year in payment of the public debt. It was in May, 1832, that its loans
arrived at the maximum, and in the preceding March so sensible was the
bank that it would not be able to pay over the public deposit when
it would be required by the Government that it commenced a secret
negotiation, without the approbation or knowledge of the Government,
with the agents for about $2,700,000 of the 3 per cent stocks held in
Holland, with a view of inducing them not to come forward for payment
for one or more years after notice should be given by the Treasury
Department. This arrangement would have enabled the bank to keep and use
during time the public money set apart for the payment of these stocks.
After this negotiation had commenced, the Secretary of the Treasury
informed the bank that it was his intention to pay off one-half of the
3 percents on the 1st of the succeeding July, which amounted to about
$6,500,000. The president of the bank, although the committee of
investigation was then looking into its affairs at Philadelphia, came
immediately to Washington, and upon representing that the bank was
desirous of accommodating the importing merchants at New York (which it
failed to do) and undertaking to pay the interest itself, procured the
consent of the Secretary, after consultation with the President, to
postpone the payment until the succeeding 1st of October.

Conscious that at the end of that quarter the bank would not be able
to pay over the deposits, and that further indulgence was not to be
expected of the Government, an agent was dispatched to England secretly
to negotiate with the holders of the public debt in Europe and induce
them by the offer of an equal or higher interest than that paid by the
Government to hold back their claims for one year, during which the bank
expected thus to retain the use of $5,000,000 of the public money, which
the Government should set apart for the payment of that debt. The agent
made an arrangement on terms, in part, which were in direct violation