comes Ingres, who first rose into fame by painting a ceiling in the Louvre, " the gods of Olympus." His reputation was based upon the remarkable correctness of his drawing, in which he was only surpassed by Delaroche. His coloring is without life: the perfection of his painting, the labor of five years is his Stratonice, purchased by the last duke of Orleans for 12,000 francs, and recently sold for 52,000. The Odalisque, in the collection of M. de Pourtales, is perhaps his best work, but his St. Symphosien, although it received nearly as much praise as the " Beheading of Lady Jane Grey," in the exhibition of 1832, is a failure. In this uninteresting scene from the life of a saint, Ingres has been mainly occupied in exhibiting his power of foreshortening, and has painted a Roman proconsul on horseback, at the moment when he is pointing his finger at the spectator; so that the finger is foreshortened from its point back. In this lies its " main attraction," as the work caused by the drawing of this, prevents critical attention to the rest of the picture.
Color is the weak point of Ingres; it has no warmth. Like our German Overbeck, he believes that Raphael's second manner is the best and only school for the painter, but in coloring he remains far, far behind his master. Delaroche learned this peculiarity from his master, and then began to choose from various tints, preferring for his portraits a violet, as in Sontag's portrait, as Donna Anna in Don Juan, and at last nearing the perfections of Raphael's third and last manner, the manner in which the For narina, Pope Julius II., and the Transfiguration are painted.
As draughtsmen, all other noted artists of the French school come behind Vernet, Delaroche and Ingres; but, as colorists, come three names, Eugene Delacroix, Decamps and Roqueplan, and throw all others into the shade. The first, by a delicious blending of color, and by the wildness of his fancy, won the hearts of many writers on art; for instance, that critic so full of gall and mockery, Theophile Gautier, who, with some others, had formed an art coterie for the purpose of destroying Delaroche and deifying Delacroix. Delacroix has produced some superb works, as for instance, " the Women of Algiers," but he would soon be recog-
nized at his true value, were it not for the flourish of trumpets kept up by the art-clique above mentioned.
Shut out from this confederation, living still and alone in his fourth story, where the unfortunate duke of Orleans frequently visited him, almost without an idea of what correct drawing is, Decamps has produced the rarest and most various works of art, and has entirely surpassed all his companions in coloring. His "Coming Home from School in Cairo:" his "Battle of the Cimbri:" his " Dog and Ape pieces," on the Boulevard du Temple, are perfect master-pieces—in all lies a power, a vitality, a reality which completely captivates the spectator. The commonest man stands before his pictures in the window of a shop whether they represent a Savoyard with his organ, or a spring in an Egyptian wood. All the productions of his pencil have a magical, inexplicable attraction.
Camille Eoqueplan is far from the greatest of these artists, but as colorist and tasteful painter of pleasant, though unimportant, life pieces—as Rousseau, the two ladies crossing a brook on their asses, and such scenes, he has won a deserved reputation.
Eugene Isabey, Bellanger, Gudin and other great men of the French school, need no mention here: they are known and prized in Germany: but I must record one name of German origin in proof of the creative art of the Germans, and because he is full of poetry—this name is Ary Sheffer; Goethe's Margaret returning from the well, and countless pictures of like nature have insured him a great and well merited celebrity.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CLOSING SCENES AND RESULTS OF MY DELIVERY OF ARMS.
A secret canker at work—The undermining of my prosperity by the puerilities of those engaged with me in the business—Loss of an important suit in the Tribunal of Commerce at Paris—I grasp at a straw—The scheme for the conversion of the Roman 5 per cent. Rentes takes me to Rome— My visit to Italy, after an absence of 38 years—Florence—Rome—The aged Duchess Torlonia—Chiaveri, her son by her first marriage—The Tyrolese Stolz, Secretary of the Papal Treasurer, Monsignor Tosti—My chance-meeting with Ouvrard, in the Villa Borghese—My return to France, by way of Leghorn, my birthplace—Another meeting, of an unusual kind, with an old friend—The beauty of the Villa Pandolfini—Disconsolate circumstances and prospects—Lack of profitable business in Paris.
1 had been ordered by the government to procure 400,000 stand of arms, viz., 50,000 old at 28 francs, and 350,000 new at 32 francs. Early in 1833,1 saw that it was impossible to supply all, and I thought myself lucky when one of my assistants obtained from St. Quentin & Co., Paris, a contract to furnish 100,000 muskets, for 50,000 francs. There was no difficulty in substituting these gentlemen, at least from the war ministry ; but the sharper who had arranged the affair, and who had gotten possession of the certificate of substitution, managed by some means to get and appropriate to himself 30,000 francs out of the stipulated sum. The worthless fellow kept clear of me for some time. At the ministry of war I learned that they had given him the certificate, and from St. Quentin, that on this certificate they had paid him 30,000 francs on account; that he had not demanded the other 20,000, which were now at my disposal. When I asked with wonder how they could pay him such a sum without authority, I was told that he was my partner in the business. I might have answered St. Quentin—what would have led to a lawsuit and
been published all over Paris—that my associate was an infernal scoundrel. The consequences of such publicity would be the end of my business, as any contractor, whose affairs get into court, is at once shut out from all futher contracts, and if he have one at the time, it is considered as ended. I had already learned that, in France, any associate in such a contract is free to sell a share of it without consulting the original contractor, and the purchaser, entering into all the rights of his predecessor, can institute an examination of the state of affairs at any moment. I had never thought of the possible introduction of third and fourth parties into a business which required so much secrecy. I found myself surrounded by rogues, who used me at their will, sucking at my purse like leeches, and threatening me with legal procedures, and who brought me at last to the resolve to shrink from nothing that would rid me of them at once and forever. The weight of all this can scarcely be made comprehensible to the reader; he will remember, however, that I had a contract for sabres. Induced by Daly's recommendation, I had given the superintendence of the
fabrication of sabres to O , already named. He showed me
contracts, which I could not guess, as I afterwards discovered, were made with men who had failed, who had neither material, tools, workmen, nor so much as an empty workshop. I made advances upon these contracts, and before I went to Marseilles to close the concern there and bring my family back to Paris, those advances had amounted to 63,000 francs. Immediately on my
return, I asked for O 's accounts, and received empty words.
Not a sabre could he show me, but he was abundant in excuses for the delay. At last, though too late, in order to get at the bottom of this swindle, I went to the workshop, Faubourg du Temple, found the porter, had it opened, and saw an empty room, in which no man had either lived or worked for at least a year.
At the same time I heard that O was to be found about the
restaurants, on the Boulevard des Italiens, where he spared no expense in giving superb dinners and suppers. Originally of good family in Marseilles, his tendency to dishonesty drove him early to Paris, where he soon became an accomplished member of the society of swindlers there. He had nothing; had had nothing
for years. I only succeeded in annulling our agreement by giving him a receipt for the 63,000 francs, and promising not to expose him.
It will do no good to draw the reader through the labyrinth of
embarrassments created for me by this man's comrade G .
It is useless to recall the torture of my troublous days; the anguish of my sleepless nights. Suffice it to say that those days in Paris, which seemed so calm and bright, but really full of secret cancers, were the most unfortunate of my existence. Up to April, 1834, I had no hope of getting over my difficulties, as I had so often done before—but every lapsing minute seemed bringing me nearer to beggary. The only chance I had lay in a draft for 150,000 francs, drawn by the Carlist Junta in Paris upon the bishop of Oviedo, head of the Carlist ministry in London, and
accepted by him. This draft had been given to G by the
Junta in payment of several supplies, and had at last been gotten
hold of by my clerk P , who, thoroughly instructed about
G 's rogueries and cheatings, followed him with jealous vigilance, and at last recovered thus much of my fortune. The draft I delivered to Andre and Cottier. The Junta soon saw what a sharper they had in G , whom they had appointed Commissary-General, and thoroughly trusted. They demanded the
draft! G could not of course return it. A suit, commenced
against me as holder, in the Paris Chamber of Commerce, was decided in favor of the President of the Junta, not only on the
ground—that I had given no value, and that G had received
it on account and must remain my debtor for it—but also that G , in all this business of supply, was notoriously my partner, and that the transfer of the draft from one partner to the credit of another was certainly illegal. This decision overlooks two important points: The one,—that I had dearly purchased a
complete separation from G , years before; and second,—that
the draft came into my possession not directly through G 's
endorsement, bnt through a third person. A letter from G
confessing his swindling, and saying that he would be unhappy for life if he should not be able to pay most of his debt to me, did not help me. The court had decided, and I lost the suit.
While still in doubt which way to turn, a straw presented itself to me, and like a drowning man I clutched it, vainly hoping that *t might save me. An old legitimist, apparently highly honorable, the Count V , who had spent most of his life in Rome, was
now in Paris, for the purpose of inducing the bankers to make a common operation, with a view of changing the debt of the Papal States from 5 into 3 per cents, which appeared easy enough, because of the high price of the 5 per cents, viz., 102 to 104 francs. This was the measure of Monsignor, now Cardinal Tosti, Papal
Treasurer. Count V , had heard of me in Paris, as a man of
business, where my arm contracts had gained me some reputation, and came to see me. After setting before me the whole condition of affairs in Rome, showing me his papers and correspondence, and removing all doubt as to Monsignor Tosti's concern in the matter, he came to the feasibility of the projected conversion, and induced me to lay the matter before Andre & Cottier. The Parisian bankers were, at this time, in peculiar relationship with the Rothschilds. The enormous power possessed by these bankers, not only with the French government but with foreign States, had caused much annoyance to the other great financiers, and six of them determined to unite, and attempt a rivalry with the Rothschilds. These were Jon. Hagerman, Andre & Cottier, B. A. Fould & Openheim, J. A. Blanc, Colin & Co., Gabriel Odier & Co., and Wells & Co. In the loan asked by the Sardinian^ government, on the plan of the Paris city lottery, these six had gotten the affair out of the hands of the Rothschilds. Hagerman had been very influential in this matter, from the fact of having established the greatest banking house in Genoa; besides being very intimate with Caccia, the Sardinian minister, and his brother the banker, in Paris. The latter lacked means and influence to carry out his brother's measure, and thus it got into the hands of Hagerman. The Rothschilds, who had forgotten how to suffer rivalry, found this blow strong enough to arouse their ven-' geance, and they resolved to make it as costly as possible. They procured a fall upon Parisian government paper, which brought down the Sardinian lower than the price contracted for. This shook the confederation of six; but Andre & Cottier saw so clear
an advantage in the proposed Papal oonversion, that after mature deliberation of the league, they resolved to send me to negotiate with the Roman Treasury, and to promise the conversion at 70. I had no written instructions, and, if I came to no result, must pay my own travelling expenses. These terms were rather hard, "but as I had no choice, I determined to go. Without full power to treat for these six firms, I was yet obliged to make something of a figure among people who knew nothing of me. Two things helped me. My good friend Lestapis, who had quitted the Hope firm, and lived in Paris, would give me a letter of credit for an important sum on Torlonia & Co.—a sum not to be used, however—and the old Duchess Torlonia, who had had a notorious penchant for my father, still lived in Rome. This was all that was necessary for a respectable position in Rome. It was towards the end of November that I set out for the land of my birth, which I had last seen in 1797. Seven and thirty years had gone since I had looked on the world with sanguine feelings, hopes, and expectations; a term of years that had been over-filled with manhood's bitterest experiences. Retrospection was not without its clouds; and, looking forward into the future, all was gloomy.
I went by Geneva and the Simplon to Milan; thence, b\ Bologna, to Florence. I could not repress my emotions, when, from the heights of the Appenines to Pietramala, the Val d'Arno was seen, with Florence in its bosom. Scarcely arrived, I hastened from the Porta Imperiale out towards the grand ducal summer-palace Poggio Imperiale; then, to the left hand, through the vineyards, towards the village of San Leonardo and the villa Pan-dolfini. Alone I went, skirting the vineyards, to the door of the villa, which was opened to me by an old peasant woman. I did not know her, but she expressed her willingness to show me the house, and was not a little surprised to find me quite at home throughout it. Tables and chairs were those of thirty-seven years ago; no trace of change was there, but also, no trace of those who once had dwelt there. Then I asked for the inhabitants
of the next villa, S , where my young beauty had resided.
All gone, or dead—only the old gardener-m alive. I went to see her: and after a while, hearing me speak of everybody, she
remembered me. " And your young lady, la Signora Caterina,
dove si trova, where is she V " Married, and living in Leghorn."
I returned to the city. Early next morning the post brought
me letters; one from Rome, in an unknown hand. It was from
the factotum of Count V , who had preceded me to Rome, and
had announced to Cardinal Tosti the approach of an ambassador from the bankers of Paris. The letter said, that soon after his return from Paris, the Count died, but that his death would make no difference in this matter: that the way was open for me, and that I would find it easy to bring matters at once to a close. I immediately left Florence, and on my arrival at Rome went at once to the house of Torlonia & Co., and presented my letter of credit to a gentleman named Chiaveri, who was pointed out to me as one of the firm. This was one of the old Duchess Torlo-nia's sons by her first marriage. He read my letter of credit and introduction attentively, and asked me if I were from Leghorn, and of the family of the former head of the Otto-Frank house, Signor Enrico Nolte. I said yes, I was his son. He then said, that his mother, now eighty years of age, remembered my father very affectionately, and would receive me with much pleasure; he would himself ask permission to introduce me. M. Chiaveri had a terrific squint. The rays of light crossed the point of his nose so exactly that a fly could not have sate thereon. The English in Rome, most of whom had credits with Torlonia, told this anecdote of him. They used to complain of his customary charge of a scudo for postage on every letter, large or small, which they were obliged to use in these credits; but they paid it in order to get invited to the splendid balls and parties of the Torlonias. An Englishman, not to be found there, was looked upon as nobody. The unfortunate Queen Caroline, of England, when there, had ordered her secretary and treasurer, Sir William Gell, to draw some money. He wrote the draft in English, and in the
usual form—" Pay to or bearer." For want of a better
word, he used the meaningless one, " Squintum" and sent the draft by a Yorkshire servitor to be cashed. When Chiaveri had read the draft, he looked at the man, as if to identify him, and asked, '' Are you Squintum V The poor fellow, amazed at the cross-fire
17*
of those most crooked eyes, replied " No, sir, 'tis more likely you should be the man."
From Torlonia's I went to look up the bosom friend of Count V , and soon succeeded in finding him. He was a French legitimist, long resident in Rome: his name I have forgotten ; but one of the first things he said was, that it was well that it had pleased Heaven to take away the count, who was a great talker, but worth little in action ; that he knew nothing of business, and yet would have expected a share in this. I soon discovered that the speaker was quite as ignorant of finance as the count could have been. He desired, meanwhile, to introduce me to Mr. Stolz, a Tyrolean, and private secretary to Monsignor Tosti. As this visit would not take place until the next day, I had time to visit Rome's greatest wonder—one of the greatest on earth—St. Peter's church. I was, like most other travellers, at first deceived, almost disappointed—my ideas of its size were so much vaster than it now appeared. At first, as I have said, it is impossible to grasp the true grandeur of this masterpiece of architecture. It is only when you reach one of the semicircular colonnades, that enclose the space before the church, and see the willows sixty feet in height, and begin to compare heights, that you at all comprehend the immensity of the pile, wherein, for many centuries, artists and laics have met from many lands to wonder, and countless troops of pilgrims come to pray.
In Napoleon's Museum, at Paris, thirty years ago, I had become acquainted with other chefs-d'oeuvre of art. Laocoon, Apollo Belvidere, the Gladiator, Raphael's transfiguration, and many others. And yet, to use Meinan's words (in Kotzebue's Men-schenhass und Meue, when he bewails his days of misfortune), " Welcome, old friends, 'tis long since we have met." Four and twenty years had elapsed since I last saw them, and now, what gave me greatest pleasure was, to see them standing there, on the old classic ground, beneath the blue Roman sky, and not afar as trophies of the conqueror.
I found in M. Stolz a very intelligent, well-educated young man, who promised the fixing of an hour for the business that had called me to Rome. I here set before him all the calculations and
combinations which I had made in Paris for the conversion, all of which he quickly comprehended. Then came the question, what guaranty would the Holy See have for the fulfilment of a treaty made with me 1 I could only say, " The names of the United Paris bankers." And as I was not yet at liberty to mention those names, I added, "These names will no longer remain a secret after the settlement of the contract; and if you are not content, I will be the first to strike a pen through it." I let fall a word about being known at Torlonia's, and M. Stolz was quieted. The reader will understand my position. I had no mission or commission to come to Rome ; it was simply a visit at my own risk and cost, and from it might possibly result my being reestablished in Paris, in that position which I had held so long, and from which I had been ousted by my involuntary and perilous relation with a brace of scoundrels. The bankers of Paris would be quite ready to pick up the fallen fruit, if I should make my voyage successful; and it is also clear, that I could have taken no part in a treaty with the Papal treasury without their definitive sanction. M. Cottier's word for this sanction was, however, enough to induce me to do all I could.
Some days elapsed before M. Stolz was sufficiently instructed about the basis of the conversion, and the means of payment, to lay it before his superior, Monsignor Tosti. At last he succeeded, and told me that the prelate would soon appoint a day to hear me, and give me his decision. I should have enjoyed my leisure in gratifying my love for art, had I been able to forget my own situation, and the uncertainty of my future. But this thought overpowered my tastes, and all I could do was to keep it to my-self, /aire bonne mine a mauvais jeu.
In one of my morning walks through the lordly villa Borghese, 1 fell suddenly upon M. Ouvrard, whom I had last seen five years before (1830) in great prosperity in Paris. The source of this prosperity was, that he knew of the Polignac Ordinances eight days before they were published. As soon as he felt sure of it he made an arrangement with some Paris bankers and exchange agents, and hastened to London. Here he sold so much French state paper, at constantly falling prices, that the house of Roths-
child, astonished, sought its cause from the first merchants, and for the same purpose sent a courier to Paris. All in vain. Baron James Rothschild, who, a few months before, had negotiated the last governmental loan, by the emission of a 4 per cent, stock, at 102 frances 7 cents, betook himself, on Saturday evening, to Prince Polignac, and asked for light. The possibility of the Ordinance was an exchange rumor, but very uncertain; and when the Baron James left the prince, he did not conceal that the latter had given him his word of honor, that the measure was a mere project, never seriously contemplated, and still but a chimera. But the next day (Sunday, 25th) Charles X. signed the Ordinances, and they were published in the Moniteur on Monday. The whole loan of francs, 78,373,750, lay in the hands of the Rothschilds. Ouvrard had, at another time, won a large sum, variously estimated, but which his exchange agent, Arnet, who was also mine, set down at 2,000,000 francs. As soon as he heard of this fortunate combination he returned to London, and leased a whole floor behind the Exchange, near the Hotel de Tours, and furnished it with the utmost luxury. Here exchange agents were left in the antechamber, and directions given to chosen ones, in his private room, for the daily operation in the Exchange. His operations were always & baisse; and as the stock, even after Cassimir Perrier's entry into office, fell to 52, and even, in February, 1831, to 48 francs, his extraordinary gains may be imagined—that is, partially, for no one could exactly measure the extraordinary extent of his operations. Since that time I lost sight of him, and heard that his enormous gains had gone to his step-son, Blanchard ; and now I met him in the villa Borghese, dressed neatly, but somewhat poorly, and, as I afterwards learned, in great embarrassment. He told me that the affairs of his friend, the wife of Godoy, once Prince of Peace, had drawn him to Rome. He had probably been offered a home by this lady. My feelings may be guessed, as I thought, that I too might be obliged, by my cross fate, to seek a home with somebody; for I saw this man, who at one time, by his mighty and well-practised talent, had more influence in Spanish finance than Godoy himself, who had had 100 tons of
gold at his disposal, a poor old man, but still, in appearance, unbent.
After I had seen and spoken to M. Tosti, my negotiation appeared drawing to a close. Unbroken silence was promised on both sides, but discretion is a rare virtue with papal officers. Something had gotten out about the object of my voyage to Rome, and something was known through the agents whom the Rothschilds kept in their pay in most courts. It was not strange, then, that their house in Naples should get wind of it and send one of their younger partners to Rome. As soon as he learned what had occurred, and the real position of affairs, he produced the original contract of a loan made by his house with Torlonia's at 5 per cent., which contained a, till then, secret clause, binding the Pontifical government to close with no other house without informing the Rothschilds, and then to give them the preference. This earlier loan was made before Monsignor Tosti was in the Finance Department and he was quite ignorant of it. This discovery placed me in the position of one who after ploughing and sowing a field, and seeing the harvest almost ripened, beholds another come and reap the crop. It was then determined to arrange the Conversion, and leave it with the Rothschilds and my confederation in Paris. It was evident that if the affair were a good one, all of these gentlemen could see it, and that the confederates would not be willing to have it taken from them. They notified the Rothschilds that their opposition would throw difficulties in the way of future transactions, from which resulted that nothing better could be done than to have a friendly understanding and participation in all future loans. The result w r as a mutual understanding.
This ended my sojourn in Rome. I then went by Civita Cas-tellana, Spoletto, Perugia, and Florence, to my birth-place, Leghorn, which I had not seen for eight-and-thirty years, but where I met my brother Henry, who lived in the pleasantest relations with Webb; a book-keeper of the former house of Otto Frank, now ninety years old; the Englishman, Betts, and finally, my beauty of the villa, Pandolfini, now married the second time, and Wearing false hair and teeth. Betts, who had for some time been
blind, recognized my voice and called me by name: but the lady, nearly sixty, had studied certain attitudes so as to introduce more effect into her meeting with her youthful adorer; who now, fifty-five years old, was somewhat embarrassed at the sight of the change produced in her by a lapse of forty years. However, both did pretty well, and she showed me a locket containing two braids of hair of different colors. " Guess," she said, with as loving a look as sixty years can give, " where this hair comes from. One braid is my first husband's hair: the other, you must know, is yours." " And did you wear this locket on your neck on your wedding-day'?" I asked, with amazement. " Certainly," was the answer. " My first marriage was notoriously a marriage de convenances At this moment, a young man of some five-and-twenty came forward. " But this second," said I, " is, I suppose, a love match." She pressed his hand and said, " Undoubtedly." The lady was a rich widow, the husband a Swiss, with strong calves to his legs, and little money in his purse. How far the " love " of this match was reciprocal, I did not inquire. Probably both saw good reasons for the marriage, and were satisfied.
After a three weeks' visit at Leghorn, I went to Genoa. On the steamer were the former King of Westphalia; the present Prince Jerome, and his niece, Countess Camerata, from Bologna, daughter of Princess Eliza Bacciocchi, Napoleon's sister. The Countess was a great lump of flesh, with her uncle's face, only stupefied. Jerome appeared to me exactly as the history of 1814 has described him, a man whose personal insignificance rendered the dignity he desired naturally impossible. In Genoa, I learned from the popular Galignani's Messenger, the sudden death, sad to every philanthropist, of the most promising prince of his time, the Duke of Orleans. I cannot describe my feelings of sorrow, for I knew, as though I had been a Frenchman, what France had lost, as a man, what mankind had lost, and what the future peace of Europe would suffer by this death. I felt in the same way, when in the hall of the Travellers' Club, Pall-Mall, London, I received the news of Canning's death, while expecting to hear that he was better. Every one felt that mankind had lost a friend, and every face was saddened by the news. Four lines from the
"Morning Chronicle" show the public esteem for the extraordinary man who had preceded Sir Robert Peel in his politics, by twenty years. The lines are these:
" What could we hope in other years, If the longest life had crowned him? But thus to die, with a nation's tears, And a world's applause around him."
From Genoa I passed through Milan, Geneva, and Lyons, to Fontainbleau, whither my wife and children had come to meet me, and where, two days after our meeting, the sudden death of my youngest son filled up the measure of my sorrows. In Lyons I had heard of the reunion of the Rothschilds with the six bankers, and I now set out for Paris, almost penniless, without employment, without any views for the future. With the dead body of our son, we rode through the night to Paris. The funeral over, I took rooms for a few weeks in the country, till my wife could make arrangements to quit our present house, lease cheaper apartments, and narrow her ideas of housekeeping. In these gloomy circumstances, it was no little comfort to find some immediate employment. If old business relations had given a right to friendship, yet my army contract business had separated me from my old acquaintances, and I had, literally, no one to whom I could turn. In this necessity, my friend Delaroche came to see me, and mentioned the transactions of the business of the " Nu mismatic Treasury," as a probable means of gaining my bread.
Of this, the next chapter will enlighten the reader.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE INVENTION OF N. COLLAS AND ITS APPLICATION—
The Company of the " Trevor de Numismatique et de Glyptique"—Its first success at Paris—Effort to extend it in England—Journey to London—Visit to the Cabinet of Medals, in the British Museum—Mr. E. Hawkins, the ■warden—Combination of his project for a numismatic history of Great Britain with my scheme—Attempted conclusion of an arrangement with the Trustees of the museum, in consequence of an understanding with the bookseller Tilt—His petition to the House of Commons, praying parliamentary aid in support of our project—The subject transferred to the Commons' Committee on the British Museum—Hearing of witnesses by the committee —Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor—Characteristic anecdotes of that artist—Unworthy opposition to my plan by the painter Brockedon, in combination with W. Wyon, the coin engraver, and others, in favor of the mathematical instrument-maker, Bates—The committee arrive at no definite conclusion, and allow the examination of witnesses to drag on—Uninterrupted efforts on my part with the Trustees of the museum to gain my point—The nature of my propositions meets with a very satisfactory reception on their part, and they carry the cost of executing my plan into their budget—A deficit of 2,000,000 pounds sterling, in the general national Budget, compels the B>oyal High Chancellor to put his veto on this new appropriation.
A mechanic of great inventive talent, by name Nicholas Collas, of Paris, was ordered, just after the Revolution of 1830, by a copper-plate engraver, in Ghent, to make a machine, already known in England and America, for ruling or stippling straight or curved lines on steel and copper plates. This, together with a recollection of Collard's machine for stippling dial-plates, watch-cases, snuff-boxes, &c., called " tour a guillocher," a full drawing of whicfc will be found in Bergeron's Manuel des Tourneurs, 1816, put it into his head to invent a process by which medals, bas-reliefs, intaglios, etc., might be engraved, for printing on steel or
copper. After five tedious months, Collas produced his first engraving in 1831. This product only proved the possibility of the project. The rest of the year and part of the next passed in studying to perfect the machine. At last, in autumn, 1832, he produced some copper-plate engravings, which amazed every one by their correctness and their almost palpable relief. It amazed Delaroche and myself. We had to touch the paper and look at the back of it to convince ourselves that it was not embossed. When the machine was perfected and its results evident, it struck Delaroche and myself that it might be used for artistic and scientific purposes, to give to the public some knowledge of certain private treasures, as cabinets of medals, which are usually hidden in colleges, and which might be thus cheaply exhibited to the world. At last, in connection with M. Lachevardiere—a clever man of artistic spirit and knowledge, who had first made the French acquainted with the Penny Magazine by his Magasin Pittoresque—we organized a society of shareholders, to whom Mr. Collas not only sold his patents, but took the oversight and direction of the machines. A share of the Magasin Pittoresque, at first but 500 francs, rose the second year to 1500 francs. Our society was called " Tresor de Numismatique et de Glyptique;" its capital, 50,000 francs, was divided into fifty shares, of 1000 each, whereof I took fifty, Delaroche, Lachevardiere, and their friends, taking the rest. A year passed in copying the rarest medals, bas-reliefs, intaglios, etc. Toward the close of 1833 appeared some numbers of the publication, at the low price of 5 francs for five folio sheets, with texts from the most learned in France in numismatic and glyptic matters. The government was asked for support, and, on the report of a person named to investigate the matter, such support was promised. The Minister of the Interior subscribed for 100 copies. His Majesty, Louis Philippe, always a friend and patron of art; the dukes of Orleans and Nemours; all the princesses ; the Minister of Public Instruction ; the Chamber of Peers ; the Royal Cabinet of medals and antiques; the Directors of the mint; indeed, all who were known as patrons of art, not only in France but in Germany and Holland, were down upon th* list of subscribers. In England
only was it received with indifference and but little known. The newness of the copper-plate had excited attention, but the actual service of the work seemed to the British Art-world only a proof of the progress of the graver. It is not to be gainsayed that, for correctness and cheapness, this work would have been of the greatest use, and would have been very popular too, if numismatic or glyptic studies were more common among the practical people of Great Britain. But only by the clear art-spirit of a capital like Paris, the home of intelligence and feeling for art, and by the artistic knowledge of Germany, her only central point and home of unity, could this invention take its proper rank among useful arts. Nothing would put back a discovery like the electric telegraph, which appeals to all; but a true artist-spirit and appreciation of a discovery connected with art alone, exist only in France and Germany. I have seen the truth of this remark proved in later years; but it now appeared to us that the luke-warmness of the British public toward our work, could only be attributed to the want of knowledge of its existence, and to the laziness of the French booksellers in London. I told Delaroche that an agent to bring it before the upper classes in England could not fail. Lord Francis Egerton, now Earl of Ellesmere, had seen the first number at Delaroche's, had been greatly struck with it, and had not only subscribed, but had promised it his patronage. This appeared to me to be an English port wherein our bark could find good anchorage, and our work be widely scattered through the country. I, therefore, determined, as my mite toward the undertaking, to go to England; for, look where I would, I found nothing else that offered me the means of livelihood. I took a letter of introduction from Delaroche to Lord Egerton, and left Paris with twenty pounds in my pocket.
One of my first visits in London was to the coin and medal-cabinet of the British Museum, which contains some 90,000 specimens. Then I learned there was a perfect collection of all medals struck in honor of the men, or in illustration of the history, of the country, and that the dies were broken. The idea struck me to get up a medallion history of England, and to make use of the 3000 specimens in the miseum therefor* The proper person
to be addressed was Mr. Edward Hawkins, overseer of the Cabi net of Medals, a man whose reputation for uprightness was no less than for talent and learning, in which he took first rank, and who for many years had been engaged upon a work of this kind. I was introduced to him, and was lucky enough to gain his good will. He had examined with visible pleasure the proofs of our machine, and now hoped for the first time that his work might be finished, so long delayed by the enormous cost of engraving the medals upon copper or steel.
After the groundwork of the work was settled upon, the next thing needed was a publisher. But the London booksellers whom I knew—Murray, Byron's publisher: Longman, Rees, Brown & Co.; Pickering and others, would not listen to me. The difficulty of the project was the first objection ; the indifference of the British public to works of this nature, the second. I now presented my letter of introduction to Lord Egerton; he took it and promised his help to my undertaking, towards which he gave me a particular letter of recommendation to his friend, the Earl of Aberdeen, an important member of British Museum Committee on Antiques. The cabinet of medals was in this department.
I had heard much of Lord Aberdeen. One of my friends who had often met him, described him as the haughtiest and most reserved of all tories, from whom I might scarcely expect a polite word. I determined to send my letter to his residence, Argyle House, with a request that he would name a day and hour to receive me. A polite note gave the information, and I called upon him. I found a cold, serious, but yet gentle man, who gave me a chair in a very courtly way, and inquired in what he could serve me. I stated my project as briskly and clearly as possible, the only way with the practical business-like Englishman, and found it received even with a sort of warmth. He promised a couple of letters to other members of the Museum Committee, and said that he would give me all possible aid. When I received these letters, I found a couple of lines from Lord Aberdeen, very pressing lines, to Lord Ashburton, who was an important member of the Committee. On the visit which I paid to this old friend and patron, I did not send up my name, but told the servant to
announce a gentleman who brought a letter of introduction from Lord Aberdeen. At my entrance he was doubly astonished, first to see me, and then to learn my business, so widely different from that in which we had been engaged together. He heard the story of my last five years, and promised to do what he could for my project when it should come before the committee. Once assured of the help of the Museum Committee, it became an easier matter to find a publisher for a Medal History of England I found Charles Tilt already well known for the beauty of his art publications. The plan was laid before the Trustees, who through pure ignorance of what it all meant, laid it for the time aside. Fortunately for me, there was a daily committee of the House of Commons busied with an examination into the affairs of the Museum, and when the Trustees' decision was made known, it was hinted to me that I would do far better with the Parliamentary Committee. This could only be done by petition to the House, and Mr. Tilt willingly sent in such petition, craving an examination into the whole thing. As luck would have it, I had many acquaintances among the members, and I spared no trouble in seeking them out, and trying to interest them in my scheme. At last my desires were fulfilled, but a rew difficulty arose. Many of the members of the Committee heU that they had no right to do anything with the petition. Even Mr. Hawkins thought it probable that they would not touch it. But several of them interested themselves for me; as B. Hawes, W. B. Baring (now Lord Ashburton) Thomas Thornely, and Lord Stanley, now Earl of Derby, to whom I was presented by my friend Adam Hodgson of Liverpool, who had married one of his cousins. I labored with these gentlemen, until we obtained a resolution to examine this new method of engraving. Mr. Hawkins could scarcely believe his eyes when he received a request to present himself before the committee on June 14, 1836. Sir Erancis Chantrey, to whom Lord Egerton had introduced me, came also and warmly promoted my cause.
It is well known, that since the Greeks and Romans, none have reached such excellence in portrait sculpture, busts, as Chantrey, and, since his death, no one has taken his place. He knew his
countrymen well, and that in painting and sculpture they particularly encouraged the portrait. " 'T is the most money-making part of my business," he said to me once, as I wondered that the sculptor of the Children in Litchfield Cathedral, could stick to bust-making, which required no inspiration. He said he could not live by his chisel without it. He was a farmer's son, and had studied painting in his youth, but with no great success. At a family feast, where his mother wished to regale her guests with a pasty, he conceived the idea of moulding a hen in dough, and putting it on the top of the pasty. This hen was his golden egg-laying goose, for it commenced that fortune which grew before his death to £15,000 per annum. The fowl was so exquisitely natural, that the. fame of it spread far and wide, and Chantrey, after several other attempts, recognized his proper vocation to be that of a sculptor, and went to London. Here he earned a poor livelihood by portrait painting, and at last saved enough to procure a little sculptor's studio. He then went to the celebrated Home Tooke, who had broken a stout lance with Junius, and had been prosecuted by Pitt as a demagogue and public disturber, and obtained from him several sittings. When the bust was finished, Chantrey had not money enough to cast it in plaster; but he got it at last, and took the bust to the sculptor Nollekens, at time at the head of the art world in London. He was too late, how ever, for the exhibition. Though a man of cool phlegmatic temperament, Chantrey was " cruelly disappointed." " Let us see what you have here," said Nollekens, and Chantrey uncovered the bust. At the first glance, Nollekens started with amazement. " What!" he cried, " is that your first work V Scarcely had Chantrey said yes, when he added, " Well, it is too perfect to be kept from the public," and though the exhibition was full, Nollekens took back one of his own works, and placed the ticket upon Tooke's bust and the best in the exhibition. The consequences were unexampled, but well merited. I have seen it fifty times, and always with fresh pleasure; for it bore the unmistakable stamp of Truth, and to all who had seen Tooke or not, it appeared like a living being, who would answer if addressed. Before the forty days of exhibition were over, Chantrey told me he had received orders
for £5,000 worth of busts. His reputation and his fortune were made. The plaster gallery of his busts, in his own studio, can not be looked upon without astonishment. The life-likeness which was the great merit of Tooke's bust, is found in all, and all exhibit the character as well as the physical appearance of the originals. Chantrey surpassed the great Sir Joshua, as well as Lawrence, and all other English portrait takers, in presenting the exact likeness of the sitter, and his peculiar method of modelling a head was the best proof of his cleverness as artist. He did not keep his sitter in one position; but after a short study of his head, features, and manner, he allowed him to move about and converse naturally. One day in his gallery of busts, he asked me if I would like to see his two finest heads, and to my affirmative reply, he said, " Here they are!" pointing to George IV., and the Marquis of Westminster. " I have bothered myself but little," he said, " about Gall and Spurzheim, although there is much truth in their observations. In these two heads the organ of pride is the same, and cannot fail to be recognized." Another day I asked him whether his long practice had not shown him that the eyes of very reflective people were deeply sunk, while those of persons whose thoughts were more open and public, were prominent. I gave this as the result of my own observation, without any reference to the fact that his own eyes were deep sunk. " Will my decision," said he, " confirm your own observation V " No," I said, " but the resemblance of our views would please me, who have seen and looked sharply at so many clever great men." " Well," he said, " there is much truth in your observation; but, as a rule, it is full of exceptions: for instance, look at me. What do I look like 1 Why, like an honest, dull-headed, perhaps stupid, Englishman, but I am not a fool for all that." This way of speaking, gave his conversation much liveliness, and I was very fond of his society. The son of a small farmer, his education had not been remarkable. Now, however, his rapid rise had made necessary correspondence with great and highly educated men, as well as official communications to the government. To avoid error, he had taken the well-instructed Scottish poet Allan Cunningham for secretary, and, at a good salary, committed to him his correspond-
enoe and his books. I was induced to believe that Chantrey had not only learned good grammar from his amanuensis, but also a better hand-writing, for I possess the hand-writing of both, and the resemblance between them is striking.
Chantrey was supreme authority in all governmental sculpture. Nothing could be done without him. As the bronze equestrian statue of Charles II. had been observed to shake, on stormy days, upon its pedestal, Sir Francis was requested to examine it, and report. The English are as fond of reports as the Austrians. The statue had been fastened with iron nails, which the rust had turned to dust, so that its weight alone kept it steady. " Any blockhead might have told them," said Chantrey, " that brass fastenings were the only things that would do for the future—there was no need to bother me about the matter." In his verbal reports, however, some of which I heard, to government committees, Sir Francis never failed to make the best of the matter; dwelling with great gravity on the points in which he had moved. He liked his authority as Sir Oracle, and when I would laugh, he would look grave until the committee had gone, and then say, with a smile, " It will not do to trifle with these gentlemen."
I saw his influence, and wanted his testimony before a committee of the House. He did not at first seem very willing, but I pressed the matter, speaking of the pleasure it would give Lord Francis Egerton, to see his taste for foreign art aided, and at last got from him his promise to come and testify.
When he came into the room, every one rose respectfully, and shook hands with him. All over London, particularly in the world of art, much had been said about the copper-plates of our Tresor de Numismatique et de Glyptique, particularly the word "distortion" had been freely used, and that the figures were untrue. The director of the Cabinet of Medals, Mr. Hawkins, was examined after Sir Francis. To the question, whether these engravings by the machine of M. Collas were wanting in correctness, and whether the eye of an artist could perceive the distortion, even if invisible to ordinary eyes, Sir Francis answered as follows:—
No. 5653.— Q. " You believe that this lack of correctness does not injure this as a work of art ?" A. " I r;ever noticed this slight
incorrectness until it was pointed out to me, and then it seemed of very little importance." (Remember that the first sculptor in England is speaking.) " And these representations of medals are the best I have hitherto seen; better than the ordinary copperplates after drawings."
No. 5658.— Q. " Do these plates please you as works of art ?" A. " Perfectly. They answer every purpose of art."
No. 5660.— Q. " This incorrectness, then, is not so great as to amount to distortion or any other visible defect V A. " It produced no unpleasant effect upon me; nor did I remark it until it was pointed out to me."
No. 5799.— Q. "Would you, being in possession of one of these representations, consider yourself in possession of a copy, or its equivalent, of the medal $ M A. " That would be my feeling, as artist."
Nos. 5801, 5802.—"Here," said Sir Francis, "the word distortion is improper. Distortion is too strong and signifies a great want of truthfulness, not the case with these plates."
Mr. Hawkins spoke in the same way; and the testimony of these two gentlemen had so much influence with the committee, that they promised me to speak well of the undertaking, and even more. But this hope vanished all too soon. Two days after the examination, I heard that Wm. Wyon, seal and die maker to the royal mint, and Wm. Brockeden, an unfortunate historical painter, had determined to inquire into the matter closely; because they desired to give all their influence to a Mr. John Bates, a machinist, in London, who four years ago had obtained patents for various improvements in line engraving, but whose indolence had kept him slumbering all this time. I had heard little of him before, except from everybody, even Mr. Wyon himself, that his laziness would prevent his ever completing his invention. At last the committee determined to hear Messrs. Wyon and Brockeden, on the 24th of June, when they appeared, with Mr. John Henning, sen., an old Scottish sculptor, and Mr. Doubleday, a voluntary aid in the British Museum. The tendency of this examination was evident—the failure of the project for which I had so striven, the object of this unworthy combination, at the head of which was
Mr. Brockeden, an old and interested intriguer. I have already said that Brockeden commenced in the world of art as historical painter. At his first exhibition he was greeted with universal reprobation, from which he never recovered, because criticism could not correct nor lessen his self-conceit. His want of success induced him to make and describe an Alpine journey, and in union with Finden, Heath, and others, to publish the Keepsake, which had so long and indescribable success. It was the golden age of mediocre productions, and Brockeden gained abundantly thereby. As compensation for his failure as historical painter, he had found a place as Mecaenas of art and patron of invention. His universal genius was equally at home in the perfection of lithography, and in the invention of India-rubber corks; and he undertook everything that seemed likely to pay—which, indeed, was the cause of his interference now. For the reader will understand that neither Brockeden nor Wyon had been invited by the committee, but that they had insisted on being heard. The whole cause of the opposition was Brockeden's private interest; he having listened to a conversation between Mr. Wyon and myself, on occasion of a visit paid by me to the mint. Without having any previous acquaintance with me, he broke into the conversation, by asking, " What will your copper-plates cost 1 ?" Mr. Wyon saw the impoliteness, and after he had introduced his friend, I observed to the latter, that he had nothing to do with our conversation. This interview had no positive evident result. Mr. Wyon asked time for reflection ; said that he would in no wise oppose me, but that, perhaps, I had better not call on him to testify about the lack of correctness in the drawings. I then said, that I preferred to have his name. He replied, that he would advise with only one person in the matter, namely, Mr. Hawkins, who was daily expected from Paris ; and that he would determine so soon as he had spoken to that gentleman. Soon after, Mr. Hawkins told me that the interview had taken place, but without result, as neither could convert the other to his views. Then I determined to leave Mr. Wyon in peace. He had voluntarily promised not to oppose me; but at his first examination, I saw the worthlessness of his promise. On the second day after, I heard that Wyon and
18
Brockeden had obtained great interest, for the destruction of my project, and were likely to reap where I had sowed. The ground of the opposition was the imperfectness of our machine; and although these gentlemen had never seen one, they still held themselves clever enough to decide, that the productions of such a thing must be distorted. Here was the great difficulty in my way, and in the way of Collas's machine. For if the committee were convinced that it could not produce correct engravings, the scheme was ruined. I begged permission to produce other witnesses ; which was at once granted, with a kindness not to be forgotten by a stranger, whose plans were thus about to be destroyed. On the 12th of July appeared before the committee the eminent medalist of the Royal Mint, M. Benedetto Pistrucci, and the great cameo cutter, Wilson. The former said, that so far from distorting, the machine w.ould give a better idea than even a medal or cameo; as it would furnish, not a vertical but an oblique view, rendering the light clearer and the shadow deeper. The mathematical correctness given by the vertical view of a medal, proves by the measure, from the centre to the rim, that the effect is given by the engraving as perfectly as by the medal itself. "The engravings," he said, "were of no value to the medalist. He wanted nothing but correctness of contour; but for the public, for all others, these were far more useful and valuable."
Under these circumstances, the committee could come to no resolution. They called no more testimony, and allowed their report to remain unreported. My opponents had not won, but they kept me out of the reward of my services. Fate had dealt hardly with me, but yet kept a crueller trick in store. I had now to reflect on the end of my mercantile career in the United States, in 1826; on the end of my contractorship in 1834; and now, on the destruction of a reasonable hope, and an almost executed plan. The motto of my book was always present to me—
" There are wanderers o'er eternity, Whose bark floats on, and anchored Never shall be."
yet I did not let my courage fail. The German proverb says,
" Will is power." Napoleon says, "The word impossible is not in my dictionary." This, thank God, has always upheld me. This time a lucky accident helped me.
Mr. Brockeden had, in his determination to ruin me, and advance the cause of Mr. Bates, written an article in the Literary Gazette. Fancying himself a linguist, and wishing to speak of the "procede de Collas" (Collas's process), he always wrote "pro-ces de Collas, (Collas's lawsuit.) He knew me to be an American citizen, as I had been for thirty years, and his wit described me as the American owner of a French invention ; while he considered me as very wicked, in desiring to rob a celebrated English engineer of his invention. This article fell into the hands of a native American, resident in London, and awakened his patriotism in my behalf. It was the then well-known, and since renowned civil engineer, James Bogardus, of New York. Inventor of the gas-metre, he had employed another American to come to England, and sell the patent. This unworthy villain sold everything to a speculator, for £1000, who sold it to all the gas companies for £10,000, and when Bogardus came on, he gained £800 only. Bogardus, who had made ruling machines for the great paper manufacturers in New York, and knew of the medal machine, knew also the power of Bates' machine. Saxton, the bank-note engraver, in Philadelphia, and others, had already found out Bates' machine, although they could not prevent his getting a patent. Mr. Saxton, in a letter of May 6, 1836, gave me all the particulars of this. Bogardus offered his help to make me a perfect machine in a few weeks. He did so, and our work was so perfect, in effect of light and shade, as to give all that was wanting to the production of Collas's invention.
As my readers cannot be interested in this systematic and methodic persecution of my opponents, I will content myself with setting down one anecdote.
Mr. Bates sent copperplates to all the officers of the Museum, with circulars, stating that these had no distortions like the French machine. In every window you saw the head of the Ariadne from the cameo, labelled, "By Mr. Bates' Machine;" and an abominable distortion, labelled, " By the French Machine."
Finally, Mr. Bates introduced the engraver, Frcebairn, to the bookseller, Herring, four years after his machine had ceased to be known by anybody. I had the Canterbury Pilgrimage, by Herring, engraved by our machine in Paris, for Herring, and fifteen hundred copies were sold in one week. I w T as still in treaty with Mr. Herring, when Mr. Freebairn was endeavoring to convince him that all the productions of the French machine were distortions.
All was ready to go on with our arrangement, and to make the productions of the Collas machine as popular as possible. The London Literary Gazette, which had thoroughly taken sides with Mr. Bates, published Feb. 11,1847, an article by Mr. Brockeden, containing a letter from Mr. Bates, in which he excuses himself for mingling in my plans. " For more than four years," said he, " at the time that I discovered the correct machine, I had the Museum medals in view. I had made my application to the Trustees, but they paid no attention to it. I was perhaps too modest, and did not possess the advantage of being a foreigner." Every one knew that nothing more would have been heard of Bates, had Brockeden not discovered that his machine might be made valuable. This interference with me was perfectly voluntary; Mr. Wyon's opposition was a breach of promise, and the means adopted were unworthy of honorable men. I was fortunate enough, with the approbation of the first men and friends of art in England, to expose these unworthy intrigues, in my " Memorial of Facts connected with the History of Medallic Engraving, and the process of A. Collas," in Charles Tilt's superb work, " The Authors of England." The present possessor of the magnificent seat " Deepdene," Henry Hope, Esq., whose collection of jewels in the London Crystal Palace excited so much attention, and who is the son of the late H. T. Hope, named in the second chapter, after reading this memorial, wrote to me as follows:—■ " I never until now studied the details of your struggle; but, after a careful analysis of your exposition, I must say that you excel, not only by the favorable artistic testimony, and the clear logic of your argumentation, but by the rare beauty of your copperplates."
Before I returned to Paris, I sent a small collection of engravings, by Bogardus's machine, to the Earl of Aberdeen, who had so helped me in my project. The answer of this gentleman— never properly estimated during his long life—ought not to be uninteresting to the reader, now that he has probably succeeded in closing forevei the Temple of Janus, between the warring Whigs and Tories, and perfected the union of the parties. It is as follows:
" Argyle House, Aug. 2, 1833. Sir —I beg to express my acknowledgments for the very beautiful specimens of engraving, by your machine, which you have had the goodness to send me. It would appear that the art had now arrived at a degree of perfection which is not likely to be surpassed.
I have the honor to be, sir,
Your very ob't. humble servant,
ABERDEEN. Mr. V. Nolte. I inclose the order for the House of Lords."
I must confess my vanity, and frankly declare that my reception by this high Tory is one of the most pleasing recollections of my life. What I had to say to him about the Museum business was soon over; but when I took my hat to go, he begged me to remain, and answer a few other questions, about matters generally in France. This was particularly the case when I returned from Paris in 1837.
The whole course of the Brockeden clique had made a bad impression upon all right-minded Englishmen, especially of the higher classes. Honorable feeling induced them to examine my project, and after conviction of its usefulness, to support it; yet there still existed a fear of showing to the masses a support for a foreign combination, which they might be refusing to their own equally deserving countrymen. Even if cheapness, rapidity, and the excellence of the engraving could be shown to be on our side, yet the success of the strangers would be placed in its worst possible light by the other party. This feeling existed also among
the trustees of the Museum, and it was essential to show to the public, that the debate was not between native and foreigner, but about the relative merits of the two machines. To bring this about, I placed before the trustees, through the medium of Mr. Hawkins, some twelve or eighteen engravings, from the most difficult medals, proper for the illustration of the medallic history written by Mr. H. ; and they were shown by him to be the cheapest, best, and most rapidly produced possible illustrations for his work. The trustees were pleased, and, to my no small joy, recommended a grant from the treasury of £8000, towards the furtherance of the plan arranged by Mr. Tilt and myself. This was to be laid before the treasurer by Mr. Spring Rice, now Lord Monteagle. The customary budget of the trustees had for many years never surpassed £20,000; this year it rose to £28,000, and the warmest recommendations of me, by the trustees, accompanied it to the treasury. The then secretary of the treasury was Mr. Francis Thornhill Baring, eldest son of Sir Thomas Baring, Bart., who had been first lord of the admiralty, under Lord John Russell's administration, and who succeeded to his father's title. It was one of the Barings whom I did not personally know; but his brother Thomas, now as then one of the heads of the London firm, had given me a letter to him. On my second visit, he said that the recommendation of the trustees would cause him to lay the matter before the Chancellor, with whom the final power of decision rested. " Here," he said, taking a bundle of papers, " here is my report, and here are the recommendations of the trustees. Now all is ready for the decision : what that will be I cannot guess ; it depends upon the money to spare."
These last were not hopeful words, and a couple of weeks later the State Budget showed a deficit of £2,000,000. I saw that the matter was settled. No treasurer could consent to increase that deficit by a grant of £8,000 even though that were only to be paid in the course of four years.
Mr. Rice informed the trustees that many other things were pressing upon the treasury of far more importance than a " Medallic History of England" could possibly be. All was over. I bowed before the bitter fate that, after two and a half years' labor, thus again overwhelmed me.
CHAPTER XXIV.
QUEEN VICTORIA—THE QUEEN'S BENCH-PRISON— THE QUEEN'S CORONATION.
Plan to strike off a portrait-medal of the queen—Sir John Conroy, grand equerry of the Duchess of Kent—His resignation—The Baroness Lehzen, lady-secretary to the queen, who procures admission for myself and the sculptor Weeks to Her Majesty's presence—The result of this audience —My arrest and confinement in the Queen's Bench-prison, in consequence of legal proceedings on the part of the litigious and runaway Duke Charles of Brunswick—My liberation, after 3£ months' imprisonment—Unexpected arrival of my wife—The queen's Coronation-day—The simultaneous ascent of seven air-balloons from Hyde Park—Return of my wife to Paris—My determination to revisit the United States—Announcement of the second trip of the steamship Great Western across the Atlantic Ocean—Old Admiral Coffin, whom I meet at Leamington, tries to dissuade me from availing myself of this opportunity to sail for New York, and to prove the insecurity of ocean steam-navigntion, upon nautical grounds—Still, I sail by the steamer—Arrival at New York, after an uncommonly stormy passage of eighteen days.
I had occupied myself about a medallion-portrait of Victoria, before her coming to the throne. Mr. Henry Weeks, a very worthy young artist, pupil and right-hand man of Sir Francis Chantrey, and who for a couple of years had made most of the busts and statues which passed for Chantrey's, wanted to make a bust of her future majesty, an honor which I resolved to procure for him. As he had also determined to make her medallion-likeness for me, I determined to address Sir John Conroy, Master of Horse and Gentleman of Honor to the Duchess of Kent, with whom he had great influence. Lord Francis Egerton, with his usual kindness, gave me a note of introduction. Sir John received me politely, but with a reserve that showed how important a member of the household he esteemed himself, and assured me
graciously that he would represent my desires to her Highness, and, if possible, obtain her consent that her daughter should sit to Weeks for a bust. He soon informed me that the princess was ready, and that Mr. Weeks would be received upon a certain day. He obtained one sitting ; but then King William became seriously ill, and the surgeons pronounced his case dangerous. Further sittings were postponed. I bewailed this to Sir John, observing that, once upon the throne, the princess would perhaps be unable to give any more sittings. He promised to speak to the duchess, and in a few days wrote to me as follows :—
Kensington Palace, June 17, 1837. Sir John Conroy has been commanded by Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Kent, that, although the Princess Victoria cannot now sit to Mr. Weeks, he may be assured of future sittings from Her Royal Highness.
King William IV. died on June 20, 1837, and the Princess Victoria mounted the throne. Not long after the Royal Gazette contained the news that Sir John Conroy no longer occupied the post of Master of Horse to the Duchess, nor any other post at Court. All London was amazed. Sir John had been a great favorite with the Duke of Kent, and with his widow, the Duchess. His daughter, who was born about the same time with the queen, received the name of Victoria, and the two girls had not only grown up together, but were intimate friends. The cause of this sudden separation and of Sir John's fall remained unknown. From what I had seen of Sir John's manner, I judged that Victoria had, perhaps, had too much of his authority, as princess, and had now determined to get rid of him, and not to allow him any longer to remain in her mother's household. It is well known that the young queen took no trouble to hide her impatience of control, as, on the retirement of the Melbourne ministry, when she determined to keep all the court ladies in their places, among others, the Duchess of Sutherland. This was an innova-that Lord Melbourne's successor, Sir Robert Peel, could not allow; but the queen was firm, until Lord Melbourne, the British states-
man best instructed in constitutional forms and uses, undertook to ameliorate matters, and, if possible, to bring her royal majesty to reason. It only gave another proof that the rulers of this world are not always compos mentis.
I went to Sir Henry Wheatley, the new private secretary, and showing him Sir John Conroy's last letter, asked his advice. He spoke of the Baroness Lehzen as the most proper person to procure a continuation of the sittings. I went to Windsor, where the baroness was with the queen, was announced, politely received, and obtained a promise that all should go well. The next week a day was appointed for Mr. Weeks to renew his labors. Weeks told me that when he began, the queen observed that most portrait painters drew her with her mouth open, which was not very becoming, and would he be so good as to shut it a little. Her majesty possesses what is called a " rabbit's mouth;" that is, the two front teeth project over the under lip. The queen was as positive in her wishes as a large mouthed French lady, who once sate to Jarvis, and puzzled him by requesting him " to put a little mouse in her face."
She gave him three sittings, and this bust, the first of the Queen, was a real masterpiece, and obtained a great deal of attention at the Exposition of 1838. I had suggested to Weeks to fasten up the great quantity of back hair which the Queen wore on the back of her head, and to replace the comb by a small crown. The suggestion was successful, and pleased everybody, particularly her Majesty, when she first saw the bust. The medallion portrait was also successful, and the plate taken from it by Bogardus' " self-acting tracer," was the finest specimen of art that had yet appeared. Neither Collas' machine, nor the stiffly moving one of Bates, had the soft well formed lines of Bogardus' invention which imitated the best productions of Raphael Morghen.
The Baroness Lehzen had procured permission for me to present some twenty copies of this to her Majesty, and Weeks and my self were requested to come to Buckingham Palace. On former visits to Windsor, I had become acquainted with Mr. Fozard, the Queen's riding-master. We spoke once of the Queen's person, and I asked if she were pretty as commonly reported. " Oh !"
IS*
he said, " she is most beautiful—you never saw the like." On my arrival at Windsor, I was sent into a room, where the baroness soon came in her riding-dress, with'the skirt thrown over her arm. " Ah !" she said, " you are there. I will tell her Majesty. You will not have to wait long." She had just returned from accompanying the Queen in a ride. In a little while I heard a rustle, and said to myself, " In a moment, the Majesty of England will stand before thine eyes." The door opened, and a young lady, with a couple of heavy locks fallen about her face, entered hastily, followed by the baroness and two ladies of honor. Yet it was not a hasty step, but rather a waddle, like that—I say it with reverence—of a duck. At the first glance, the uplifted dress permitted me to remark that her instep was not like that of the Venus de Medicis, but on the contrary, that her Majesty was flat-" footed. The Queen went directly to the bust which was placed on rather too lofty a pedestal, and repeated two or three times, " It is very fine." Then she came to me, who had opened a handsome portfolio, containing the engravings. She was astonished at the relief; lifted one of them and turned it to see if it were not embossed. I had prepared answers to expected questions on the nature of the machine, but in a moment, she gave me one nod, and Weeks another, and with one more glance at her bust,-waddled away, followed by a lady of honor. The other lady, Lady Caroline Cavendish and the Baroness remained, and were far more curious than her Majesty, and asked me a great many questions. Then the Baroness inquired if it were my intention to get the portraits of other European sovereigns. I answered yes; and mentioned the King of the Belgians as the next, because I knew that he was her friend and patron, and had procured her her post near the Queen.
As I came back from the Castle, I saw Mr. Fozard before me. " Well, sir," said he, " how did you find her Majesty ?" " Why, Mr. Fozard," I said, " I am far from being surprised at her beauty. She has enough of it for a queen, but she is not a handsome woman." " For God's sake, don't say so," he said, " hereabouts we don't hear many remarks of that sort. Her Majesty is certainly beautiful, very beautiful, and she rides well, extremely
well. 1 have been her teacher, and when she .a going to take exercise on horseback, it is me who enjoys the honor of placing
her royal b ; here he clapped his hand to his mouth—her
royal person, I was going to say—upon the saddle, and of putting her royal foot into the stirrup."
I then bid farewell to Mr. Fozard, the riding-master, and returned with my friend Weeks to London.
In the Court News appeared a short notice of the honor het majesty had done me ; and I saw no result, save a good one, from it all. Nevertheless, two days afterwards I was arrested in my house, in Edgeware Road, at the suit of Duke Charles of Brunswick. I had taken a contract from his companion, Baron Andlau, for sabretaches, sword and bayonet sheaths, and knapsacks; for which the Duke had paid 50,000 francs on account, and had promised to pay all within two months. This contract was not fulfilled, and the belligerent duke instantly commenced a suit, without a word of advice to me. The question was, simply, w T hether I was bound by the whole contract before the duke had fulfilled his part; but he was fond of lawsuits, as his numerous cases in England proved. I had hitherto lived unsued, and this one only served to complete my distress. So soon as Baron Andlau heard of this suit, he brought me 8000 francs, out of 10,000 which had not been paid in the above-named sum of 50,000, and said that the agent in the transaction would be accountable for the other 2000. The baron had served the duke as long as the unworthy nature of the latter would permit, but there w r ere other grounds Tor their separation, which took place soon after. He now brought me back the money, for fear of certain possible expositions, which would have lost him the duke's confidence. The case was decided against me, and I was condemned to pay back the whole sum, without regard to the fact that I had expended 30,000 francs in the contract. There should have been an appeal, but my clerk, whom I left in Paris, on my journey to Rome, seeing how difficulties were thronging about me, lost his head, and did nothing, except sell all the sheaths and knapsacks that had been bought for about half their cost. I was utterly helpless on my return from Rome, and was nearly penniless when I went to
England. Of course I could do nothing without money. The duke had sworn in London to my indebtedness, and that sufficed to put me in prison. He knew my circumstances perfectly well; and although assured that my imprisonment would not procure restitution of his advances, yet his evil nature forbade him to be kind to any one whom he had in his power. I learned, too, that he was angry because the queen had received me, while he was forbidden the court forever. I could have gotten bail, but was unable to pay a lawyer, and so I determined to bear my fate as it came. I had two reasons for this. First, that the House of Commons was then occupied with the question of imprisonment for debt, and everybody was waiting for the result of their deliberations ; and second, that my honest friend Emanuel Bernoulli, then resident in London, was in hopes of arranging matters with the duke's solicitor. My old friend Siegmond Rucker discovered my whereabouts by accident. He came to see me, and promised to get me the " liberties," namely, four square miles about the prison of " Queen's Bench," by going bail for me. But week after week passed, without my hearing further from him. I supposed him to be ill, but afterwards learned that he had followed the advice of a mutual acquaintance, to have nothing to do with a matter which must cost him trouble, and might cost money. I was again the plaything of a ruthless fate, and only got out of one scrape that I might fall into another. I heard no more of friend Rucker, and remained a member of the large and varied society of the Queen's Bench; among which I found one old acquaintance, an Englishman, named Swaine, with whom I had become acquainted thirty years before in New iTork; whom I had frequently seen during my visits to London, and whom, from his neatness of dress, I had supposed to be wealthy, although a hard drinker.
There ought to be interest enough among my readers to accept here a description of the Queen's Bench prison, of which I was an inmate for three months and a half. After passing through three well-watched gates, you enter a large oblong court, girt by a wall 50 or 55 feet high. To the right, in a corner, is a well-built three-»torjr house, which is let at a high rent to noble prisoners. One
gentleman had inhabited one story for fourteen years ; another, the great William Cobbett's son, had been eight years in the prison. From the left corner to the outer wall of the place stretched a double row of houses, the furthest of which could be hired, furnished, by such as were able to pay; the others were for those who lived on the allowance of their creditors. At the end of these houses is a small covered market, where one can buy at eight o'clock, A. M., fresh fish, flesh, vegetables, eggs, butter, etc. You either buy for yourself or trust servants, who are not always very conscientious. From the market you take your purchases to one of the cookshops in the neighborhood, and get it prepared for your table. You get your breakfast from female attendants, who are here in plenty, and who are the wives of poor debtors. The large oblong place between the furthest row of houses and the wall is a ball-ground and promenade, where, when the weather permits, you can breathe the air, and, if you choose, imagine yourself at liberty. The space between the other row and the wall is much narrower. As soon as the doors are opened in the morning, in pours a torrent of outsiders, shopkeepers, visitors, newsmen, etc. To an Englishman, the newspaper is the first necessity ; the breakfast comes afterwards; with poor prisoners as long after as possible. " Time is money," is not true in prison ; there time is a burden, which grows day by day heavier, and must yet be borne with patience. A postman helps you to communicate with your friends, and a circulating library within the prison-bounds furnishes you with intellectual pastime. The society of the Queen's Bench is an epitome of the world. Here is the indebted peer, the ruined speculator, the unfortunate merchant, the impoverished artisan, the rich and poor burgess and noble together. There is an especial abundance of those who have spent all upon horses, or women, or cards. I had several pointed out to me, but shunned a nearer acquaintance. My cicerone was a reverend vicar, singularly unlike the Vicar of Wakefield, who had preferred the race-course to the parsonage, and had expended at Newmarket what should have paid the butcher and baker. This man lived in the same house with me, and had scraped acquaintance on the door-step; and I allowed him to visit
me because his good-humored, child-like narratives amused me. He knew every face in the prison, and had something to tell about each, to which I listened; for, I confess it, if I love anything, it is a little bit of scandal.
The slow progress of the bill for the modification of imprisonment made me very impatient. My old friend, Thomas Thorne-ly, of Liverpool, member of Parliament for Wolverhampton, was good enough to give me a hope that the debates would soon terminate ; but three and a half months' loneliness, with no comfort but this hope, had destroyed my patience. Now approached the coronation of a queen, adored since childhood, and the only monarch in Europe who could follow the standard of Freedom hand in hand with the happy people. I was much occupied with the thought of the crowds of strangers now pouring into London. I desired freedom, if only for the day ; not for love of festivity, but to share with a full heart in the jubilant feeling of the people. One day, the upper gaoler told me I was free. Bernouilli had come to an understanding with the duke's solicitor. I left the place at 1 P. M., called a hack, and drove home to Edgeware Road. Then I went to Bernouilli, to inquire by what means he had procured my liberation. He had agreed that I should pay the whole sum with interest, at so much a year, beginning from July 1, 1844. It might well be doubted whether I would reach the 66th year of my life to pay ; but I did, and eleven years later, at the age of seventy, I began to prepare my " System of Assurance and Bottomry," which employed me during two years and a half. Now in freedom, I could remark the masses of people, from every land, now streaming through the streets of London. I abstain here from describing the various groups that thronged the streets and squares, particularly Leicester Square and the neighborhood of Hay market Theatre, because I have already done much the same thing, with reference to the great exhibition some years before. But the effect of such crowds upon a just released prisoner was extraordinary.
A day or two afterwards there was a knock at my door; it opened, and I saw my wife. For this pleasure I had to thank my old, unchanging friend, Jacques de Berckholtz, who had long lived
in Paris, and now gave the lie to Rousseau's assertion, that Paris is " la ville ou Vamitie ne resiste ni a Vadveraite ni a Vabsence." A little group of friends had determined to come to London for the coronation, and my wife had taken this opportunity. She thus was enabled to bring me consolation, and to see a rare festival. She loved sight-seeing; and, indeed, what woman does not, if it be not too costly !
Early on the morning of her arrival she went to the Queen's Bench, and there learned my release, and came to Edgeware Road.
The coronation took place the next day, and our friends had accepted the offer of a window in St. James-street. The procession was to pass through St. James-street, Pall Mall, Charing Cross, and Westminster, to the Cathedral. I saw the procession from a window in Charing Cross, with Weeks, the sculptor, and his amiable wife. A hearty cheer greeted the French Ambassador, Marshal Soult, as he sate in his own Parisian, and unusually elegant carriage. Sir Robert Peel led the cheer from a window of the Carlton Club, swinging his hat and commencing a hurrah, that was echoed down the line to the very Cathedral. He himself was not in the church, but remained in the club.
One of the finest sights of the day was the ascension of the great Nassau Balloon surrounded by seven others, from St. James's Park at the close of the coronation. The day was unusually fine, and the sky quite cloudless. If the crowds of people were unable all to see their young queen, at least they saw the full glory of the sun, a very rare occurrence in London, " where," say the Neapolitans, " he is not worth the moon in Naples."
After showing my wife whatever was remarkable in London, which she found not so amusing as the Boulevards, I accompanied her to Southampton, whence she set out with her friends for Paris. She quit with but little regret the ancient mass of stone, Westminster Abbey, and the rusty relics in the Tower, without any wish to see them again. Her strongest desires were to get back to her daughter, and to breathe again the air of Paris. I had as yet no clear views for future employment; but my habit of considering the United States the land of hope, and a great desire to
revisit it, reigned within me. I had lived and labored there so long, had made so many acquaintances, had so advanced its commerce, especially in cotton, that it appeared impossible that I should be forgotten there, or that I would not be able here and there to find some traces of former trust and good will. To get such thoughts out of my head, as soon as the packet in which my wife had sailed came back, I went down to Bristol to take a look at the marine wonder, the Great Western, just returned from her first voyage to New York. I also remembered an old London acquaintance, now in the firm of Guppy. On my return through Cheltenham, which I had not seen for twenty-nine years, I visited Leamington, where I found an old acquaintance whom I had supposed to be dead. This was Admiral Coffin, with whom I had become acquainted thirty-three years before in his birthplace, Boston, and who was now watching for his last hour in peace, convinced that he had done his duty both as man and mariner. He, like the old book-keeper at Leghorn, knew me by my voice. I told him of my idea of making a voyage to America in the Great Western. " Ah!" said he, taking my hand kindly, " if you esteem your life, give up that thought. The Great Western has had the good fortune to make one summer transatlantic voyage, but in autumn and early winter it is a risk of human life to sail in her. She may succeed once or twice, but that is all. In the heavy winter storms no steamer can scud; be sure of that." Somewhat shaken in my resolution by the old sailor's counsel, I returned to London and told my friend Bogardus the foregoing. He allowed that an old sailor was a good authority upon a vessel entirely dependent upon the humor of the winds; but a steamer sets the weather at defiance, if well built and if sailors and engineers understood their duty. He then explained the power of steam in a storm so clearly that I gave up my old sea-hero, and was convinced of the perfect security of the steamer. Dr. Dio-nysius Lardner, who wrote a book in 1837 to demonstrate the impossibility of ocean-steamers, in 1839 made a passage in one from New York. I took my passage, and in the end of October we put to sea. The next day a heavy westerly storm set in, the rudder was unshipped, a wheel was broken ; the bowsprit was
shivered, and part of the bulwarks carried away. The storm lasted nine days, and as we saw no sun, no one could tell our whereabouts. Yet I had never felt more assured. In seaman's phrase, the vessel swam like a duck. One day, in the cabin, a lady said to me, " Good God, Mr. Nolte, you sit there as quietly as if this were all play." " I am really quiet, madam," I replied, " because I feel safe." " God bless your confidence, sir," were her words, as she lay down. The next morning the storm lulled, the necessary repairs were made, and the lady said to me, smiling, " Well, sir, it seems you were quite right, after all." Nine days after, we reached New York. This is the longest recorded passage of a steamer; but then 18 days seemed little to me, compared with my 58 days' voyage in the Minerva Smyth in 1816.
In New York I saw again a friend whom I had not met for eleven years—De Rham, head of the first French house there. We had worked together in Nantes in 1804, and had gone together to the United States in 1805. He belonged to the few who have passed forty eight years of mercantile life in New York with unshaken credit, although not from need but from propriety he stopped payment for five days, in the crisis of 1836. He did so, simply, to assure himself of the impossibility of failure, which greatly amazed New York. He had not one creditor who had sold his paper even at one per cent, discount; and, save the five days' suspension, he showed no sign of weakness.
CHAPTER XXVI.
NICHOLAS BIDDLE AND THE UNITED STATES BANK.
Wilder, the agent of the house of Messrs. Hottinguer <fe Co., in Paris and Havre—His intimacy with Nicholas Biddle, the President of the Pennsylvania Bank of the United States—Biddle's project to restore the balance of trade, between England and the United States, to an equilibrium—A colossal operation in cotton, the means for which are obtained by the strength of my own credit—The pitcher goes too often to the well, aud is broken at last—Violent conclusion to the enterprise—Imprisonment in New Orleans— Return to the north, overland—Cincinnati—Philadelphia—The adventuress from Florence, my travelling companion to New York—Embarkation for England, on board of the Steamer Great Western—Race between this vessel and its competitor, The British Queen—Classification of the compauy on board of the two steamers, by Gordon (James Gordon Bennett ?—Trans.), editor of the New York paper, " Morning Herald"—The Great Western wins the race, reaching England three days earlier than the British Queen.
I wanted very much to go to New Orleans, but was detained in New York longer than I expected, by the attorneys of Hottinguer & Co. of Havre. Mr. Wilder had lived long in Paris, as partner in a New York silk house, in connection with the Lyons silk factories, and we had known each other there. He had a good deal to do with Hottinguer & Co., and had won their confidence by his punctual fulfilment of engagements. He knew me just when I was of the utmost importance as cotton-merchant, not only in America, but in Liverpool and Havre. He had, from what he had seen of me, even after my failure in 1826, conceived a high opinion of me and of my influence with cotton-planters in Louisiana and Mississippi. He was also in the confidence of Nicholas Biddle, who was considered the first financier in America, and who desired to govern the European cotton-market by his
bank influence. He was urged to do this by the uncertain posU tion of American credit in the European markets; because the central point of this commerce was London, where the imports of manufactured goods from France had created a deficit for Americans of from 13 to 15,000,000 dollars. Add to this $13,000,000 of interest on a debt of $234,006,648, borrowed by the various states on their own responsibility. In carrying out this project, less was thought of a possible rise in cotton than of losing $27,000,000, to be annually paid in Europe. The rise of a single penny on the pound on 575,000 bales of 360 lbs, each (the quan tity furnished by the crop of 1837-8), would have made a difference of $11,500,000; the rise of a second penny w r ould reduce the trade-balance against the states to almost nothing. But several things were necessary to effect this rise : First, to strengthen the hands of holders in England, so that they could not be compelled by lack of means to sell; second, to overcome the natural unwillingness of the spinners to pay a higher price for the raw material. Every merchant knows that the spinner is willing to pay a higher price, if he can get the same rise in the prices of his manufactures. This idea did not get into Biddle's head. The advancing consumption of raw material in England for some years back, was proof enough for most Americans of the elasticity of the market. When I came to New York, in November, 1838, he had ended his first attempt to extend the grasp of his ideas in this affair. He had sent persons in autumn, 1837, to Charleston and New Orleans, to buy enormous quantities of cotton on the bank's account, and to ship it to Liverpool and Havre. He had established his eldest son and an old Philadelphia merchant in Liverpool, under the name of Humphreys and Biddle, and to them his cotton w T as consigned. In Havre, the consignees were Hottingucr &Co., with whose representative Wilder he had come to an understanding, and whose paper was sold through his bank. This colossal affair did very well the first year. At this moment I reached New York and visited Wilder, then in the zenith of his glory. As soon as he saw me, he said, " You are the man who could best have based our operations in New Orleans." I asked if I were too late to take a share at least in the business, and he
said, " Not quite ; you are au old friend of our house ; I will write to Mr. Biddle; he will see you gladly, and, at any rate, you shall hear from me in New Orleans."
I w r ent to Philadelphia^ and was warmly received by Biddle and his brother-in-law, Craig, both of whom I had known very well before. After a couple of days' thought, he decided to make no change in the present course of his business or in his agencies. But he said that I should have every help in my own business from his branch-bank in New Orleans—the Merchants' Bank. These were mere words, but I have never had cause to mistrust him, and have often been helped by the house of Humphreys & Biddle.
I went through Baltimore, Fredericksburg, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Hamburgh, and Milledgeville to Mobile. I met many old acquaintances, and was joyfully received in New Orleans. I received from my old comrades an invitation for the festival of January 8, the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, where my health was drank as an old soldier of that day, and as a promoter of commerce. Twenty-four years had elapsed since that day, and had left but few of my old comrades. Among them, however, was my commandant Planche, now a militia general. His love for Jackson was as fiery as ever, and he made a long speech in French, requesting me to translate it to the guests, which I did, though of course, all the fire of the original was lost.
When I left England, Messrs. Barings had promised to keep me informed about the condition of the cotton market, and I soon received letters. The coming crop was, of course, the settling point of the hoped for advance in prices. In England, 1,800,000 bales were reckoned on, and the fixedness of the current price was believed to be sure. The circular of the first fifteen cotton-brokers at the close of the year said, Dec. 31, 1838 : " The whole matter rests on the amount of the import and the politics of the American Bank Party, and these are inseparable." The weekly British consumption during the year, was 23,204 bales, and the total stock remaining in Great Britain, was 321,000, or enough for fourteen weeks. The coming crop was therefore of great importance, as there could be no doubt that the consumption would
SPECULATIONS AS TO THE PRICE OF COTTON. 429
continue. The smaller the crop, of course the better for the Bank party. At the end of the year, the maximum was set down at 1,700,000 bales at highest. But I, who had had so much experience in cotton, knew certainly, from the best instructed planters, of all the cotton growing States, that the crop would not exceed 1,600,000. I was then told from England, that if it did not surpass a million and a half, there would be an important rise in prices, and if it stopped at 1,400,000 bales, " there was no telling to what rate prices might go." When the crop was gathered in, it furnished but 1,360,000 bales. Only one unforeseeable circumstance occurred to interfere with the Bank plans. Breadstuff's were extraordinarily rare in England; and this, according to the measures of the Bank of England, in such cases, affected the cotton industry. It became necessary to import a great quantity of breadstuff's, and this threatened great difficulties in the money market, as an outlay of £10,000,000 must be made for grain. The quantity of American state paper that had been bought, the sums sent out for cotton, and some monetary difficulties in Belgium and France made a tightness in the English money market positive. Interest rose : money must be paid for bread : foreign exchanges were wanting : instead of strengthening the Bank (of England) by selling out some of its State Paper, the directors determined to require 3 \ per cent, interest on Exchequer Bills and other paper, which would accumulate such paper in their portfolio, and keep the circulation of their notes in its usual position. On the 28th Feb., 1839, after £2,000,000 ready money had been paid out, the Bank announced its intention of keeping up the 3£ per cent, interest until April, although the discount price at the Exchange was now 4 or 4| per cent. Without remembering the crisis of 1837, the Bank stuck to this resolve, and on the 28th Feb. 1839, its position was as follows:
Portfolio, etc., - - £21,Hi ,000 Specie, - - - - 6,713,000
£28,514,000 £ of the Obligations, £8,619,000.
Circulation, - - - £18,098,000 Deposits, - - 7,759,000 Reserve funds, - • 2,657,000
£28,514,000
COMMENCEMENT OF OPERATIONS.
Three Months later, May 28.
possessed £9 17s. lOd. cash.
In six months the Treasury had lost £4,353,000 in money, £4,400,000 in paper. The poor bread crop had its influence. Nothing could keep money in the country. A suspension of payment was to be looked for: interest was at from 7 to 10 per cent., and the outlay of ready money, at least, £5,729,666.
The result of this and of the dearth was a forced lessening of the consumption of cotton, which now in England amounted to 328,043 bales, of which 241,785 were American. The weekly consumption was now 16,896 bales, instead of 23,204 as in the preceding year. The reader will now understand what follows.
Towards the end of January, Mr. Wilder commissioned me to buy 1,000 bales of cotton, one fifth for myself, and the rest for his friends, making my own venture about $6,400, of which I must pay $1600 in cash. I did not possess so much, and was yet unwilling to prevent my re-entrance into this business. These commissions must be attended to without loss of time, or refused. I undertook it. My commissions on the whole purchase reduced my need to $500, which I hoped to make up in some other way. I told Mr. Wilder that I could combine other affairs like this, if I could make certain regular advances before the goods were shipped, and the bills of lading signed, only that I had no means. If he wanted to go further he must give me the credit. He sent
me a second letter for $50,000. It was known that the shipment was addressed to my old friends and correspondents, but whether for Mr. Wilder's account or my own was not known. As I also made shipments at the same time, through Alexander Dennistoun & Co., and Mr. Nicholson, partner of James Brown & Co., of Liverpool, with advance, which in consequence of the great concurrence, amounted to 87| per cent., it was evident that it could not be all for other people's account; yet no one saw it, or if they did, they kept it silent. The more I bought, the more was offered, and when I said I must refuse from want of money, I was told to take the cotton and pay for it when I got my returns. Two banks also offered advances upon the bills of lading and the policies of insurance: saying that the cotton might remain at the presses, and that the receipts of the press-owners would be taken as equivalents for the policies and the bills of lading, until these were made out. Thus I got means to make advances, although without any capital of my own. I published a couple of circulars, which convinced everybody that a rise in prices was inevitable. A large sale made in England at ninepence strengthened this conviction. It was the case with all that I shipped.
1 had not entered into this vortex thoughtlessly. I must go on buying, but I had a moral certainty that the net products of all the cotton sold in Liverpool would more than meet any obligations of mine; and so I continued, acting less as mere speculator than as intermediate between furnishers and consumers.
In all my consignments to the Barings, I had requested them, so soon as the sale of the cotton should have realized more than the amount of the advances, to send me credits for it to New York. I wanted them to feel safe, and then I trusted all to the rise in prices, of which I felt so sure. But my calculations and theirs were all deceived. It was not the amount of the crop upon which the price depended; for the dearth of breadstuffs had restricted the consumption of cotton by the spinners to the amount of 4650 bales per week.
At last, a letter from the Barings stopped their advances, as they doubted whether all the shipments would repay them. I must stop th" buying. The greatest difficulties arose from the
errors, outstanding payments, etc., which resulted from advancing on cotton, and obtaining these advances on the receipts of the press-owners, with whom it was deposited. For the delayed payments, the cotton yet in the depots was security for the sellers and factors; but the holders of the receipts upon which the advances were made, also claimed it. Every lawyer in New Orleans was employed, and all was confusion. I collected all who had an interest in the matter—some nine or ten—and showed them the true position of affairs. The reader will be surprised to learn, that in two months and a half 37,000 bales of cotton had passed through my hands. My explanations showed where it had gone; the names of the sellers ; the amount of the various purchases ; how much had been paid or was due; the European houses to whom it was consigned ; the amount of advances made by them ; and proved that out of $1,440,000, reckoning cotton at $40 per bale, not one dollar had been improperly employed, or had found its way to my pocket. This statement was given to a committee of the persons concerned; whose general idea was that the difficulty was but momentary. When everything had been put upon paper, it was unanimously resolved, that if any profit should finally result, it should be mine.
Now came the point of managing the affair. Who should be trusted 1 and should payments be made according to the amount claimed by each creditor; or should all be united, and gradually paid, equally % While in this state, the firm of Reid, Irving & Co., London, correspondents of the Citizens' Bank, offered to take and manage the whole affair, giving good guarantees for the debts.
Then appeared single claims upon me personally; the most important being those of the press-owners. I was left in freedom, however, by giving bail that I would not leave the country. One of my bail was an old clerk of mine, whom I had taken, when penniless, in Bayonne, and established in New Orleans. 1 did not enjoy my freedom long. Some of my bailers, volunteers too, upon whom I had no claim, were advised to retract, and did so ; and while I was about getting others, my old clerk, whom for ten years I had protected, trusted, and advanced, followed their exam-
pie. I went to prison. I thought the imprisonment uncalled for, in a place where three and thirty years of labor had won for me, deservedly, the reputation of an honorable man ; but fortune held the bitter cup to my lips, and I must drain it to the dregs. There, where I had played so important a part, won such universal confidence, and saved by timely help so many from ruin, I could not expect to be housed with criminals of every sort, and fed with their food, or starve. My counsel, John R. Grymes, convinced of the injustice of my imprisonment, attempted to get me released, and, after a lapse of nine days, succeeded. I went to my house, packed up a few things, and started in a steamer for Louisville. It was twenty-two years since I had been here, yet I found my friend, John S. Snead, in the best circumstances. What twenty-two years can do for an American city is incomprehensible in Europe. In 1810 the population of Cincinnati was 2540, in 1850 it was 119,460.
From Louisville I went to Cincinnati, where I saw in the harbor over sixty steamboats. Seated at the end of the breakfast-table, in the great eating-room of a favorite hotel, a pair of respectable looking gentlemen came in and sate opposite to me. Said one to the other, " Vincent Nolte, of New Orleans, came up by this boat; I don't know where he puts up. Do you know him f*
" A little," was the answer ; " he was pointed out to me once in New Orleans."
" Ah ! What does he look like?'
" Simple enough; no fuss about him; an open, friendly manner."
"He must be a devil of a fellow. Does he look like a schemer V
" Not at all," was the reply.
I had finished my breakfast, and it was near the time of embarking ; so I took my hat, and bowing to the one who had seen me, said, " I am sorry that you did not recognize me. My name is Vincent Nolte, and I have the honor to bid you good morning." As I went away, he cried, " True, by God, sir. Oh, what a pity ! I should have liked to have had a little bit of a chat with you."
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Had I remained, there would have been no end of questioning, for which the Americans are notorious. But now they have the indirect method. A common remark is, "I speculate what the fellow may be about."
From Cincinnati, I went by Wheeling, to Baltimore and Philadelphia ; where I saw one or two old acquaintances—the navy-agent, John Harrison, the most courteous entertainer, and the possessor of the most elegant and tasteful house in America; and the former minister to Great Britain, Joseph R. Ingersoll. So to New York. My companion was a black-eyed, well-formed Italian lady. She was, I learned, the daughter of a Florentine notary, and had been the mistress of a Polish noble, who lost his life in the revolutionary troubles in Ravenna and Bologna, in the same battle in which Louis Napoleon's elder brother was killed. She fought at his side, in man's clothes, and had a sabre-scar on her forehead. She had come to the United States through Brazil, with a lineal genealogy from the discoverer Americus Vespucci. She had read of Lafayette's reception, and hoped for such another; with which object she visited Washington. But neither Secretary of State nor even one member of Congress would interest himself in the matter; and she, therefore, levied contributions upon the various States. In this, also, she failed. Now and then she got $1000, but she was an ordinary adventuress, and gained but little. She is now living on a country-seat near Ogdensburg, as mistress of a Hamburgher much younger than herself.
The morning after my arrival in New York I went to Wall-street, where I was soon surrounded by fifty or sixty men, desirous of seeing and analyzing the " keenest cotton speculator iu America." I was glad to get back to my hotel, the " Globe," where I rested at least until the next day. At breakfast next morning, I read in the New York Herald as follows : " Mr. Vincent Nolte, the celebrated cotton speculator, from New Orleans, has arrived at the Globe Hotel, Broadway." The waiter was called to point out the remarkable man, and for a while I was the mark for the eyes of all the guests ; who, when tired of staring, said, " Why, he looks like other people."
In my youth, in 1804,1 had played the same part in Peter Go-defroy's theatre at Hamburgh, in a piece taken from the English, and called " Notoriety." The character pleased me, and, when alone, I was always declaiming. But as I had never really been the object of a universal stare until now, it was by no means agreeable to me; but I had to bear it, both then and since. I knew Mr. Bennet, the editor of the Herald, and I begged of him to take no further notice of me in his paper, and this he promised. There was a bet for the passage of the 1st of August between the steamers Great Western and British Queen. Thousands of people crowded the wharves. The vessels started, and passed through the Narrows at 1 o'clock, p. m. The passengers had not looked on their newspapers as yet, but when the Sandy Hook Lighthouse had been passed, and the hills of Neversink began tc grow dim, the Morning Herald came in play. The leading article said that eight hundred passengers were in the two steamers, and might thus be analyzed :—
^ worthy, honorable men.
■j^ business men, well to do.
j\j unfortunate or ruined business men.
^ drummers for European houses.
yJg- idlers in good circumstances.
-j 2 q speculators and schemers.
y^ blackguards, intriguers, bankrupts, etc.
Then came the list of names. To the first category on board the Great Western belonged General Hamilton, a rich South Carolinian cotton-planter, very influential, and one of the first partisans of Texas, for which state he had bought steamboats for inland navigation and for military service,—a great friend of Biddle's, and now on his road to London to negotiate a loan for Texas.
In the third category stood my name. " Mr. Vincent Nolte," it said, " the giant of cotton speculation, who had the art of getting up great undertakings on small means, and was now on the road to England to turn, with General Hamilton's help, their cotton castles in the air, into realities." Captain Hoskins was required to point out the originals of these two sketches, and did so. All
who were not sea-sick and remained upon deck, soon became acquainted. Most of them were English and American mer chants, and some — British officers going home from Canada. Achille Murat, second son of the King of Naples, was also on board; he had quit his South Carolinian cotton plantation to go to Europe and regulate the affairs of his mother, Queen Caroline, recently deceased at Florence. It will be remembered that this lady, who lived long in Trieste, and afterwards in Florence, had yielded to Louis Philippe all claim upon the Chateau de Neuilly, for a rent of 800,000 francs, to descend to her sons. Murat was a good-natured, jovial fellow, who had forgotten all about his princely youth, and gave promise of being enormously fat, fatter than Lablache. The monopoly of the conversation was held by the British officers, and their favorite topics were Wellington and Waterloo. Murat listened attentively, and then broke out suddenly with the assertion that, had his father led the French Cavalry at Waterloo, he would have eaten up the Marquis of Angle-sea and his troops, and won the fight. This was the usual end of the discussion. Then Murat would walk up and down with his hands behind his back, like his uncle, and finally go to the British officers and say, " Allons, messieurs ; buvons un coup a la bonne amitie." —The British Queen lost the race by 22 hours.
Daily intercouse with General Hamilton made me acquainted with his projects about the prices of cotton. Trusting to the Bank of the United States and the financial capacity of its President, Nicholas Biddle, to form a committee in some central point for the cotton-growing states, who should keep acquainted with the condition of the European cotton markets, the consumption, stock, etc.; and also secure all the crops, so that there could be no doubt as to the result, the planters were to be informed of the effect of the condition of the markets upon the relative worth of cotton; and those who were not willing to sell at the stated price, should receive advances from the bank, and give the sale to the committee's agents. By this means it was hoped to make prices regular and steady. I doubted the feasibility of this plan , but I could not refuse Hamilton's offer to be the head of this com-
DETERMINE TO RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES. 43*7
mittee, as he expressed so much confidence in my ability. That, however, was to be settled on our return to the States ; for I had determined to go back to New Orleans, being convinced that no man but myself, especially no bank-committee could carry on the liquidation. We determined the day of our return, and I went to Paris to pass a few weeks with my family.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LAST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES.
Return to America by way of England—Attempt there to grasp at and seize a shadow—The intended rejection by the house of Hottinguer & Co., at Paris, of the bills of the United States Bank, is communicated to me beforehand, when taking leave, by Mr. Hottinguer himself—An interesting acquaintanceship formed on the way to Boulogne—I embark at Liverpool on board of the steamer Liverpool Packet, which brings over the first protest of the drafts on the Hottinguer firm—Arrival in New York—General effect of Hottinguer's measures—The Uuited States Bank suspends specie payments, and so gives the signal for other banks to do the same— Dissolution of the project which had been rejected by General Hamilton— I resolve to bid the West a final farewell, and to try my fortune, in the to me, as yet, unknown East—I return to Europe in the packet-ship England —Remarkable career of Captain Williams—London and Paris—The establishment of a commercial company in Venice draws me to that city on an express invitation from the parties concerned—A sad year in my life—My acquaintanceship with the painter Nerly is my best consolation— I visit Trieste in hope of better fortune.
The time for my departure arrived, and the night before, I called upon Mr. Henry Hottinguer, now head of the firm. Said he, " You will take back with you a bit of news that will astonish the good people there." " What is it ?" said I. " That to-morrow morning we shall let the paper of the United States Bank be protested." " That is an astonishing item." " Yes," he said, " it will do more than surprise them; it will terrify them." " And the amount I" I asked. " Some millions of francs," was the answer.
He now told me that further connection with the Bank was impossible, inasmuch as it had surpassed the limit given by his firm for advances on cotton and credits. The understanding between his firm and the Barings removed all doubt about the
worth of American paper sent to him direct from Philadelphia, or by the Bank Agent in London, Samuel Jaudon, as guarantees for the enormous advances. As long as his firm had felt secure, they had been ready to support the bank operations with cash and credit; but the moment of distrust had arrived. The cause of all this was the limitless vanity of Nicholas Biddle, who two years before had, by prudence and clearness saved American credit, in the crisis of 1836-7, and the American mercantile world from ruin. The gratitude of the houses thus saved was limitless, and Biddle was always received with joy in New York, and throughout the States he was hailed as the greatest financier of the day, and the Savior of commerce. The height to which he mounted made him dizzy: he fancied that his popularity and his moneyed influence could lift him to the presidential chair. To win the South, he made enormous advances to the cotton planters. His last measure for popularity was this: there was no American holder of the whole $5,000,000 loan to the State of Mississippi. Planters are naturally unpunctual, and this begot public distrust. Then Biddle took the whole loan, reckoning on his influence and the indorsement of his bank to procure money from the capitalist. When he saw, however, that he had reckoned without his host, he determined to offer a part of it to Hottinguer & Co., as equivalent for the Bank exchanges. The French firm, however, already a little nervous, had resolved to get rid of the whole burden, to let the Bank paper be protested, and to send back the Mississippi paper. The news of this soon reached New York, but Biddle and his friends treated it as a bagatelle.
I went by Boulogne to England, and in the coupee of the diligence I met a well-looking man, somewhat forward in manner. The more we conversed the more I liked him. There was no circumstance about which he could not talk well; no Parisian of whom he had not some trait to describe or anecdote to tell, wittily and piquantly. He was equally informed as to the state of parties, and interested me very much. He had many curious details of persons high in place, as the Duke of Orleans, the English Ambassador, Baron James Rothschild, and other notables of the Parisian Jockey Club, on the Boulevarde Montmartre. As
we neared Boulogne, I expressed a hope that he was going to England. " No," he said, " I am to wait at Boulogne." " For some high acquaintance V I asked. " No," he said, " for my tradesmen, who are coming to offer me goods very cheaply." He saw, perhaps, some astonishment in my face, and said, " You are astonished that I should know so well all the distinguished people of Paris. It is easily explained—I am their tailor." " What," I said, " Monsieur Blain, rue d'Amboise f " Yes," he answered, " and I see that you have heard of me; I am worth talking about, am I not V I assented, and never having met so amiable a tailor, I invited him to sup with me at Boulogne, which invitation he accepted. As soon as I reached London, I paid a short visit to the Barings, and then on to Liverpool to the steamer. I found General Hamilton on board, and in fifteen days we reached New Yor \. At Sandy Hook, the pilot informed us that the Bank of the United States had failed. As soon as I had set foot on shore, [ saw that the Bank was the topic of universal conversation, and that confidence in Biddle was gone. Mr. Wilder said, that the difficulty was but temporary, and that the papers sent back by Hottinguer, would all be paid, as equivalents were now on their way from Havre here.
I had at once informed the Citizens' Bank, New Orleans, of my return, and my willingness to aid them in the liquidation, if they desired it, and would secure me my personal freedom. I waited for the answer a month, and then learned that the two creditors who had imprisoned me in New Orleans, were on their way to attach me again in New York. I was advised to go to Canada or Europe, and chose the latter, as Hamilton's project could now come to nothing.
The packet ship England, Captain Wait, in which I sailed, was lost upon her next voyage, and left no trace. The fate of seafaring men is peculiar and often inexplicable. I have often recalled Wieland's line,
" What hand shall guide us through this gloom ?"
My friend Adam Hodgson, of whom I have often spoken, had visited the United States, and returned in the Albion, Captain
Williams. The ship was the best of packets; the Captain the best sailor, and the most agreeable man in the world, and Mr. Hodgson was so delighted, that as a souvenir, he sent Captain Williams a splendid copy of Falconer's Shipwreck. The Captain thanked him, but his countenance fell as he said, " I wish you had chosen some other book. I have never seen this but with a feeling of painful recollection of my poor father, who was lost at sea, and I have always had a presentiment that the same fate would be my own." One year after, the ship, her master, crew, and passengers, with one or two exceptions, were lost on the coast of Kildare. One of these exceptions was a consumptive Phila-delphian named Evans, who had never left his berth since he got on board. He was torn by the waves from the shattered ship, and borne towards the rocks upon the shore, passed twenty-two hours in the water, and was found at last nearly naked. Yet two years ago, he was living and in good health.
In London I visited only Messrs. Bernouilli and Barings, from whom I got letters of recommendation to various Mediterranean ports ; to Grant & Co. in Leghorn, and their branches in Genoa and Trieste. Then I went to Paris, where I spent the winter in endeavoring by correspondence to arrange a settled future. James and John Grant, the heads of the firm, were five or six years older than I, and, having known me in Leghorn, were the more ready to help me, and to look about for some proper position for me ; no easy matter—for clerks past sixty years of age are seldom sought after. The Grants' establishment had stood for forty years creditably and honorably. The friendship of the Barings, which they had always possessed, was the cause of their extended business, and also the immense American consignments that they had received ; added to which was their own local influence and cleverness. These worthy men possessed little or none of that mercantile elasticity which enables one to rise from under the pressure that must often be felt in a forty years' mercantile course. A combination of lucky circumstances had given the firm an unexpectedly high rank among Mediterranean houses; but, as soon as the luck changed, they sank back to their old position, and lost much of their influence. What induced me to cultivate their
19*
friendship was, that they were the best-informed people about houses of their own kind and the manner of establishing them—an object never to be lost sight of, and which is the great essential to the merchant. If he gain it sooner than he expected, he can either rest or extend his views; and if he choose the latter, he must think no more of falling back, but ever go steadily on. The old rule : " that if one rope break, another must be lying ready,"— holds good here. Hence comes the necessity, in the present age of commerce, to dismiss the " granny-system" of our fathers. When all goes forward, man can neither delay nor pause altogether.
The Messrs. Grant put me in the way of getting the secretaryship of a new commercial association in Venice. A letter from Messrs. Holmes & Co., in that city, informed me that they awaited my presence to give me positive information ; so I quitted Paris, and by the Simplon and Milan I reached Venice with letters to the directors of the society. I met with a most polite and friendly reception, particularly from Francesco Zucchelli and Giacomo Levy. At last, one of the directors told me in strict confidence, that the post had already been given away even while I was still in Paris, although Mr. Holmes was utterly ignorant of the fact. The choice had been a good one, Mr. H. B. Bremer, formerly connected with the house of Buschek, in Trieste, who had been backed by the house of Baur in Altona. It was long before I found the key to the mystification practised towards me. It was that by the systematic organization of such a society, as the projected one, the directors themselves knew nothing, but that the lead was to be taken by an experienced business man, to import cotton from the United Staies, and sugar from Havana and Brazil; and that the places were to be given to the superfluous clerks of the various merchants engaged in the association. As there were many candidates, the directors, with the exception of Mr. Holmes, agreed that the candidates for book-keeper, cashier, &c, should be named by their employers, but that the business man was to be looked for by all the directors. Among these, Mr. Friederich Oerle, from Augsburg, but a resident of Venice, procured from
Messrs. Bauer, in Trieste, the successful candidate. Thus again some months were wasted—a great loss for an old man.
The little means which I had in Venice were growing smaller every day, and I could find nothing to do. I was ready to take anything: I perfectly knew four languages, and I was at last reduced to make translations of MSS., from and into English, for the monks of San Lorenzo, who had received lately an English inheritance. This supported me for four months, and then the need returned. For months, I lived on bread and cheese, with a couple of glasses of vile red wine, a-day. Mournful as was my condition, the thought of suicide which used to tempt me, never came to me now. The Venetian air breathed repose, and a sort of sympathy to the unfortunate; the still lagoons by moonlight were of themselves a consolation. Seated alone, beneath a willow on the piazetta, with my eyes on the blue cloudless heaven, I felt at peace, for I knew that if this sorrow were the meed of many a folly, many a heedless step, it was yet not the punishment of dishonor.
In the recollections of this time, the pleasantest is, of the hours passed with my honest, kind friend, Nerly, and his amiable wife. He who visited Venice, without seeing Nerly in his studio, has sinned against Art. Nerly was born in Erfurt; where he fell in with that great friend of art, Baron von Rumohr, who saw his talent for painting, and sent him to Italy. He soon succeeded in Rome, where he had settled. He first became known by some pictures painted for Thorwaldsen; and orders soon came from the highest sources, Ludwig of Bavaria and others. He was the darling of all the German painters in Rome and its neighborhood, who called him their General, and surrounded him in his rides in the Campagna.
On such occasions he wore a hussar cloak and a shako a la Poniatowski. I saw him first in the caves of Cervara near Rome, frequented by him and his companions in the year 1835. I saw him then, but I did not make his acquaintance until five years later at Mr. Holmes'. There he fell in love with a gentleman's mistress,—the gentleman being the Marquis Marruzzi, a large proprietor in St. Mark's Place. The lady had seen his picture,
and wanted to know him. She suddenly discovered a talent for painting, and her protector procured Nerly to instruct her. He fell in love with her, and the result was marriage. The great painter, Robert Fleury, in Paris, got his wife, a lady of high rank, in the same way. In Nerly's studio I forgot some of my misery. The pictures of the celebrated Canaletti, renowned for his Venetian scenes, have deservedly obtained high praise ; but he is surpassed by the English Stanfield and by Nerly. These two stand side by side for truthfulness with Landseer ; for, as his animals appear to live, so their groups and landscapes seem to be nature herself. Nerly's best picture, copied by him four or five times, is " Titian's departure from his birthplace, and his separation from his relatives." It is now in Lord Ashburton's possession, at the Grange in Hampshire.
The summer of 1840 was hot. I had a very good little room in the quarter of the Holy Apostles, near the Propaganda and the Rialto, where I did not suffer from heat nor from the cries of the' gondoliers on the canal. On the 15th of August, at noon, there was a heavy thunder-storm, and a tremendous crash led me to sup pose that the lightning had struck somewhere in my neighborhood. I had hardly recovered when in rushed my boot-black, saying that the lightning had struck the Propaganda. " Ebbene" said he, " la Saetta sapete cosa vuol dire /" " No," I answered. " La Saetta vuol dire quaranta cinque. E wwo." He meant that the lightning in the lottery almanack bears the number 45—that's one. "To-day," said he, "then, is the 15th—that's two ; and I am," he continued, "just 39 years old—that's three." " Very good," said I; but how does it concern me V " Now," said he, " if we take a lottery-ticket with the three numbers, 15, 39, 45, we shall be sure to draw a prize. Please give me a scudo" The fellow spent all he could get in the lottery, leaving wife and children to take care of themselves. I refused him the money, and the next day the whole three numbers turned up prizes.
As the winter approached, my fate looked darker and darker, but at last a little ray of light appeared. Conversation generally fell upon the costliness and worthlessness of Venetian hotels, and it was proposed among the merchants to form a Tontine. I ob-
f lained the formation of this association ; chose the ground ; was introduced to a good architect by the advocate Mengaldo, and made the proper calculations; all which kept me busy for six months. When the count was prepared, I took it to Francesco Zuchelli, Giacomo Levy, Mr. Mondolfo, and other capitalists. Mr. Mondolfo**) brother, who was interested in the Revolteila hotel, in Truske, and others, was informed of the affair, and he proposed to unite the two associations. But as people wanted to see the affair successful before they subscribed, and much time was being lost, I went to Trieste.
I knew nobody there but Grant, Brother & Co.; but a Hamburg friend introduced me to Messrs. Meticke & Prey, who promised to aid me, and did so.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MY JOURNEY TO THE BLACK SEA.
Propositions of the house of Grant, Brothers & Co. to secure their claims against the house of James and John Cortazzi, at Odessa—The puerility of these gentlemen—I set out, and travel to Galatz, by way of Vienna and the Danube, descending the latter river—The baths of Mehadia—Galatz—Continuation of my journey to Odessa by land, in company with one of the many Princes Galitzin—Jassy—The Russian Consul General at that place —Son of the tragic writer, Kotzebue—The Quarantine of Skulieni—Kits-chenew—Potemkin's grave—Odessa—James Cortazzi—The President of the Tribunal of Commerce—A Cossack named Gamaley, Cortazzi's friend and debtor, serves me, at last, as a means for the liquidation of the debt to the house of Grant & Co.—The passport system in the southern Russian ports—Prince Woronzow—The travelling Yankee, Codman; the first only half-witted American I ever met with in my life.
I had been but a few weeks in Trieste when the Messrs. Grant requested me to go for them to Odessa, on the Black Sea ; as neither Mr. Hay nor Mr. More, members of the firm, were willing to go—one for household reasons; the other for fear of being kept too long.
Messrs. James and John Cortazzi of Odessa, who were connected with the Grants, in Trieste, Leghorn, and Genoa, had received very heavy advances for consignments of wheat taken by the Grants. The advances sometimes passed the assigned limits—the shipments of wheat never ; so that the Cortazzis soon got heavily into debt. After this, came failures in sending shipments. At last, the Grants received an order to insure the Cortazzis' ship Alex ander, and her cargo, for a heavy sum. This was done ; but the ship delayed, and delayed, and finally ceased to be heard of, until Mr. Grant, one day, read in a Marseilles newspaper this announce-
menr, " Arrived. The Russian ship Alexander, with wheat to Messrs. Archias & Co." He wrote to Marseilles, and was answered that the vessel had been sent by the Cortazzis ; and that Messrs. Archias had returned acceptances for more than her full value. Letter after letter went to Odessa, but no answer was returned. John Cortazzi, who had large credit with the London corn-exchange, had received heavy advances for supplies of provisions : Mr. John Hornley, head of that Liverpool firm, had married a Cortazzi: John Cortazzi's wife was a Miss Hornley, and by this alliance he had got into the confidence of the great corn-merchants, particularly Joseph and Charles Sturge of Birmingham. To see what could be saved for them, the Grants now sent me to Odessa.
As soon as I got the necessary papers, I started with the Vienna courier. These papers, my passport, and bank-notes for a hundred gilders, were in a pocket-book in the left breast-pocket of my coat. I sat next the courier, who asked for my passport, which I gave him, and then put back the pocket-book. When we reached Bruck I missed it, and all search was vain ; for the street was filled with Bohemian musicians returning from the annual market. I reported to the police in Bruck, and wrote to Messrs. Grant that I would wait at Vienna for new papers. Fortunately I had my United States passport.
I was glad of the delay in Vienna, which I had never seen before, and which is a delightful residence for strangers. I took a steamer down the Danube to go by Galatz, Jassy, Bessarabia, and Russia Minor, to Odessa. The same evening we reached Presburg. I could not pass the battle-ground of Wagram, by which Napoleon won a bride from the ancient House of Haps-burg, without recalling those troublous days. But the rapid change of -scene made me forget Napoleon and Wagram long before we got to Presburg. At Pesth we found the annual fair; the sun was burning, and the deck of the steamer packed with passengers. One of the directors, who was on board, refused to push the speed of the boat, because it would need more coal than usual; and we did not reach Pesth until sunset, and saw the fair. There were at least 20,000 strangers, and 15,000 wagons laden
with all sorts of things. There were no traces of the inundation of 1838, which had destroyed 2,000 houses, and which occurred again three years later. We saw the preparation for the iron bridge of 1,500 feet, from Pesth, so often projected by the Viennese banker, Baron Sina.
Early next morning, after a visit to dusty Ofen, we went on. Among the passengers was a Prince Galitzin, with his friend and secretary Wailly, a young French literateur, son of the Professor, and author of a celebrated grammar. We three formed a coterie, as most of the others were Polish Jews. The young prince lived in Paris, and was travelling now because all Russian subjects are obliged to return every two years, and because he had a rich uncle living near Moscow, whose heir he was.
We staid a day to unload at Alt Orsova, which gave me an opportunity of seeing the Baths of Mehadia. They are on the shores of the Czerna, about five miles off, and the road leads through the rich and charming meadows of the Danube, sprinkled with ruins of an ancient aqueduct with arches 35 feet high. The village of Mehadia is in one of the lowest valleys in Europe, where Trajan's aqueduct-arches still are seen. You bathe in what is left of the Roman temples to Hercules and Esculapius, and the walks are full of taste, and beautifully picturesque; and he who does not visit it when he can, loses a great pleasure.
In the morning, flat boats were ready to take us to New Orsova, and to the Iron Gate, through whose tall, rocky sides the turbulent Danube, shrunk to 200 feet in width, must pour his impatient floods, and where great care and skill are needed on the part of the boatmen. On the other side of the gate we found another steamboat, which carried us to Galatz, by Widdin, Giurgewo, and Silis-tria, and Ibra'ily, famous for its grain. Here I hoped to find a decent conveyance to Jassy ; but the Russian post-coach is a basket on four wheels, in which your trunk must serve as seat. Eight horses about the size of Newfoundland dogs were harnessed to this. The driver was fastened on somewhere in front, and, having paid in advance for the journey of thirty leagues to Jassy, and taken a receipt, away we went at a gallop, the postillion never looking round. When the horses are used up, more are instantly caught
from the steppes and harnessed, and the gallop goes ever forward. Your only refreshment is a glass of water, begged in the hut of some Moldavian Jew. Woe to you if you speak no Russian, for the postillion. speaks nothing else. An Englishman, the second time he made this journey, fired a pistol at his postillion's ear, as a substitute for Russian, when he wanted him to stop. Prince Galitzin, who had brought his own carriage, was obliged with twenty-four horses.
A letter from Mr. Grant introduced me to the British Consul Cunningham, a former clerk of Messrs. Grant. When he came to see me off, and looked at my basket and eight ponies, he said, " By God, no! " That will not do. You must take my little travelling carriage." He sent at once for this—a nice commodious carriage for two people, and expressed his intention of going on one stage with me, to see that I got my relay. " Why," I said, " I have a receipt." " Yes," he answered. " Yet if a government courier should appear, and want horses, and there were none in the stable, he would just coolly take yours. That sort of affair, however, is not done to a British Consul, thanks to Lord Palmerston." Accordingly, he accompanied me for a couple of leagues, and then went back to Galatz.
Three leagues further I was overtaken by Galitzin, and he made me exchange seats with his Secretary, who, being a young man, he said, could better support fatigue. In the evening we reached Jassy, and had our passports viseed by the Russian Consul-Gene-ral, who was son of the dramatist Kotzebue, and had a pretty wife from Manheim. There was a quarantine of fourteen days at Skulieni, two leagues from Jassy ; but people were allowed to spend ten days of it at the last named place. He told us that his house was always open to us. He gave us a dinner at his country seat, and two parties at his town house. I pleased him by my familiarity with his father's plays; and when I left he gave a sketch of the monument at Manheim, made by his wife. He wrote upon this—" Souvenir cTAmitie. I arrived at Skulieni in the evening, during a frightful rain, and was told that the Lazaretto door was closed. I said to one of the officers, who spoke French, that it could make no difference whether I were received
now or in the morning. He consulted with the others, and then, shrugging his shoulders, said he could not break the rule. No inn for shelter was in the neighborhood, and I ran the risk of spending the night in the rain. When Prince Galitzin came up, however, his influence opened the doors for both.
We passed into the visitation room, where we were directed, I first, to strip to shirt and trowsers, and to pass into the next room. Here I found four or five colossal Russian officers, and as many employes, and was ordered to strip altogether, and, in a state of complete nudity, to swear, that for fourteen days I had approached neither man nor woman whom I suspected to have the plague! This oath was to be sworn upon the cross of St. Andrew, which lay upon the floor, and, with some little anger, I turned my back to the officers as I stooped to pick it up. I was then furnished with clean warm water, and flannel, linen shirts, drawers, and a nightgown, and shown to my quarters. My young prince, who had seen this form of an oath, swore hotly that he would never submit; but prince or no prince, he was obliged to do it. When we got into our own room, we burst into incon-trollable laughter. So we spent our four days of quarantine.
I went on in my little carriage towards Kischenew, through woods and mountain passes. We had gone up some seven leagues without any sign of a high road being visible: and my postillion was perfectly ignorant of the country and the way. At last, I saw in the distance a naked hill, crowned by a monument, and with a hut at its base. We inquired there, and learned that it was here that Potemkin, Catherine's favorite, lost his life on his way from the Crimea to Jassy. His niece, Princess Branitzka, who accompanied him, had this monument erected. It was said that Catherine had poisoned him; but it cannot be true, for, save his niece, he was alone. How much does the recollection of Potem-kin's former greatness teach of the littleness of human things, when one stands in this barren and unvisited desert at the foot of his monument. His niece would have perpetuated his memory by this monument, forgetting that it must be seen to be known. Yet here now lies the dust of one, who was plotting to rob his mighty mistress of her sceptre and her crown.
I recalled a journey over the Alleghanies in 1811 and 1812, and as then, I now made a map of the route indicated by the guardian of the monument, with a lead pencil, on a bit of paper, making the cross-road with a cross, and the turn off with a semicircle, and so got to Kischenew about eight, P. M. The morning view of this place gave me an idea of the Russian military government. All the city officers were military men, and the more I saw of them, the more my heart beat for the free air of America, whose civilization, though left to grow alone, had so far surpassed that founded by Peter the Great. Two days later I reached Odessa, and got my first glimpse of the Black Sea, through incomparable clouds of dust.
I had heard of Boulevard de Paris, a Rue, and a Hdtel Richelieu in Odessa, and I went to the Hotel St. Petersbourg, in the neighborhood of the French named streets. Having leased my empty rooms, and hired my furniture, as is the custom here, I looked about the city. I soon met an acquaintance, Mr. Peter Poel of Hamburgh, whom I had last seen in Paris in 1824, who had married a niece of the Petersburg banker Stieglitz, and was at the head of a branch house here. He could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw me in Odessa. When I told him my business, he invited me that day to dinner, where, he said, I would meet James Cortazzi, and make arrangements for settling my business. I had formed a more correct opinion of Cortazzi than Mr. Poel, who had known him many years, and I therefore refused the invitation, and visited Cortazzi the next morning. He had heard of my arrival at Mr. Poel's, and was quite embarrassed, although he affected to conceal it by a cavalier manner. I asked him whether he was willing to pay the debt. He objected to moving too fast or slow in the matter ; he would talk to me when he had received certain letters from England—say in a week. The week gone, he disappeared, had gone to the country, his clerks said, for ten days. So passed three weeks without any result. In the meantime I learned that, according to commercial law at Odessa, I could get a judgment, but could not compel payment. A merchant could be reduced to bankruptcy only when he refused his own acceptances, or when he had sold drafts upon foreign houses which should
come back dishonored, and he should refuse to refund expenses. In these two cases, if he cannot instantly satisfy all his obligations, he is ipso facto bankrupt. In all other circumstances he is simply a debtor, and the clearest book-debt cannot break him.
Cortazzi came back very much disinclined for an interview. The Cossack President of the Commercial Court, Gamaley, was a close friend of Cortazzi, as well as his debtor for 20,000 rubles. I did not expect justice from him, but as we were on friendly terms I told him of Cortazzi's dishonest course, and suggested that I should esteem him quite as dishonest, should he decide in Cortazzi's favor in case of a suit. He spoke accordingly to his creditor, but got nothing from him but empty promises ; I determined to begin my suit, only there were no lawyers in Odessa who understood their profession. But I myself drew up in French, as was allowed in Odessa, a memoir, of which I sent a copy to every member of the Tribunal of Commerce. When the cause was heard, it was decided in my favor, so that I had the judgment, but how to get it paid by this mercantile thief I knew , not; but my acquaintance with Poel helped me here. Gamaley was Poel's debtor precisely to the amount of his debt to Cortazzi, and Poel suggested to Gamaley the necessity of showing me at least justice. Gamaley brought me a proposal from Cortazzi which I sent back, as I did also the second, but he succeeded at last and invited me to meet Cortazzi. When Cortazzi said, " I will sign the document to-morrow, there is my hand ;" I replied, " The pressure of an honest man's hand is worth something, but you have deceived me so often that I will trust-nothing but your signature." As he drew back grumbling, I asked Gamaley if he had heard what I said, and told him that if his word, already thrice broken, were again violated, I would tell the whole story upon the public exchange. I had chosen the right way; both Gamaley and Cortazzi were rogues, and nothing but this threat would have procured the signature of the latter. The next morning Gamaley requested me to call upon him, and when I entered the room he held the proposal out to me saying, " There, my dear friend, is what you wanted. I hope you are now content, and that you will confess that I worked well for you." I saw Cortazzi's
signature, but the document still lacked Gamaley as witness. I pointed out the necessity of this, and he signed.
My business was ended. The manner in which the Exchange at Odessa had regarded the whole affair proved that Cortazzi, like every other merchant of his class, had taken no unusual course to get out of his difficulties, and that he had lost only foreign credit and not his credit at Odessa. People congratulated me, saying that 1 was the first creditor who had ever recovered any debt, except from foreign exchange and paper. That I had taken the best course was proven by the words of John Cortazzi, when he visited the Grants at Trieste on his return from England nine months later. The Grants told him that they expected very little more from him. " You may esteem yourselves very lucky," he said, " in getting what you did; for if Mr. Nolte had not frightened my brother, you would have gotten nothing."