In addressing the House of Assembly shortly after
his resumption of power, he referred at length to the circumstances
attendant on the late revolution, and remarked that although he was
unable to acquit Mr. Martin of most unjustifiable intrigues with the
rebels, yet he was in a position to assure them, as he had already
assured those to whom Mr. Martin was primarily responsible, that that
gentleman's hasty flight was dictated solely by a consciousness of
political guilt, and that, in money matters, Mr. Martin's hands were
as clean as his own. The reproach that had fallen on the fair fame
of Aureataland in this matter was due not to that able but misguided
young man, but to those unprincipled persons who, in the pursuit of
their designs, had not hesitated to plunder and despoil friendly
traders, established in the country under the sanction of public
faith.

The reproach to which his Excellency eloquently referred consisted in
the fact that not a cent of those three hundred thousand dollars which
lay in the bank that night was ever seen again! The theory was that
the colonel had made away with them, and the President took great
pains to prove that under the law of nations the restored Government
could not be held responsible for this occurrence. I know as little
about the law of nations as the President himself, but I felt quite
sure that whatever that exalted code might say (and it generally seems
to justify the conduct of all parties alike), none of that money would
ever find its way back to the directors' pockets. In this matter I
must say his Excellency behaved to me with scrupulous consideration;
not a word passed his lips about the second loan, about that unlucky
cable, or any other dealings with the money. For all he said, my
account of the matter, posted to the directors immediately after my
departure, stood unimpeached. The directors, however, took a view
opposed to his Excellency's, and relations became so strained that
they were contemplating the withdrawal of their business from
Whittingham altogether, when events occurred which modified their
action. Before I lay down my pen I must give some account of these
matters, and I cannot do so better than by inserting a letter which I
had the honor to receive from his Excellency, some two years after I
last saw him. I had obeyed his wish in communicating my address to
him, but up to this time had received only a short but friendly note,
acquainting me with the fact