issaries
sent out from the capital, had risen upon their English chiefs and
murdered them to a man. The decree of confiscation which appeared
immediately afterwards in the Diario Official, published in Sta. Marta,
began with the words: "Justly incensed at the grinding oppression of
foreigners, actuated by sordid motives of gain rather than by love for a
country where they come impoverished to seek their fortunes, the mining
population of San Tome, etc. . . ." and ended with the declaration: "The
chief of the State has resolved to exercise to the full his power
of clemency. The mine, which by every law, international, human, and
divine, reverts now to the Government as national property, shall remain
closed till the sword drawn for the sacred defence of liberal principles
has accomplished its mission of securing the happiness of our beloved
country."

And for many years this was the last of the San Tome mine. What
advantage that Government had expected from the spoliation, it is
impossible to tell now. Costaguana was made with difficulty to pay a
beggarly money compensation to the families of the victims, and then
the matter dropped out of diplomatic despatches. But afterwards another
Government bethought itself of that valuable asset. It was an ordinary
Costaguana Government--the fourth in six years--but it judged of its
opportunities sanely. It remembered the San Tome mine with a secret
conviction of its worthlessness in their own hands, but with an
ingenious insight into the various uses a silver mine can be put to,
apart from the sordid process of extracting the metal from under the
ground. The father of Charles Gould, for a long time one of the most
wealthy merchants of Costaguana, had already lost a considerable part of
his fortune in forced loans to the successive Governments. He was a man
of calm judgment, who never dreamed of pressing his claims; and when,
suddenly, the perpetual concession of the San Tome mine was offered to
him in full settlement, his alarm became extreme. He was versed in the
ways of Governments. Indeed, the intention of this affair, though no
doubt deeply meditated in the closet, lay open on the surface of the
document presented urgently for his signature. The third and most
important clause stipulated that the concession-holder should pay at
once to the Government five years' royalties on the estimated output of
the mine.

Mr. Gould, senior, defended himself from this fatal favour with ma