SPANISH LOANS. 183 



dest sum already denominated. The partition of the burden may 

 undoubtedly be founded in equitable principles, so far as fairly 

 apportioning a contribution between separate parties can be so con- 

 sidered. Thus, Spain, as we have seen, is taxed in two millions and 

 a half sterling, for the benefit of the Frenchmen, who, we presume, 

 would argue that England, as the broader shouldered of the two, 

 and the exclusive purchaser of their new paper money, had no need 

 to complain of a levy to an equal amount ; between the two making 

 up no unacceptable reyalo for a dia de Santo of the contractors of some 

 five millions sterling without reckoning tne two or three hundred 

 thousand pounds commission on the loan, producing 107,000,000 of 

 reales (or 1,200,000 sterling), which are hardly worth mentioning 

 alongside the glories of the conversion, excepting as vails for the 

 lacqueys of the high contracting parties concerned. 



We are only yet, however, in the beginning of the end ; the ple- 

 thoric state was still of too gross habit, and the leeches clung on un- 

 gorged. Besides the indeterminate stock received by Ardoin, Hubard, 

 and Co., for the purposes of the conversion juggle, the special amount 

 of 700,000 dollars' stock was placed in their hands by way of deposit, 

 or anticipation, or guarantee, or bail ! ! perhaps for the good faith of 

 the government in this affair, with the immaculate Parisians. This 

 stock was " constantly to remain untouched," and to be " restored at 

 the end of the transaction." At the expiration, therefore, on the 1st 

 of March, 1823, of the eighteen months' exclusive privilege conferred 

 upon them for exchanging new paper for old rags, these gentlemen 

 were required to effect the remittance and redelivery of these 700,000 

 dollars of stock, along with the two half years' interest upon it which 

 the contractors, no doubt, had carefully charged and passed in account. 

 After some delays on their part, a settlement of accounts a finiquito 

 de todas cuentas was agreed to be made, and the stock was to be 

 surrendered in London to the commission acting there. Accordingly 

 Ardoin, Hubard, and Co. presented their account, and brought in the 

 government debtor for 8,417,256 reales ; ingeniously forgetting to bring 

 forward sundry items on the credit side, and giving, as our author 

 says, " a double meaning to different articles of the treaty of conver- 

 sion, the benefit of which they had relinquished" voluntarily, as we 

 have seen by the modifications agreed to of the original treaty after 

 the remonstrances of the financial committee. But the reign of the 

 Cortes and of loan jobbing was equally drawing to a xylose ; that 

 assembly of notable imbecilities and corrupt demagogues, which all 

 the splendour of eloquence and the integrity unsullied of Augustin 

 Arguelles all the burning enthusiasm and matchless oratory of Alcala 

 Galiano all the unrivalled science of Felipe Bauza were insufficient 

 to redeem from contempt and ignominy, no less universal than deserved, 

 was now on the eve of dissolution, shut up in Cadiz, and without hope 

 of rescue and hardly of escape ; so that, although the account was at 

 length rectified, and agreed, we presume, by which the contractors 

 became debtors, in a balance of 13,553,796 reales, besides 396,880 

 dollars of stock alone remaining of the 700,000, yet the delay of several 

 months in the adjustment was so well managed, and so nicely timed, 

 that when pay-day arrived, the creditor had disappeared, and the 



