Recollections of a Varied Life

by George Cary Eggleston

I declined the gratuitous drink he so generously offered, and took my departure, leaving the "gentlemen" of the benches thirsty.

Finally, I went to the principal merchant of the place, feeling certain that he at least knew the fundamental facts of money values. I explained my embarrassment and asked him to give me greenbacks for one or more of my gold pieces.

He was an exceedingly courteous and kindly person. He said to me in better English than I had heard that morning:

"Well, you may not know it, but the government has gone back on gold, so that we don't know what value it may have. But I can't let a stranger leave our town under such embarrassment as yours seems to be, particularly as you have your wife and child with you. I'll give you currency for one of your gold pieces, and take my chances of getting something for the coin."

I tried to explain finance to him, and particularly the insignificance of the government's relation to the intrinsic value of gold coin, but my words made no impression upon his mind. I could only say, therefore, that I would accept his hospitable offer to convert one of my coins into greenbacks, with the assurance that I should not think of doing so if I did not perfectly know that he took no risk whatever in making the exchange.

In New Orleans I got an explanation of this curious scare. When the Civil War broke out there was a good deal of gold coin in circulation in the Plaquemine region. During and after the war the coins passed freely and frequently from hand to hand, particularly in cotton buying transactions. Not long before the time of my visit, some merchants in Plaquemine had sent a lot of this badly worn gold to New Orleans in payment of duties on imported goods—a species of payment which was then, foolishly, required to be made in gold alone. The customs officers had rejected this Plaquemine gold, because it was worn to light weight. Hence the conviction in Plaquemine that the government had "went back" on gold.

Results of a Bit of Humor

At that time the principal subject of discussion in Congress and the newspapers was the question of free silver coinage, the exclusive gold standard of values, or a double standard, and all the rest of it, and those who contended for an exclusive gold standard were stigmatized as "gold bugs."

I was then editor-in-chief of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and in my absence my brilliant young friend, Henry Marquand, was in charge of the paper. Thinking to amuse our readers I sent him a playful letter recounting these Plaquemine experiences, and he published it under the title of "A Stranded Goldbug."