British calicoes, or prints, for example, which I sold by the case for
eighty-five cents cash, at auction, were in every way inferior to our
own, which were retailed before the Rebellion broke out for ten cents a
yard. In fact, if we had known the real cost of production, it would
have made but little difference; for long after all our foreign
merchandise had fallen from thirty-three and a third to fifty per cent,
some of our shrewdest calculators were utterly ruined by purchasing at
much lower prices, on what they believed to be a rising market.
Under such circumstances, what was a poet, a scholar, and a lawyer,
without any knowledge of business, to do? Pierpont and Lord were large
dealers, and had a heavy stock on hand, not paid for. Their notes were
maturing with frightful rapidity, and Mr. Lord wanted all his available
funds for "transactions" in gold, and other perilous "operations" along
the Canada frontier. Specie was twenty-five per cent above par, or
rather banknotes, everywhere but in a part of New England, where they
continued to pay specie to the last, were at twenty-five per cent
discount; and "Boston money," upon the average, about one per cent above
gold and silver, so as to cover the cost and risk of transportation.
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