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SPANISH LOANS. 



THE first-fruits of the grand conspiracy hatched at Madrid, be*- 

 tween certain veteran schemers of the French capital and a Spanish 

 minister of finance renowned for eloquence, not less also for the 

 honesty which is said to have its price, a taste most exquisite in 

 Danseuses of the Opera, have some time since saluted the expectant 

 vision in the shape of number one of a series of Loans, by which 

 Spain proposes to exchange certain pieces of paper of her own 

 manufacture against the gold, silver, and precious stones encumber- 

 ing the redundant money markets of other parts of Europe. Not 

 satisfied with the domestic consumption of the papel sellado, from 

 which so important a portion of her revenue is derived, the Conde 

 Toreno patriotically proposes the illimitable extension of this in- 

 teresting branch of national industry, by nominal and prodigal 

 bounties of fifty or sixty per cent, upon dealings in it ; by the potent 

 spell of which the splendid fictions of the El Dorado, in whose fruit- 

 less search the daring conquerors of Quito and Couzco traversed the 

 cloud-enveloped Andes and navigated the seas and savage solitudes 

 of the Amazones, should without care or toil be realized, and Spain 

 at once indemnified a hundred fold for the Cerros of the Valenciana 

 and Potosi for the exhaustless minerals of Mexico and South 

 America. The conception is grand if notjoriginal ; at once it flashed 

 across the mind of law ; it presided over the ephemeral glories of 

 the South Sea bubble ; it flitted before the troubled vision of Angel 

 Vallejo, and inspired the Cortes loans of 1820 to 1823 ; it "flared 

 up" in the contagious golden fever of 1825 ; and we are now on the 

 eve of solving the grand problem, whether it be given to the Spa- 

 nish minister to clutch the phantom, which has mocked the grasp of 

 other adventurers not more scrupulous nor less sanguine. He occu- 

 pies a position more felicitous than many who have trodden the same 

 career he possesses the imaginary spot for which Archimedes 

 sighed, whereon to plant his lever and control the globe he wields 

 the name, the credit, the resources of the federal monarchy of 

 Spain, wherewith to dazzle and astound the Stock Exchange of 

 London, Amsterdam, and Paris. The age of miracles is past; 

 even he may fail to rival the magic of Midas, and transmute the 

 limpid gurgling stream of the Manzanares into the golden flood 

 of Pactolus ; but whatever the peril, whatever the ultimate ruin, 

 whatever the stain to the honour and the interests of Castille, no one 

 doubts that the honest Ardoin will again become a millionaire, and 

 the Mayorasgo de Toreno shoot out from a petty'Aldea its far- 

 spreading branches over a whole province. We may yet see, and 

 see shortly, the patriot Secretario del Despacho de Hacienda (now 

 prime minister), elevated into a Grandee of the first class, entitled 



