Volume II Part 16 (1/2)

There are now on deposit more than twelve million dollars; but I hope it will be reduced very fast next month. Had you not sent over the last ten million of bonds, we should have been able to close up very soon. I hope now that you will make another call of twenty million at least, because I think it would enable us to purchase more rapidly.

I annex: (1) Copy of declaration of trust.

(2) Copy of instructions for drawing checks.

(3) Copy of letter from Cas.h.i.+er of Bank of England, stating that the account would be considered personal.

(4) Copy of my letter to the Governor of the Bank, asking that your name might be joined.

(5) Copy of reply to last mentioned letter.

I am, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, (Signed) WILLIAM A. RICHARDSON.

When Cooke & Co. had completed their undertaking, the deposits in the Bank of England exceeded fifteen million dollars, and for three months they were for the most part unavailable, as the five-twenty bonds which had not matured under the calls that had been made were above par in the market. It was a condition of the loan that the five-twenty bonds redeemed should equal the 5 per cent bonds that had been issued, both issued to be reckoned at their par value.

In the month of April, 1872, the Commissioners who had been designated under the Treaty of Was.h.i.+ngton of 1871 to ascertain and determine the character and magnitude of the claims that had been preferred by the United States against Great Britain, growing out of the depredations committed by the ”Alabama” and her a.s.sociate cruisers, were about to meet at Geneva for the discharge of their duties.

The administration had appointed the Hon. J. C. Bancroft Davis, the most accomplished diplomatist of the country, as the agent of the United States, and the preparation of ”the Case of the United States”

was placed in his hands.

The British Ministry discovered--or they fancied that there was concealed in covert language--a claim for damages, known as ”consequential or indirect damages”--in other words, a claim to compensation for the value of American s.h.i.+pping that had been driven from the ocean and made worthless through fear of the cruisers that had been fitted out in British ports.

This claim, in the extreme form in which it had been presented by Mr.

Sumner, had been relinquished by the Administration, and a present reading of ”the Case of the United States” may not justify the construction that was put upon it by the British Ministry.

Nevertheless, the Administration received notice that Great Britain would not be represented at the Geneva Conference.

The subject was considered by the President and Cabinet on three consecutive days at called sessions. At the final meeting I handed a memorandum to the President, which he pa.s.sed to the Secretary of State. The memorandum was not read to the Cabinet.

Mr. Adams, the Commissioner for the United States, had not then left the country. By a despatch from the Secretary of State Mr. Adams was asked to meet me at the Parker House in Boston, on the second day after the day of the date of the despatch.

What occurred at the meeting may be best given through an extract from the diary of Mr. Adams, which has been placed in my hands by Mr.

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., with the privilege of its full and free use by me.

The first entry is under date of Sat.u.r.day, April 20, 1872, and is in these words: ”Charles brought me a telegram from Governor Fish, desiring me to meet Mr. Boutwell, who will be at the Parker House at eleven o'clock on Monday.” The second entry is under date of ”Monday, 22d of April.”

”At eleven o'clock called on Mr. Boutwell, the Secretary of the Treasury, at Parker's Hotel, according to agreement. Found him alone in his minute bedroom. He soon opened his subject--handed over to me a packet from Governor Fish, and said that it was the desire of the Government, it I could find it consistent with what they understood to be my views of the question of indirect damages, that I would make such intimation of them to persons of authority in London as might relieve them of the difficulty which had been occasioned by them. I told them of my conversation held with the Marquis of Ripon, in which I had a.s.sumed the heavy responsibility of a.s.suring him that the Government would not press them. I was glad now to find that I had not been mistaken. I should cheerfully do all in my power to confirm the impressions consistently with my own position.”

Thus, through Mr. Adams, the claim for ”indirect damages” was relinquished. When the fact of the disturbed relations between the United States and Great Britain became public there was a panic in the London stock market, and in the brief period of eight and forty hours our deposit of twelve million or more in the Bank of England was converted into five-twenty United States 6 per cent bonds, purchased at par.

In my annual report for December, 1872, I was able to make this statement:

”Since my last annual report the business of negotiating two hundred million of 5 per cent bonds, and the redemption of two hundred million 6 per cent five-twenty bonds has been completed and the accounts have been settled by the accounting officers of the Treasury.

”Further negotiations of 5 per cent bonds can now be made on the basis of the former negotiation.”

x.x.xVII GENERAL GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION

The greatness of General Grant in war, in civil affairs, and in personal qualities which at once excite our admiration and deserve our commendation, was not fully appreciated by the generation to which he belonged, nor can it be appreciated by the generations that can know of him only as his life and character may appear upon the written record. He had weaknesses, and of some of them I may speak; but they do not qualify in any essential manner his claim to greatness in the particulars named. He was not fortunate in the circ.u.mstances incident to the appointment of his Cabinet. The appointment of Mr. Washburne as Secretary of State for the brief period of one or two weeks was not a wise opening of the administration, if the arrangement was designed, and was a misfortune, if the brief term was due to events not antic.i.p.ated. The selection of Mr. Fish compensated, and more than compensated, for the errors which preceded his appointment. The country can never expect an administration of the affairs of the Department of State more worthy of approval and eulogy than the administration of Mr. Fish. Apparently we were then on the verge of war with Great Britain, and demands were made in very responsible quarters which offered no alternative but war. The treaty of 1871, which was the outcome of Mr. Fish's diplomacy, re-established our relations of friends.h.i.+p with Great Britain, and the treaty was then accepted as a step in the direction of general peace.

In the month of February, 1869, I received an invitation from General Grant to call upon him on an evening named and at an hour specified.

At the interview General Grant asked me to take the office of Secretary of the Interior. As reasons for declining the place, I said that my duties and position in the House were agreeable to me and that my services there might be as valuable to the Administration as my services in the Cabinet. General Grant then said that he intended to give a place to Ma.s.sachusetts, and it might be the Secretary of the Interior or the Attorney-Generals.h.i.+p. He then asked for my advice as to persons, and said that if he named an Attorney-General from Ma.s.sachusetts, he had in mind Governor Clifford, whom he had met.