For many reasons, it was then believed New Orleans could never become a great port. Foremost, the conformation of the Delta, at the mouth of the river, prevented vessels drawing over fifteen feet—at most favorable tides—from crossing either of the three bars; and the most practical and scientific engineers, both of civil life and the army, had long tried in vain to remedy the defect for longer than a few weeks. Numerous causes have been assigned for the rapid reformation of these bars; the chemical action of the salt upon the vegetable matter in the river water; the rapid deposit of alluvium as the current slackens; and a churning effect produced by the meeting of the channel with the waves of the Gulf. They could not be successfully removed, however, and were a great drawback to the trade of the city; which its location at the mouth of the great water avenue of the whole West, makes more advantageous than any other point in the South.
The river business in cotton, sugar and syrup was, at this time, immense; and the agents of the planters—factor is the generic term—made large fortunes in buying and selling at a merely nominal rate of percentage. The southern planter of ante-bellum days was a man of ease and luxury, careless of business and free to excess with money; and relations between him and his agent were entirely unique.
He had the same factor for years, drawing when he pleased for any amount, keeping open books. When his crop came in, it was shipped to the factor, the money retained—subject to draft—or invested. But it was by no means rare, when reckoning day came, for the advance drafts to have left the planter in debt his whole crop to the factor. In that case it used to cost him a trip to Europe, or a summer at Saratoga only; and he stayed on his plantation and did not cry over the spilt milk, however loudly his ladies may have wailed for the missing crême-de-la-crême of Virginia springs.
The morning after arrival we at last saw "the house;" which, far from being an imposing edifice, was a dingy, small office, just off the Levee, with the dingier sign of "Long, Staple & Middling" over the door. There were a few stalwart negroes basking in the sun about the entrance, sleeping comfortably in the white glare, or showing glancing ivories, in broad grins—each one keeping his shining cotton hook in full view, like a badge of office. Within was a perfect steam of business, and Staple père was studying a huge ledger through a pair of heavy gold spectacles—popping orders like fire-crackers, at half a dozen attentive clerks. Long, the senior partner, was in Virginia—and Middling, the junior, was hardly more than an expert foreman of the establishment.
"Happy, indeed, to meet you, sir!—93 of Red River lot, Mr. Edds—Heard of you frequently—Terribly busy time these, sir, partner away—13,094 middlins, for diamond B at 16-1/3, Adams—. We dine at seven, you remember Styles—Don't be in a hurry, sir!—1,642 A.B., page 684, Carter—Good day—See you at seven."
And it was only over the perfect claret, at the emphasized hour, that we discovered Mr. Staple to be a man of fine mind and extensive culture, a hearty sympathizer in the rebellion—into which he would have thrown his last dollar—and one of the most successful men on the Levee. Long, his senior partner, was a western man of hard, keen business sense, who had come to New Orleans fifty years before, a barefooted deck-hand on an Ohio schooner. By shrewdness, dogged industry and some little luck, he made "Long's" the best known and richest house in the South-west, until in the crash of '37 it threatened to topple down forever. Then Mr. Staple came forward with his great credit and large amount of spare capital, saved the house and went into it himself; while Middling, the former clerk of all work, was promoted, for fidelity in the trying times, to a small partnership.
Like all the heavy cotton men of the South, Mr. Staple believed firmly that cotton was king, and that the first steamer into a southern port would bring a French and British minister.
"It's against our interest for the present to do so," he said, confidently; "but my partner and I have advised all our planters to hold their cotton instead of shipping it, that the market may not be glutted when the foreign ships come in. And, yet, sir, it's coming down now faster than ever. Everybody prefers, in the disorganized state of things, to have ready money for cotton, that in three months' time must be worth from twenty to thirty cents!"
"Hard to believe, sir, isn't it? Yet our planters, looking at things from their own contracted standpoint, think the English and French cabinets will defer recognition of our Government. As for 'the house,' sir, it will put all it possesses into the belief that they can not prove so blind!"
Like most of the wealthy men in New Orleans, Mr. Staple had a charmingly located villa a mile from the lake and drove out every evening, after business hours, to pass the night.