I also gave written instruction to Messrs. Bigelow and Prentiss to
draw all the checks, and how to draw them and keep an account thereof.
As I make all my purchases through Jay Cooke, McCullough & Co., every
check is in fact payable to that house, so that the account is easily
kept, and the transactions cannot be mingled with others, for there
are no others. I annex a copy of these instructions.

This, I believe, will give you a pretty correct idea of the
difficulties which have been presented to me in the matter of taking,
keeping, and paying out the money arising from the sale of the bonds,
and the manner in which I have met them.

I may add that when the officers of the Bank were satisfied that I was
not to withdraw the money and take it to New York, they reduced the
rate of interest and there has been an easy market ever since.

There are now on deposit more than twelve million dollars; but I hope
it will be reduced very fast next month. Had you not sent over the
last ten million of bonds, we should have been able to close up very
soon. I hope now that you will make another call of twenty million at
least, because I think it would enable us to purchase more rapidly.

I annex:
(1) Copy of declaration of trust.
(2) Copy of instructions for drawing checks.
(3) Copy of letter from Cashier of Bank of England, stating that the
account would be considered personal.
(4) Copy of my letter to the Governor of the Bank, asking that your
name might be joined.
(5) Copy of reply to last mentioned letter.

I am, very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) WILLIAM A. RICHARDSON.

When Cooke & Co. had completed their undertaking, the deposits in the
Bank of England exceeded fifteen million dollars, and for three months
they were for the most part unavailable, as the five-twenty bonds which
had not matured under the calls that had been made were above par in
the market. It was a condition of the loan that the five-twenty bonds
redeemed should equal the 5 per cent bonds that had been issued, both
issued to be reckoned at their par value.

In the month of April, 1872, the Commissioners who had been designated
under the Treaty of Washington of 1871 to ascertain and determine the
character and magnitude of the claims that had been preferred by the
United States against Great Britain, growing out of the depredations
committed by the "Alabama" and her associate cruisers, were about to
meet at Geneva for the d