ond before the end of the war. Commander James D.
Bulloch, previously of the United States Navy, whose sister was the
mother of President Roosevelt, was in charge of all naval matters.
Messrs. Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool, were the fiscal agents.

All these representatives worked in complete harmony, without jealousy
or clashing of opinion; each was ready to assist the others in every way
possible. They were all cultured men, of agreeable personality, and as
far removed from the _genus homo_ which has been designated as
"hot-headed Southerner," as can well be imagined. They lived
unostentatiously, in modest, but entirely respectable lodgings in the
West End, London, except Judge Rost, who resided in Paris, and Commander
Bulloch, who made his headquarters in Liverpool. None of the
representatives of the Confederate Government required much money in the
discharge of his duties, except Commander Bulloch and myself. We were
both to look to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., for all the money we were to
expend, as indeed were all the diplomatic agents.

The fiscal system was, almost of necessity, of the most simple
character. Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool, John Fraser & Co., of
Charleston, S. C, and Trenholm Brothers, of New York, were practically
one concern, and the senior member of John Fraser & Co., Mr. William
Trenholm, became Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury early in
the war. Mr. Wellsman, senior member of Trenholm Brothers, in New York,
joined the Liverpool house, the senior member and manager of which was
Charles K. Prioleau, formerly of Charleston. There was no loan to
negotiate; for the Confederacy--recognized only as belligerents--had no
credit among nations, and no system of taxation by which it could hope
to derive any revenue available for purchasing supplies abroad. But it
possessed a latent purchasing power such as probably no other Government
in history ever had.

The cotton crop of its people was a prime necessity for the
manufacturing world outside, and, for want of machinery, was utterly
valueless in all the Southern States except Georgia, where there were a
few small factories. Almost immediately after the outbreak of
hostilities the Confederate authorities began to buy cotton, paying in
such "money" as it had; that is to say, its own promises to pay whenever
it could. Some of these promises bore interest and were called _bonds_;
some bore no interest, and these constituted the currency