member of the United States Senate in 1849 has openly proclaimed that at a recent period the Governor and Legislative assemblies of his own State deliberately issued fraudulent bonds for five million dollars to sustain the credit of a rickety bank, that the bonds in question having been hypothecated abroad to innocent holders, such holders have not only no claim against the community by whose Executive and Representatives this act was committed, but that they are to be taunted for appealing to the verdict of the civilized world, rather than to the judgment of the legal officers of the State by whose functionaries they have been robbed, and that the ruin of toil-worn men, of women and of children, and the crocodile tears which that ruin has occasioned, is a subject of jest on the part of those by whom it has been accomplished, and then let it be asked if any foreigner ever penned a libel on the American character equal to that against the people of Mississippi by their own Senator."*

Mr. Davis published a rejoinder, dated at Briarfield, Miss., August 29, 1849, addressed to the editor of the Mississippian. "It is a foreigner's slander," said he, "against the government, the judiciary, and the people of the Mississippi. It is an attack upon our republican government, the hypocritical cant of stock-jobbers and pensioned presses, - by the hired advocates of the innocent stock dealers of London change. It is a calumnious imputation."

The State of Mississippi had obtained the money in London on the solemn pledge of the faith of the State, and loaned it to the citizens; but the State had broken its pledge, repudiated the debt, and Mr. Jeff Davis eulogized the proceeding! The courts of the State decreed in 1842 that the debt was valid, and the decision was reaffirmed in 1853. Jeff Davis was then Secretary of War, and through his efforts and influence the State continued to repudiate the claims of the British bondholders. In 1863 Mississippi was indebted to Englishmen not only for the principal, $5,000,000, but for twenty-five years of unpaid interest; yet, notwithstanding this, the Times, eating its words of other days, came before the English people with a certificate of character for the repudiator, also publishing one from Slidell. "I am inclined to think," wrote Slidell," that the people in London confound Mr. Reuben Davis, whom I

*Times, July 13, 1849.

have always understood to have taken the lead on the question of repudiation, with President Jefferson Davis. I am not aware that the latter was ever identified with the question." The Times, commenting upon Slidell's letter, said :

"It is satisfactory to find that the friends of the President of the Confederate States are anxious to free him from the charge of having been an advocate of the repudiation which has now been practised for exactly a quarter of a century by the State of Mississippi. . . . .

....

"Should it turn out that there has been a mistake, the announcement will be hailed with warm gratification, not from any idle feeling of partisanship for the South, on the one hand, or the merely sordid consideration of the prospects of the bondholders on the other, but because there can be no question, whether his course be judged by Northerners or Southerners, that in his conduct of the existing war Mr. Jefferson Davis has displayed such qualities as to give the world an interest in wishing that the dishonorable classes who are to be found in every nation should not, either now or in the future, be able to point to him as an instance of the possibility of a heartless disregard of pecuniary rights being compatible with real greatness of character. It is to be apprehended, however, that the solution will not come in the manner contemplated. Nevertheless, in another way it is not out of reach, and the best probability is that the unhappy blot upon Mr. Davis's reputation was caused by the influence of an unscrupulous community upon a then young and aspiring politician, deriving his views, perhaps, from the sophistical perversions of fraudulent lawyers, and that he has since discovered his mistake, and learnt to feel and acknowledge that if he had again to act in the matter, it would be in a very different spirit." *

It was necessary, for the success of the loan, to show that the South was sure of obtaining its independence, and while the editor of the city article was whitewashing Jeff Davis, the editor in chief was assuring the public that the Union was forever broken up.

Thus wrote Mr. Delaine, the editor in chief, on the 19th:

"So far as it is concerned, the once United States are a mere heap of loose materials, a caldron of molten stuff, ready to receive whatever form fortune may determine. In that vast mêlée are two centres, which severally strive to give law and order to the whole. At

*Times, March 23, 1863.

Washington a body of men, not without courage, ability, and enterprise, are laboring, not to restore the Union, they might as well try to restore the Heptarchy, but to reconquer what has been lost, and, let the worst come to worst, to establish a military power."

On the 27th another leader was given to American affairs. Said the editor:

"As to the final issue of the war, all the world, except some politicians, soldiers, and contractors at Washington and New York, have made up their minds, . . . . excepting a few disappointed gentlemen of Republican tendencies, we all expect, we nearly all wish, success to the Confederate cause."

And again, on the 28th:

"There was room enough for two states on one continent, could the Americans but have believed it. We do not affect to be surprised at the course they have taken. It was natural that a blow should be struck for the Union; but all Europe has long seen that the Union could never be restored."

That men act from motives is a fundamental truth of moral philosophy. Why the Times gave such earnest advocacy to the slaveholders may be inferred from what follows. Opening now the correspondence of D'Erlanger with the Rebel Secretary of the Treasury, we read, under date of June 6, 1863 :

"A great margin had to be given to interest the newspapers, pay commissions, and captivate the opinions of those who treated the loan and its support as a question of profit and loss."

And further on, in the same letter:

"Thanks to great pecuniary sacrifices made, AND THE SUPPORT OF ALL THE NEWSPAPERS, the subscriptions for the loan surpassed our own expectations. It reached five times the amount of the loan, and success made everybody friends."

At a later date, J. Henry Schroeder & Co., in a note marked "private," writes to D'Erlanger :

"For the advertisements in the Times, through Mr. Sampson, and later on in the Index, concerning the payment of the coupons, we shall do the needful."

Thus we learn, from the statement of D'Erlanger, that the Times, upon which John Bull pins his faith, was not only by sympathy, but through interest, the advocate of the loan and

of the slave-lords' Confederacy. Its financial articles and its leaders were written to the order of D'Erlanger. By the aid of the Times, a Parisian Jew, taking advantage of the sympathy expressed for the South by lords, members of Parliament, bankers, business men, and adventurers, and of the general gullibility of the British public, was able to secure a subscription of forty-five million dollars, or thirty million in excess of the loan! On page 532 we have seen that the Liverpool correspondent of the Times had been quieted by a commission of £6,500 ($30,000), not for services rendered, but to secure his interest, as explained in D'Erlanger's letter to Memminger, written on the 8th of July, 1863. The banker says:

"When our loan contract was coming back from America, this gentleman [Mr. Spence] wanted to interfere in the matter, by all means, and claimed a partnership to the contract of one sixth, under the pretence that he was the financial agent of the Confederate government in England, and that our making the loan had put him out of business which he might otherwise have transacted for the South. We knew that Mr. Spence wrote frequently for the Times, that as a public writer he could do a great deal of harm if not any good. We succeeded in escaping his intrusion, and when I had made arrangements to bring out the loan in England, I followed his invitation to arrange matters with him in Liverpool, and went down there myself. I gave him £50,000 of the loan at seventy-seven, taking them back at ninety, which gave him a commission as profit of £6,500.”

These extracts from D'Erlanger's correspondence will serve to show the American people that the London Times was in the service and pay of Jeff Davis during the Rebellion.

On the evening of the 23d Lord Campbell called up the American question in Parliament, making a speech in favor of recognizing the Confederacy. He spoke of the remarkable success of the loan as a proof that the English public were ready to aid the South. The loan being thus bolstered up rose to four and a half per cent premium.

Mr. McRae having arrived in France, there was a meeting of distinguished Rebels in Paris on the 4th of June, at D'Erlanger's banking-house. Mason, Slidell, and L. J. C. Lamar,who had been purchasing supplies in London for the Confed eracy,

and McRae were present.

The object of the meet

ing was to consider the financial condition of the Confederate government in Europe. The indebtedness of the Confederacy abroad, for cannon, arms, ships, and supplies, at that time, was put down at £1,741,000 ($8,705,000). "At the same time," reads the correspondence, "Ermile d'Erlanger & Co. furnished the meeting with a full statement concerning the loan. According to which, £1,850,000 ($9,250,000) of the loan is in circulation; a part of which is full paid, having been subscribed for by the creditors of the government."

The balance of £1,150,000 was in the hands of D'Erlanger for disposal. In a letter written two days later, on the 6th, by D'Erlanger to Memminger, we learn how there happened to be so large an amount of the stock on hand. Unfavorable news

from America caused a feeling of uneasiness, and speculative holders began to sell at depreciated rates.

"An arrangement," says D'Erlanger, "was thereupon entered into with Mr. Mason, and heartily approved by Mr. Slidell, which enabled us to buy for the government £1,000,000 of the stock; but so eager was the speculation, that this did not suffice, and the sum had to be extended to £1,500,000. This operation had its effect, and better tidings helped the market.”

Upon this amount purchased by D'Erlanger to sustain the price of the loan, 35 per cent had been paid in by the subscribers.

"We would not," writes the banker, " have recommended the course of buying back part of the loan for the government, but for its peculiar character. The first Confederate loan was as much a political as a commercial transaction, and we have done everything that it may be regarded in both ways. . . . . We, as well as our friends Messrs. Schroeder, are happy to have been able to lend our names and credit to the first financial operation of the South."

On the 13th of June McRae wrote to D'Erlanger a sharp letter, charging him with "unauthorized proceedings." D'Erlanger was playing a good game for himself.

"These important modifications of the contract," wrote McRae, "have in every case inured to the benefit of the contractors."

D'Erlanger replied on the same day, saying, "The opera