hance with
the trash that came from beyond the Cape of Good Hope, "warped with
hoop-poles, and filled with oven-wood." Our foreign merchandise came
tumbling down so fast, that no prospective calculations could be made
upon their value. Not having manufactured ourselves, we knew nothing
about the cost of production, and had no idea how much our friends over
sea could afford to fall, even from the lowest prices ever heard of.
British calicoes, or prints, for example, which I sold by the case for
eighty-five cents cash, at auction, were in every way inferior to our
own, which were retailed before the Rebellion broke out for ten cents a
yard. In fact, if we had known the real cost of production, it would
have made but little difference; for long after all our foreign
merchandise had fallen from thirty-three and a third to fifty per cent,
some of our shrewdest calculators were utterly ruined by purchasing at
much lower prices, on what they believed to be a rising market.

Under such circumstances, what was a poet, a scholar, and a lawyer,
without any knowledge of business, to do? Pierpont and Lord were large
dealers, and had a heavy stock on hand, not paid for. Their notes were
maturing with frightful rapidity, and Mr. Lord wanted all his available
funds for "transactions" in gold, and other perilous "operations" along
the Canada frontier. Specie was twenty-five per cent above par, or
rather banknotes, everywhere but in a part of New England, where they
continued to pay specie to the last, were at twenty-five per cent
discount; and "Boston money," upon the average, about one per cent above
gold and silver, so as to cover the cost and risk of transportation.

But something had to be done. A consultation was held between the
members of "our house," and it was finally arranged that Mr. Pierpont,
as the man we could best spare from the salesroom and the shop, and the
partner who would best represent what was called, with singular
propriety, "our concern," should go to Baltimore with the best of
letters, and open a way for me in that city, which I had visited once,
and once only, for the purpose of buying exchange on England,--though
for a time it was thought I had run away with all the funds intrusted to
me. I had taken a prodigious liking to Baltimore from the first, though
I had no idea of going there to live, and was not easily persuaded to
give up my little establishment in Boston. I was doing very well, and
did not care to