Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1887 — A FINANCIAL STORY. [ARTICLE]

A FINANCIAL STORY.

The Negotiation of one of the Earliest Loans of the-United States. A few days since Mr. Corcoran, the celebrated banker of Washington, D. C., was stricken with paralysis, and his illness gives an especial interest to the almost unknown story of tho negotiation of one of our earliest national loans, and the sudden success of the banking firm of Corcoran & lliggs. The firm was but two years old when the Mexican war began. The debt of the United States then was $15,650,000. The urgent and immediate requirements of the government made it necessary to put upon the market a loan of $10,000,000, followed by another for the same amount, at 5 per cent., then a low rate of interest. To carry a government loan of $20,000,000 at 3uch low interest was a financial feat that the great bankers of that epoch in the United States dared not venture. Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, was secretary of the treasury. At a period when the capital of a yonng and growing nation was pretty well absorbed in improvements, he realized that it would be to go into the open market and obtain his money as an individual would. He went there. The Washington firm of Corcoran & Riggs de-., cideil to take the first loan of $10,000,000 flat, with the privilege of tho first offer of any other that might be tendered. The second, for the same amount, soon followed. —' At first there were difficulties. The great Quaker bankers of New York ami Philadelphia,-such as Josiah Macy & Sons, would have none of the loan, because the money was to be used in making war. They were men of peace. But there was a demand. Trustees with money to invest for minor heirs took some of the bonds, and there was a fair home demand, When something occurred to change the entire affair. Lord Ashburton, of the banking-honse of Baring Brothers, was then in this country negotiating a treaty with Daniel Webster, lie was deeply impressed with the resources of the country. One day Messrs. Corcoran <fc Riggs were astonished beyond measure to receive a letter from the London house of Barings offering to take A’1,000,000 worth of United States bonds, or any part thereof, at par. Three days thereafter the same proposition came from the great-firm of the Hopes, at Amsterdam, intimate friends and part owners in enormous interests with ©ta. Barings. Aa it never rains but it pours, the Rothschilds followed with a similar offer, but to take £2,000,000, or $10,000,000. Lord Ashburton had read of the loan; He thought he knew a good thing when he saw it. The other great firms followed the lead of the Barings; the rest is history. When it was too late the New York bankers would gladly have come into the syndicate, but they were not needed. The loans of the government from 1846 to 1848 amounting to nearly $40,000,000, were handled by Corcoran & Riggs, who at one step went to the front and were the clients and friends of the Rothschilds and Hopes and Barings, who were the world’s princes of finance.