in addition to all the United States stock received, for half a million of dollars borrowed of that bank; he deposited with the Merchants' Bank, Messrs. Prime, Ward, & Sands, John Hone, Henry Escher, and many others who furnished money, large sums, in addition to the stock received from government, to secure them against loss; and, for the same object, he mortgaged his real estate to the Mechanics' Bank of this city. His brother, the late Mr. Abraham Barker, joined him in an obligation to the Bank of America for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, as collateral security; and for the purpose of protecting others against loss, by means of their loans on government stock, he implicated many others of his friends to a very great

amount.

From these details, it will have been seen by your honorable body, that the efforts of Mr. Barker, by means of his contract of the 2d of May, 1814, to sustain the credit and meet the exigencies of the nation, subjected him to great expense, inconvenience, embarrassments, and responsibility. In addition to all this, he sustained a loss of at least 100,000 dollars on that part of the stock which he was under the necessity of selling prior to the peace.

The condition allowed the proprietors of the ten million loan has been objected to as unwise and impolitic.

The condition allowed by Mr. Gallatin to Messrs. Girard and Parish for the loan of March, 1813, was also severely censured by persons who were totally ignorant of the necessity of the case; and so deeply impressed was the honorable Rufus King that an improper condition had been granted by Mr. Gallatin, that he made it a subject of resolution in the honorable the Senate, in 1813, calling on the President for information; and, on coming in of this information, the supposed cause of complaint amounted to nothing more than this precise condition, allowed by Mr. Gallatin to Messrs. Girard and Parish, to wit: "that if any more favorable terms should be allowed by the United States for money borrowed (under any law which should be passed) before the last day of that year, (to defray the expenses thereof,) they should have the benefit of such more favorable terms." The perusal of the documents rendered it further evident that every possible exertion had been made by Mr. Gallatin to obtain money without granting such a condition, but without success; and that no alternative had remained, except either to allow the condition required, or become unable to procure the money. So well satisfied was Mr. King, and every other member, of the propriety of Mr. Gallatin's conduct, that, after the documents had been read, not a single word of complaint was uttered in the Senate; who, immediately after receiving said report from the President, gave their sanction to a bill then pending, which authorized a new loan.

The expectation of peace was so strong throughout that year, that the government was enabled to borrow on such terms as to render this condition inoperative. Not so with the condition attached to the ten million loan. The destruction of the Capitol, the sine qua non from Ghent, and the general aspect of affairs, produced a very different state in the money market, where Mr. Barker had to resort for the means of supplying the wants of government.

For a long time after peace took place the officers of government were not supplied with funds, Mr. Dallas having refused to allow money-lenders their price for a new loan, authorized without limitation by Congress; in lieu of which he sold the public securities at what he denominated a premium, taking pay in the depreciated paper of the District of Columbia, and obliged many of the public creditors to receive the same at par; by which operation he reported to the Congress of the United States, on the 7th of December, 1815, $32,107 64 profit in the treasury from this financial operation.

In consequence of borrowing this dishonored and depreciated paper in lieu of money, much embarrassment and suffering occurred. Alphonso Wetmore, of the army of the United States, applied to Mr. Barker in 1815, and stated that he was in great want of money to pay the troops; that he had applied to all the incorporated banks in the city, and that they had refused to loan a dollar; that he had communicated the same to Mr. Brent, the Paymaster General, whose answer was exhibited to Mr. Barker, which stated, "that if the incorporated banks will not, Mr. Barker will; apply to him, and I will accept your drafts, payable in New York sixty days after date." Mr. Barker furnished the money, and took the drafts. He also took General Swift's drafts for about forty thousand dollars, supplied him on an application, equally pressing, to pay off the cadets at West Point, who, the General stated, could not go home at their then vacation, if Mr. Barker did not furnish the money, as every other resource had failed. The drafts taken for these advances were accepted by the Paymaster General at Washington, with a special written proviso, that they were to be paid at the Manhattan Bank, in the notes of that bank; but when the sixty days came round, no money had been lodged there for their payment; and Mr. Flewelling, the cashier, replied, in answer to the application, that he had received Treasury notes, with which he would pay them; and if those Treasury notes were not received at par, the holders of the acceptances must wait until government had something better to offer. Mr. Barker being in want of the funds, was under the necessity of accepting whatever the government thought proper to offer, and of selling the Treasury notes at a very considerable loss.

These circumstances have been stated, among other reasons, for the purpose of showing, not only that there can be no pretence for denying to Mr. Barker the full benefit of the terms of his contract, but that, on the contrary, he is richly entitled to all the advantages which may be found to have resulted from that contract; and upon this part of the subject it is now proper to enter.

On the 31st August, 1814, a contract was made by the then Secretary of the Treasury, for a further portion of the twenty-five million loan, the nominal terms of which were, that one hundred dollars of stock should be given for eighty dollars in money. But, in point of fact, the paper of the banks at Baltimore and of the banks in the District of Columbia was received at par for this loan, pursuant to the promise of the Secretary, when he made the contract with Mr. Smith, although they had previously suspended payment, and although their paper was then selling at a very great discount-not only below the

specie standard, but at a great discount below the value of the paper of the Philadelphia and New York banks; and one hundred dollars in stock was actually given by the government for each eighty dollars of such depreciated paper.

By the making of this loan, of the 31st of August, 1814, the persons who on that day held stock in the ten million loan became clearly entitled, in the opinion of your memorialists, to the benefit of the terms inserted in the contracts for that loan, being the difference between eighty-eight and eighty per cent.; and inasmuch as the depreciated paper of the banks of the District of Columbia and of Baltimore was received at par, in payment of the loan of the 31st of August, they also became entitled to the further difference between the value of specie, or its equivalent, and the value of such depreciated paper.

Mr. Barker was, on that day, the proprietor of $2,951,605 32 of stock in that loan, and he had previously sold further portions of that loan to the amount of $544,498 25, reserving to himself the benefit of the condition contained in the contract made with the Secretary of the Treasury. He therefore became entitled to the benefit of that condition, being the differences above mentioned on the sum of $3,496,103 57; and the amount thereof ought immediately to have been paid him in supplemental stock.

For the purpose of receiving the stock, to which he was justly entitled, Mr. Barker repaired to Washington, soon after the second contract was made, and remained there until some time in the month of December thereafter, and was unceasing, during that period, in his application for an order directing the issuing of the supplemental stock to the persons who, according to the books of the commissioners of loans, held the original stock on the 31st day of August. No others claimed it, nor could they do so with the least propriety, as a sale and transfer of the stock, subsequent to that event, did not, in the opinion of your memorialists, transfer the benefit of the condition which attached on the happening of that event, or, in other words, on the allowance of more favorable terms.

These applications were rejected by the Treasury Department, and on the 30th November, 1814, the Comptroller, by the direction of Mr. Dallas, the head of that department, issued a circular to certain commissioners of loans, in the following words: "The additional stock in question is to be issued to the persons holding, at the time of application for the additional stock, scrip certificates or funded certificates of stock, of the aforesaid loan of ten millions of dollars, and not to those who may have held the said certificates on the 31st of August last, the day on which a part of the loan for six millions of dollars was taken, unless they shall also hold them at the time of application for the additional stock."

As Mr. Barker had been obliged, subsequently to the 31st day of August, 1814, to dispose of a considerable portion of the stock held by him on that day, the effect of this decision of the Secretary of the Treasury was to place the supplemental stock, in many instances, in the hands of persons who were not entitled to it, to the great injury

of Mr. Barker, and, as your memorialists conceive, in direct violation of the spirit as well as the letter of the contract.

It is understood that the decision of Mr. Dallas was supported by the opinion of Mr. Rush, the then Attorney General, who gave the same construction to the condition which was given to it by the Secretary of the Treasury. The grounds of that construction are unknown to your memorialists, excepting the supposed convenience of the treasury; but in corroboration of the opinion hereinbefore expressed. your memorialists respectfully ask leave to refer to the opinion of the late William Pinckney, of Baltimore, which was published by Mr. Barker, in the National Intelligencer of the 6th of December, 1814, prefaced as follows:

WASHINGTON, December 6, 1814.

GENTLEMEN: The Treasury Department differs with me in opinion on several points in relation to your rights. The construction I put upon the contract, being supported by the opinion of many professional men of the first standing in the Union, induces me to believe the Treasury Department has sanctioned a mistaken view of the subject; and as it has published its opinion on an important point, I herewith send for publication the opinion of one of the most able professional men in America on that point, whose reasoning on the subject appears to me to be so applicable, clear, and conclusive, that it must carry conviction to the mind of every unprejudiced man. With great respect, I have the honor to be, your assured friend, JACOB BARKER.

To the PROPRIETORS OF THE STOCK in the ten million loan.

"NOVEMBER 23, 1814.

"Mr. Barker will thank Mr. Pinckney to examine the Secretary of the Treasury's circular letters of the 2d May, and the 31st August, 1814, and inform him whether the persons who held stock in the ten million loan on the day more favorable terms were allowed for a portion of the twenty-five million loan, are entitled to the additional stock for the difference between eighty and eighty-eight, or whether it belongs to such persons as may happen to hold the stock when government deliver the additional stock. On the payment of the money, government furnished ordinary six per cent. stock to the amount of one hundred dollars for each eighty-eight dollars paid. The said original stock did not contain any condition or other evidence of its being entitled to the benefit of the additional stock. The whole question rests on the condition contained in the Secretary's circular letter."

Mr. Pinckney's Opinion.

"NOVEMBER 25, 1814.

"I suppose that the person who held stock in the ten million loan on the day when a part of the sum of twenty-five millions, authorized

to be borrowed by the act of the 4th of March, 1814, was borrowed on terms more favorable to the lenders, was entitled, the moment such new borrowing was effected, to the benefit of those terms; his right to that benefit was perfected by the coincidence of the two facts-the borrowing by the government, and the holding of the stock by him. The word then,' in the letter of the 2d of May, 1814, can refer only to the epoch of the borrowing on terms more favorable to the lenders. It is impossible to make it refer to any other epoch without direct violence to the whole sentence.

"2d. If the right to the benefit in question was completely vested in the holder of the stock in the ten million loan, as soon as the borrowing on terms more favorable to the lender took place, I do not think that he is to be considered as having transferred it, by a mere subsequent assignment of the stock itself. The right to the benefit is collateral to the stock, and rests upon an engagement distinct from that which is the evidence or certificate of the stock. It is not made assignable by the certificate, as the stock itself is; for the certificate of stock takes no notice of it, and consequently does not even recognise it. An assignment of the stock before the borrowing on the new terms, would, doubtless, have the effect of entitling the assignee to the benefit of the new terms; but it would have that effect for no other reason than that it would bring the assignee within the collateral contract, by making him holder of the stock at the time of the borrowing on the new terms. Such an assignment of the stock as would not make the assignee holder of the stock at that time, (or, in other words, an assignment after that time,) would not so bring the assignee within the collateral contract, and would not, therefore, give him the benefit of that contract, unless it can be shown that this benefit was, by the certificate of stock, made assignable as a constituent part of the stock, and under the name of the stock, which cannot be pretended.

"The engagement of the Secretary of the Treasury relates, exclusively, to the person who should happen to hold the stock when the new borrowing should take place; and the certificate leaves that engagement exactly as it found it. That person, whoever he might be, had, of course, upon the instant of borrowing, a right to receive the difference between the price of the two loans, which would be so complete that nothing could make it better. This right, arising out of the first contract, existed in him from that time-that is, from the time of the new borrowing, independently of the stock, with which it never was incorporated; although the holding of the stock on the day of the new borrowing, was made the condition of its existence; and no subsequent act, amounting to a transfer of the stock itself, while the government delayed to comply with its engagements, could vary the right (already perfect) to have the engagement fulfilled, nor could it pass to another.

"As far as analogy can be brought to influence this question, it is in favor of the claim of the holder of the stock when the new borrowing took place, and against that of a subsequent holder. Interest and dividends of stock already due are never understood, as I believe, to pass by the sale of the stock which has produced them, and yet interest and dividends are the direct offspring of the stock, and the sole