George S. Robbins & Co., John Thompson, Marie & Kans, and a few others, whose names I now forget, made also large bids.
Of those mentioned, however, my firm stood alone in taking up the bonds, as the threatening aspect of political affairs came on so soon afterwards as to depreciate Government securities. The original deposit of five per cent. was lost by these subscribers, and the bonds were permitted to remain in statu quo, as the Government never forced the claim against the delinquents.
This, in a large measure, accounted for the impoverished condition of the Treasury when Mr. Chase took charge of it, and for which Mr. Cobb has been made an object, not wholly undeserving, of public reproach.
The $200,000 bonds my firm subscribed for at par were sold mostly at 95 and below, but the fact of taking them, and meeting the subscription, without fail, gave my firm an excellent standing with the Government at the beginning of the war, and enured greatly to my firm’s advantage thereafter.
At the time I visited Washington my firm was more largely engaged in dealing in mercantile paper than any other branch of Wall Street business.
I had inaugurated the system at the time of my advent to the “Street” of buying merchants’ acceptances and receivables out and out, the rate being governed by the prevailing ruling rate for money, with the usual commission added.
It was by this method that my firm soon became the largest dealers in mercantile paper, which business had formerly been controlled by two other firms for at least a quarter of a century, and whose old fogy methods were by my innovations easily eclipsed.
The merchants at that time would go to these discount firms and leave their receivables, bearing their endorsements, on sale there, and only when sold by piecemeal could they obtain the avails thereof.
The more expeditious plan that I adopted, which was to give these negotiators a check at sight, seemed generally to merit their approbation, and enabled me to command the situation in that line of business, very much to the chagrin of my competitors.
In this way my firm had accumulated about five hundred thousand dollars in notes, which were hypothecated with various city and country banks.