o long as slavery exists
in Mississippi. Now, would it not seem reasonable that, before
Mississippi and the other Confederate States, including Florida and
Arkansas, ask another loan from Europe, they should first make some
provision for debts now due, or, at least, manifest a disposition to
make some arrangement for it at some future period. If a debtor fails to
meet his engagements, especially if he repudiates them on false and
fraudulent pretexts, he can borrow no more money, and the same rule
surely should apply to states or nations. Nor can any pledge of property
not in possession of such a borrower, or, if so, not placed in the hands
of the lender, change the position. It is (even if the power to pay
exists) still a question of good faith, and where that has been so often
violated, all subsequent pledges or promises should be regarded as
utterly worthless.

The _Times_, in reference to the repudiation of its Union Bank bonds by
Mississippi, and the justification of that act by Jefferson Davis, says:

'Let it circulate throughout Europe that a member of the United
States Senate in 1849 has openly proclaimed, that at a recent
period the Governor and legislative assemblies of his own State
deliberately issued fraudulent bonds for five millions of dollars
to 'sustain the credit of a rickety bank;' that, the bonds in
question having been hypothecated abroad to innocent holders, such
holders have not only no claim against the community by whose
executive and representatives this act was committed, but that they
are to be taunted for appealing to the verdict of the civilized
world rather than to the judgment of the legal officers of the
State by whose functionaries they have been already robbed; and
that the ruin of toil-worn men, of women, of widows, and of
children, and the 'crocodile tears' which that ruin has occasioned,
is a subject of jest on the part of those by whom it has been
accomplished; and then let it be asked if any foreigner ever penned
a libel on the American character equal to that against the people
of Mississippi by their own Senator.'

Such was the opinion then expressed by the London _Times_ of Jefferson
Davis and of the repudiation advocated by him. It was denounced as
_robbery_, 'the ruin of toil-worn men, of women, of widows, and of
children.' And what is to be thought of the '_faith_' of a so-called
Governmen