SPANISH LOANS. 177 



demonstrate the superior management and more profitable results 

 of the royal quoad the constitutional, the incontestible claims, there- 

 fore, of the holders of the former securities over the latter of the 

 Parisian stockholder, in fact against the Cortes' bondholders, princi- 

 pally and unfortunately natives of this country the validity of the 

 former being, at the moment of the publication, a subject of discus- 

 sion, and even of denial in the Cortes ; and, finally, to contrast the 

 more honourable and disinterested character of the one class of con- 

 tractors with that of the other. The author, it is clear, has his pre- 

 dilections, and his account is therefore tinged with the colouring of a 

 partisan ; but we have to deal with his facts alone, and those are em- 

 bodied in figures and official documents, from which it is not difficult 

 to extract something like truth. To us, as to the public at large, it 

 is of little moment whether Angel Vallejo, Toreno, and Ardoin, on 

 the one hand, or Aguado, Burgos, and Minano, on the other, have 

 been the most extensive speculators or plunderers in or out of Spain. 

 The comparative amounts of each, in the grand total of pecuniary 

 iniquity, are of minor importance to all but the parties concerned, 

 in face of the records of a systematised scheme of national and in- 

 dividual plunder upon the most gigantic scale, that the annals of 

 public profligacy were ever before stained with. 



The first Cortes' loan, or that of Lafitte, was for 300,000,000 of 

 reales, bearing interest at seven per cent., to run from the 1st of 

 November, 1820, although contracted only on the 6th, it was re- 

 imbursable in full in twenty-four years. The price was 70 per cent., 

 with a deduction of 5 per cent, for commission, not only upon the 

 nominal capital of the loan, but upon the gross amount of the interest 

 thereof for the whole term; being the first time, says our author, that 

 a commission was ever known to be taken, in a loan, upon interest and 

 reimbursements, not to be paid until twenty-four years after. The 

 results to Spain were : 



Reales. 



The loan of 300,000,000 would produce at 70 . 210,000,000 



The charges of transport of specie, loss 

 by the exchanges upon bills, and 

 other items ... . 13,592,430 



The commission upon the nominal ca- 

 pital and interest >. . . . 30,225,000 43,817,430 



The government netted , . . . 166,182,670 



for which sum it acknowledged itself debtor for 30,225,000 dollars, 

 or 604,500,000 reales. The commission and charges amount to 

 about 27 per cent, upon the capital actually received. This opera- 

 tion is sufficiently scandalous, but, compared with what follows, it is 

 far from being usurious. 



Of the second, or national loan, it is not necessary to speak, as the 

 operation, being one of national capitalists, only partially succeeded; 

 one half of it was to be paid in money, the other in old vales of no 

 value in the market ; in our summary hereafter the proceeds will be 

 found stated, 



M.M, No.8. Z 



