SPANISH LOANS, 187 



millionaire, one of the greatest capitalists not of France alone, but of 

 Europe, his property being seldom estimated at less than two or three 

 millions sterling ; he carries in his pocket moreover, although he has 

 the good taste not to append to his name, the patent of the title of 

 Marquis de las Marismas, conferred on him by the gratitude of Fer- 

 dinand, with probably some dozen couces of Isabel la Catolica, and 

 other orders. Aquado, with Burgo?, Minaeno, and the colleagues with 

 whom he carried through his loan schemes, belong to the class of po- 

 liticians designated in Spain as Afrancesados, a party wholly and indi- 

 vidually sold to Buonaparte, adherents of his brother Joseph, some time 

 the intrusive king ; a party utterly abominated as traitors in Spain, and 

 as such expelled by both the Cortes and Ferdinand himself. More 

 fortunate or more prudent than his rival speculators, Aquado retains 

 his hold upon the wealth he has acquired, whilst the house of Ardoin, 

 Hubard, & Co., after all the immense gains, a sketch of which we have 

 given, figured some few years since in the Paris list of Insolvents. It may 

 be observed, indeed, that those gains were not exclusively appropriated by 

 the House, but a portion became naturally divisible among the great 

 capitalists, here and elsewhere, without whose co-operation and counte- 

 nance a concern of its standing could hardly have attempted, much less 

 carried into effect, financial operations of such extraordinary magnitude 

 and intricacy. Although these are the real parties through whom the 

 large advances in anticipation were in reality made, which would not 

 assuredly have been afforded without previous acquaintance with, ap- 

 proval of, and participation in the provisions of the contracts, yet 

 doubtless they stand purged in their own eyes from any taint of the 

 original sin of those scandalous contracts, because public accessories 

 only after the fact. The plea is a questionable one even for consciences 

 so well seared as those of practised money-changers. The splendid share 

 of these auxiliaries it is not for us to calculate ; as the house of Ardoin, 

 Hubard, & Co., disgorged upwards of a million sterling of the spoil on 

 one contract, upon a simple remonstrance and exposure of an unin- 

 itiated Committee of the Cortes, so we have heard of capitalists con- 

 cerned, who, on the failure of extensive brokers and jobbers in the 

 Securities on the London Stock Exchange, most liberally and at once 

 released them from claims of hundreds of thousands for which they stood 

 as creditors. The Conde Toreno fared sumptuously and magnificently 

 at Paris, during an exile which should have left him poor poor as he 

 was at home, where, as our neighbours say, he was before the era of 

 loans and " conversions," crible de defies,* poor and virtuous as Agustin 

 Arguelles and Admiral Valdez, whilst the great mass of his brethren in 



* During the latter year of his exile, it would appear that he had exhausted 

 every thing. Since his return to his own country and accession to office, under 

 the patronage of Louis Philippe (himself more than suspected of being largely 

 interested in Spanish and other jobbing loan transactions), the French papers 

 record it as to his honour, that he has riot only repaid but handsomely grati- 

 fied some French actress or Opera dancer, on whose bounty he had latterly 

 depended, after having upon her and others, during his short-lived day of 

 opulence, lavished his gifts with open hand. 



