very limited success. The third and final Tontine was created in 1789 (see Item 8), also under King George III, with plans to raise just over £1.5 million towards general government revenue. Once again, it offered options for classification and payment of dividends. Although the Tontine Act, 1789 was never fully subscribed, it still managed to generate more than £1 million in revenue. In 1790, a Long Annuity option was offered to participants of the 1789 Tontine (see Item 9).
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