that they frightened the public, which happened to be in a sensible
mood, until it was induced to buy by the creation of a market on the
Stock Exchange; the employment of intermediaries on disastrous terms,
and finally default, as soon as the loan charge could no longer be paid
out of the proceeds of the loan, completed the tale.

In May, 1869, the Minister for Honduras in Paris, M. H----, "took steps"
to issue a loan for 62,250,060 francs, or £2,490,000. Out of it a small
sum (about £62,000) was paid to the railway contractors in London, but
little of it seems to have been genuinely placed, since, when the
Franco-German war broke out in July, 1870, M. H---- sent 2,500,000
francs in cash (£100,000), and 39,000,000 francs in bonds, to Messrs.
B---- and G---- in London. Messrs. B---- and others made an agreement
with Mr. C. L----, presumably the gentleman who had taken over and
dealt with the unplaced balance of the First London Loan. By its terms
the net price to be paid by him for each 300 francs (£12) bond issued
originally at 225 francs (£9), was 124 francs (not quite £5). He
succeeded in selling bonds enough to realize £408,460, and he, together
with Messrs. B---- and G----, received £51,852 in commission for so
doing.

In the spring of 1870, the Honduras Government, still hankering after
its railway and the wealth that it was to open up, determined to try
again with another loan. Something had to be done to encourage investors
to take it. A few days before the prospectus appeared a statement was
published in a London newspaper to the effect that two ships had arrived
in the West India Docks from Truxillo (Honduras) with cargoes of
mahogany and fustic consigned to Messrs. B---- and G----on account of
the Honduras Railway Loan, and that two others were loading at Truxillo
with similar cargoes on the same account. These cargoes had not been cut