62 SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 



The whole of the consols have been sold, and part of the bank stock. 



A portion of the consols, viz, i;-lr,535 18s. 9d., was sold on the 6th 

 instant for cash at 94f . This was considered a high price; more could 

 not have been obtained for cash. 



My first desire was to sell all the stock for cash, and immediately, 

 that I might the sooner close the whole operation and get away, but 

 such a course I soon found, on the best information and advice, would 

 have been injudicious. 



To have attempted a sale of the bank stock, for example, all at once 

 would probably have depressed the market for this particular species 

 of security and occasioned a loss of several hundred pounds. The 

 reason is that the dealings in it, contradistinguished from those in the 

 great national stocks, are limited, and confined to a very few persons 

 on the stock exchange. The course which prudence dictated was to 

 sell it out in small parcels under careful instructions to the broker 

 on each day of the sale. 



As it thus became necessary, in order to guard against loss, that I 

 should allow myself some little latitude as to time in selling the bank 

 stock, it opened a door the more properly for disposing of the other 

 stock on time at a short interval, the more especially if by that mode 

 it could be made to produce a larger sum. 



Accordingly, on the same day that I disposed of a portion of the 

 consols for cash, which served also as a feeler to ascertain the cash 

 price, I caused the whole of what remained of this stock, viz, £60,000, 

 to be sold on time for the 6th of July, that being the day after divi- 

 dend day, which falls on the 5th of July. 



It gives me great satisfaction to state that this sale was effected at 95^. 



Up to the day when it was effected, consols had not brought so high 

 a price, as far as I have yet been able to examine the London Mercan- 

 tile Price Current, for nearly eight years before. 



Two sales have been made of the bank stock, viz, one of £3,000, the 

 other of £5,000; the former at 20-J:i-, the latter at 204f ; both sales 

 being for the 30th instant, the money payable and stock to be delivered 

 on that day. Should the remainder be sold at these rates, or near 

 them, it will be seen that the bank stock, though in nominal amount 

 only £16,100. as stated in my last, will yield upward of £30,000. 



In the important operations of selling the stock I am receiving the 

 most beneficial aid from the constant advice and active daily coopera- 

 tion in all ways of our consul. Colonel Aspinwall, whose long residence 

 in London and ample opportunities of knowing the mysteries of its 

 great stock market, and the minute details of doing business in it, have 

 given him the ability to aid me. It is thus that I am selling to every 

 advantage. 



None of the 3 per cent reduced annuities have yet been sold. We 



