Chronicles and characters of the stock exchange

by of the Bank of England John Francis

Although Mr. Rothschild was commonly termed a merchant, his most important transactions were in connection with the Stock Exchange. It was here that his great decision, his skilful combinations, and his unequalled energy, made him remarkable. At a time when the funds were constantly varying, the temptation was too great for a capitalist like Mr. Rothschild to withstand. His operations were soon noticed; and when the money-market was left without an acknowledged head by the deaths of Sir Francis Baring and Abraham Goldsmid,—for the affairs of the latter were wound up, and the successors of the former did not aim at the autocracy of the money-market,—the name of Nathan Meyer Rothschild was in the mouths of all city men as a prodigy of success. Cautiously, however, did the capitalist proceed, until he had made a fortune as great as his future reputation. He revived all the arts of an older period. He employed brokers to depress or raise the market for his benefit, and is said in one day to have purchased to the extent of four millions.

The name of Rothschild as contractor for an English loan made its first public appearance in 1819. But the twelve millions for which he then became responsible went to a discount; it was said, however, that Mr. Rothschild had relieved himself from all liability before the calamity could reach him. From this year his transactions pervaded the entire globe. The Old and the New World alike bore witness to his skill; and with the profits on a single loan he purchased an estate which cost £150,000. Minor capitalists, like parasitical plants, clung to him, and were always ready to advance their money in speculations at his bidding. Nothing seemed too gigantic for his grasp; nothing too minute for his notice. His mind was as capable of contracting a loan for millions, as of calculating the lowest possible amount on which a clerk could exist. Like too many great merchants, whose profits were counted by thousands, he paid his assistants the smallest amount for which he could procure them. He became the high-priest of the temple of Janus; and the coupons raised by the capitalist for a despotic state were more than a match for the cannon of the revolutionist.[8] From most of the speculations of 1824 and 1825, Mr. Rothschild kept wisely aloof. The Alliance Life and Fire Assurance Company, which owes its origin to this period, was however, produced under his auspices; and its great success is a proof of his forethought. None of the loans with which he was connected were ever repudiated; and when the crash of that sad period came, the great Hebrew looked coolly and calmly on, and congratulated himself on his caution. At his counting-house a fair price might be procured for any amount of stock which, at a critical time, would have depressed the public market; and it was no uncommon circumstance for brokers to apply at the office of Mr. Rothschild, instead of going in the Stock Exchange.

He was, however, occasionally surpassed in cunning, and, on one occasion, a great banker lent Rothschild a million and a half on the security of consols, the price of which was then eighty-four. The terms on which the money was lent were simple. If the price reached seventy-four, the banker might claim the stock at seventy; but Rothschild felt satisfied that, with so large a sum out of the market, the bargain was tolerably safe. The banker, however, as much a Jew as Rothschild, had a plan of his own. He immediately began selling the consols received from the latter, together with a similar amount in his own possession. The funds dropped; the Stock Exchange grew alarmed; other circumstances tended to depress it; the fatal price of seventy-four was reached; and the Christian banker had the satisfaction of outwitting the Hebrew loan-monger.

But, if sometimes outwitted himself, there is little doubt he made others pay for it; and, on one occasion, it is reported that his finesse proved too great for the authorities of the Bank of England. Mr. Rothschild was in want of bullion, and went to the governor to procure on loan a portion of the superfluous store. His wishes were met, the terms were agreed on, the period was named for its return, and the affair finished for the time. The gold was used by the financier, his end was answered, and the day arrived on which he was to return the borrowed metal. Punctual to the time appointed, Mr. Rothschild entered; and those who remember his personal appearance may imagine the cunning twinkle of his small, quick eye, as, ushered into the presence of the governor, he handed the borrowed amount in bank-notes. He was reminded of his agreement, and the necessity for bullion was urged. His reply was worthy a commercial Talleyrand. “Very well, gentlemen. Give me the notes! I dare say your cashier will honor them with gold from your vaults, and then I can return you bullion.” To such a speech the only worthy reply was a scornful silence.

One cause of his success was the secrecy with which he shrouded all his transactions, and the tortuous policy with which he misled those the most who watched him the keenest. If he possessed news calculated to make the funds rise, he would commission the broker who acted on his behalf to sell half a million. The shoal of men who usually follow the movements of others, sold with him. The news soon passed through Capel Court that Rothschild was bearing the market, and the funds fell. Men looked doubtingly at one another, a general panic spread, bad news was looked for, and these united agencies sunk the price two or three per cent. This was the result expected; and other brokers, not usually employed by him, bought all they could at the reduced rate. By the time this was accomplished, the good news had arrived, the pressure ceased, the funds arose instantly, and Mr. Rothschild reaped his reward.[9]

But it was not an unvaried sunshine with this gentleman. There were periods when his gigantic capital seemed likely to be scattered to the four quarters of the globe. He lost half a million in one English operation; when the French entered Spain in 1823, he was also in the utmost jeopardy; but, perhaps, the most perilous position in which he was placed was with the Polignac loan, although his vast intelligence again saved him, and placed the burden on the shoulders of others. With this, however, he suffered greatly, as the price fell thirty per cent.

He had, also, other sources of apprehension. Threats of murder were not unfrequent. On one occasion, he was waited on by a stranger, who informed him that a plot had been formed to take his life; that the loans which he had made to Austria, and his connection with governments adverse to the liberties of Europe, had marked him for assassination; and that the mode by which he was to lose his life was arranged. But though Rothschild smiled outwardly at this and similar threats, they said, who knew him best, that his mind was often troubled by these remembrances, and that they haunted him at moments when he would willingly have forgotten them. Occasionally his fears took a ludicrous form. Two tall, mustachioed men were once shown into his counting-house. Mr. Rothschild bowed, the visitors bowed, and their hands wandered first in one pocket, and then in another. To the anxious eye of the millionnaire, they assumed the form of persons searching for deadly weapons. No time seemed allowed for thought; a leger, without a moment’s warning, was hurled at the intruders; and, in a paroxysm of fear, he called for assistance, to drive out two customers, who were only feeling in their pockets for letters of introduction. There is no doubt that he dreaded assassination greatly. “You must be a happy man, Mr. Rothschild,” said a gentleman who was sharing the hospitality of his splendid home, as he glanced at the superb appointments of the mansion. “Happy! me happy!” was the reply. “What! happy when, just as you are going to dine, you have a letter placed in your hands, saying, ‘If you do not send me £500, I will blow your brains out!’ Happy! me happy!” And the fact, that he frequently slept with loaded pistols by his side, is an indirect evidence of a constant excitement on the subject.

The name of this gentleman, the entertainments given by him, the charities to which he occasionally subscribed, and the amount of his transactions in the money-markets were blazoned abroad. Peers and princes of the blood sat at his table; clergymen and laymen bowed before him; and they who preached loudest against mammon bent lowest before the mammon-worshipper. Gorgeous plate, fine furniture, an establishment such as many a noble of Norman descent would envy, graced his entertainments. Without social refinement, with manners which, offensive in the million, were but brusque in the millionnaire, he collected around him the fastidious members of the most fastidious aristocracy in the world. He saw the representatives of all the states in Europe proud of his friendship. By the democratic envoy of the New World, by the ambassador of the imperial Russ, was his hospitality alike accepted; while the man who warred with slavery in all its forms and phases was himself slave to the golden reputation of the Hebrew. The language which Mr. Rothschild could use when his anger overbalanced his discretion, was a license allowed to his wealth; and he who, when placed in a position which almost compelled him to subscribe to a pressing charity, could exclaim, “Here, write a check,—I have made one —— fool of myself!” was courted and caressed by the clergy, was fêted and flattered by the peer, was treated as an equal by the first minister of the crown, and more than worshipped by those whose names stood foremost on the roll of a commercial aristocracy. His mode of dictating letters was characteristic of a mind entirely absorbed in money-making; and his ravings, when he found a bill unexpectedly protested, were translated into mercantile language ere they were fit to meet a correspondent’s eye. It is painful to write thus depreciatingly of a man who possessed so large a development of brain; but the golden gods of England have many idolaters, and the voice of truth rarely penetrates the private room of the English merchant. Mr. Rothschild’s was a character which may be serviceably held up as a warning. There was, however, an occasional gleam of humor in him, sternly as his thoughts were devoted to heaping up riches. “I am as much as you,” he said to the Duc de Montmorenci, when his title was granted; “you style yourself the first Christian baron, and I am the first Jew baron.”

He was a mark for the satirists of the day. His huge and somewhat slovenly appearance; the lounging attitude he assumed as he leaned against his pillar in the Royal Exchange; his rough and rugged speech; his foreign accent and idiom,—made caricature mark him as its own; while even caricature lost all power over a subject which defied its utmost skill. His person was made an object of ridicule; but his form and features were from God: his mind and manners were fashioned by circumstances; his acts alone are public property; and by these we have a right to judge. No great benevolence lit up his path; no great charity is related of him. The press, ever ready to chronicle liberal deeds, was almost silent upon the point; and the fine feeling which marked the path of an Abraham Goldsmid, and which brightens the career of many of the same creed, is unrecorded by the power which alone could give it publicity. Dr. Herschel, indeed, said that Mr. Rothschild had placed some thousands in his hands for the benefit of his poorer brethren; but thousands spent in a career of thirty-five years, by one who counted his gains in millions, assume a narrow form. The Jewish code prescribed a tithe; but Jewish laws are often abrogated, when Jewish ceremonies are closely followed.

At last the time arrived which proves a millionnaire to be a man. Mr. Rothschild’s affairs called him to Frankfort, and he was seized with his last illness. The profession there could do nothing for him, and, scarcely even as a last hope, Mr. Travers, the eminent surgeon, made a rapid journey to see if English science could avail the dying Crœsus. The effort was vain, and the inevitable fate was well and worthily met. There appears even a certain degree of dignity in his resignation to the last struggle, and something touchingly manful in the wording of the will which was to surrender to others the gold won by the sweat of his brain. Breathing an almost patriarchal simplicity, it recommends his sons to undertake no great transaction without the advice of their mother, of whom he speaks with tender and even touching affection. “It is my special wish that my sons shall not engage in any transaction of moment, without having previously asked her maternal advice.”