The Secretary's Second Letter. EVIDENCE OF MR. COBB'S CRIMINALTY. was not a quorum of your Committee to act on the bill reported yesterday, accepting the guarantee of the States. "I advert to these circumstances to exonerate my self in the judgment of those who have an interest in the discharge of the liabilities pressing upon the Treasury from any want of diligence on my part. Your Committee, I believe, all understand that more than five millions of Treasury notes have been re deemed out of the current revenues, and that about two millions more fall due before the 4th of March, less the amount to be paid in for public dues, mak ing nearly the eight millions now required to meet the public wants before that day; that more than one-third of the revenue derived from the customs is paid in Treasury notes due at a future day; and that the present embarrassed state of the Treasury arises from the operation of a paper system which compels the Government to anticipate the payment of its debts out of its current receipts. As I have decided to issue the notice for a loan to-day, I am constrained to request that the bill reported yesterday may not be acted on, as the expectation of a call for a loan at a future day on guaranteed stock could not fail to have a very disadvantageous effect on the proposals to be made for that now asked for. "JOHN A. DIX." The Bids obtained for the Loan. The advertisement, proposing for the loan, appeared in the New York papers of February 18th. It was taken, with unexpected avidity -the amount bid for being $14,355,000, and the bids ranging from 75 to 96-10 per cent. The allotment was: $4.915.000 at 90-15 per cent., and the remainder, (up to the eight millions offered) at figures ranging up to 96-10 per cent. Had the State guarantees been accepted, the average would have been, in all probability, about 96. As it was, it fell below 92-for which the "gentleman from Virginia" had to assume the responsibility. Considering the aspect of political affairs, and the state of the country, that the loan should have been taken at such rates is an incontrovertible evidence of the faith which capitalists reposed in the incoming Administration. Something may have been due to a patriotic desire to sustain the Government, in its hour of need; but, confidence was the secret of the terms obtained. The last loan negotiated by Mr. Cobb was for ten millions of five per cents, awarded on the 22d of October, 1860. The history of that 391 Evidence of Mr. Cobb's Criminality. award is a luminous illustration of the devices and desires of the then Secretary's heart. The pressure he applied to Wall Street to influence the election became evident at a late day, when a number of the bidders asked Congress for relief. To show what politicians sometimes do, and what recklessness reigned in some departments of the Government, we have but to give the petition of the bankers to Congress. After stating that they were subscribers to that portion of the loan, authorized by the act of June 22d, 1860, which was offered in October, the petitioners added: 66 That although your petitioners received notice of the acceptance of their offers on the 22d of October last, no orders reached the engravers in New York to prepare such coupon bonds until the 26th of the same month, being four days after such notice of acceptance, and the first blank coupon bonds did not leave this city for Washington until the 3d day of November, eleven days after the notice of the award. "That in consequence of the delay, orders for these bonds were withdrawn from your petitioners, and even sales made by them, in various instances, canceled by the purchasers, owing to the failure of delivery and in other instances, to retain their customers, your petitioners were obliged to purchase for them United States bonds of 1874 as a substitute for these coupon bonds." Thus much in exposition of Mr. Cobb's way of doing business with Northern men. The petitioners further stated that they were bidders chiefly for other parties-that, in consideration of the non-compliance of the Secretary with his duty in the delivery of the bonds and coupons, the parties for whom they bid refused to take the amount awarded, urging as a justification the following specific reasons, to which the reader's attention is directed: Evidence of Mr. Cobb's Criminalty. the application for "First: In consequence of "Third: That the Government had thereby lost the power to deliver the securities contracted for. Fourth: That their contract was for bonds of the United States, having the faith of all the States pledged for their redemption; but, before the expira tion of the time for their delivery, the unity of the States was invaded by the establishment, pro forma, by one of the States, of a separate and independent Government." The Record of and the complicity of Mr. Floyd in the further frauds charged-was made February 12th. It covered the entire ground of the facts of the abstraction, and the incidental transac the Government to furnish them, the then Secretions by which the fraud was accompanied. tary of the Treasury announced publicly in market, It was a sad revelation for the American peothat in the event of the success of the Republican party in the ensuing election, the Southern States would with ple to read, and tended to strengthen the draw from the Union, and the Government be broken growing sentiment of indignation against up; whereby the credit of the United States was the Administration. The credit of Governimpaired, and the market value of the bonds de- ment ruined; the property of Government pressed; or, in other words, as they contended, the specially placed in the way bonds were rendered a damaged article, without of seizure, and seized to the fault of the buyers.' amount of many millions; the tampering with treason to such an extent as to encourage it even to unpremeditated lengths;-all to be crowned by a direct robbery of the Treasury of millions, could not excite, in the breasts of a people not dead to wrong, any other feeling than that of shame and indignation. Even the warmest partisans of Mr. Buchanan could find no excuse, no As the Presidential election was to be af- palliation, for the condition of things; and fected by such a representation, we here have execrations came from men slow to forget the evidence of the Secretary's attempt to in- party affinities, but too loyal to suffer humilfluence that election by the strong leverage iation in silence. Whether time will prove which ten millions of dollars would give. the censure heaped upon the Chief Magistrate His representations, it will be seen, were to have been just or unjust, remains to be made after the bids had been put in, but be-seen; but one fact is indubitable, that no man fore the bonds were delivered; and, as the in America ever was so generally and so unbidders were not served until after the day qualifiedly condemned-to use no harsher of election, the retention of the bonds was word. to cause a panic among the bankers, and compel them to lend all the power of their vast resources to throw the elections in New York and New Jersey against the Republican nomince. When Mr. Toombs said, in the Montgomery Congress, in proposing Howell Cobb for President, [see page 335,] that "he had been illustrious in the arena of the General Government"-that "his name was coextensive with the length and breadth of the whole country" he could not have spoken in irony; and yet, such was Mr. Cobb's reputation in those circles where he was best known, that the great agitator's words were only true in He, evidently, was valued at Montgomery in proportion to the wrong he had done the General Government and to Northern interests. an ironical sense. We can give but a reference to the lengthy report made by the Committee, of which Morris, (Dem.,) of Illinois, was Chairman. The summary of the investigations was given in the following paragraphs: "In relation to the accept Default. ances issued unconditionally Report on Mr. Floyd's ditional acceptances which have already been ceptances to the amount of $840,000 were returned to the Department for cancellation. Mr. Russell, The report of the House Select Committee however, claims to have returned only $200,000 or appointed December 24th-to investigate the $250,000. He further states that the acceptances great robbery of bonds, [see pages 113-114,] | which he did return were those which had matured Report on Mr. Floyd's Default. REPORT ON MR. FLOYD'S DEFAULT. in his own pocket, and could not, therefore, be negotiated. But this assertion is positively contradicted by the indorsements on the returned acceptances, and by the testimony of Mr. Irwin, a clerk in the War Department. From the careless and irre sponsible manner in which business was transacted by that gentleman and the late Secretary of War, and from the fact that it was the habit of Governor Floyd to issue acceptances at the Department or at his house, or at whatever place he happened to be, and other considerations, it is a matter of great uncertainty whether or not the $840,000 should be deducted from the sum heretofore stated. The probability is, that when the acceptances were returned to Governor Floyd by Mr. Russell, he accepted others at the same time, for the same amount, of which there was no registry made. It is deemed safest to proceed upon the supposition that the acceptances made in the place of those returned were registered. Upon this hypothesis, the $840,000 must be deducted from the $6,179,395 of unconditional acceptances made and registered in the War Department. This would leave of them, so far as is shown by the records of that Department, $5,339,395 still in circulation. Add to this amount the $798,000 of conditional acceptances received by Mr. Bailey in lieu of the bonds, and the aggregate is $6,137,395. Here, then, conforming the statement to the records of the War Department, is a deficit of $6,137,395 to fall upon the holders of these acceptances, or to be assumed in 'some way by the Government. "The evidence shows that the acceptances have been sold in various parts of the United States, wherever a bank or private individual could be in'duced to purchase. Inasmuch, however, as the amount of those that have been traced directly into the hands of present holders constitutes but a small fraction of the sum still unaccounted for, and as owners are daily filing additional claims at the War Department, it is deemed unnecessary to give a detailed statement of the discovered acceptances, or to make other mention of them, than to refer to the papers relating thereto, presented by the War Department, and to the general evidence." Mr. Floyd urged, in his defence, [see page 152,] that it had been the custom of the department to issue acceptances for work to be performed on contract; but this proved to be worse than falsification. It had not only not been customary to do so, but, after the President was made aware of Mr. Floyd's "custom," and in alarm had positively forbidden it, the Secretary continued the practice. Mr. Benjamin, of Louisiana, had been written to by bankers in New York, who were 393 Report on Mr. Floyd's Default. frightened at the amount of these acceptances on the market; and had, at the President's request, called upon Mr. Floyd to warn him of the dangers of this reckless use of his official name. Floyd, two days after the interview, wrote to Mr. Benjamin to thank him for his advice in the matter, at the same time promising to cease from any further issues of paper in advance of work performed by the Utah Army Supply Contractors, Messrs. Russell, Majors, and Waddell. How he kept even this promise the Committee tell us; "It has already been shown that, contrary to the assertion of Gov. Floyd, no practice of issuing acceptances had ever prevailed in the War Department previous to its introduction by himself; that he issued these acceptances indiscriminately, and without reference to instalments, or the arrival or departure of trains, and without regard to money which was due, or which was expected to become due. One would naturally expect to find that Governor Floyd, having been admonished by one whose position and legal learning gave authority to his advice, having confessed the illegality of his proceedings and expressed a determination to make no further acceptances, would have proceeded thereafter with great caution and circumspection, even if he did not entirely discontinue his previous policy. It appears, however, that, supposing the note to Mr. Benjamin, before referred to, to have been written a year ago, there have been issued by Governor Floyd, since that time, acceptances to the amount of $2,163,000; in April, $40,000; May, $250,000; June, $350,000; July, $95,000; August, $235,000; September, $125,000; October, $270,000. To this amount must be added the $798,000 of unconditional acceptances of which there is no registry, and the grand total is as above stated. Having had his error and its probable consequences distinctly pointed out, and having expressed his intention to refrain in future from the commission of similar acts, he still persists in his former course, and actually issued an acceptance for $155,000 at a date so late as the 13th of De cember, 1860. Whether this manifest contempt of counsel, disobedience of law, and violation of a solemn promise can be reconciled with purity of private motives and faithfulness to public trusts, is for the House to determine. It is the opinion of your Committee that they cannot." This report, adding certainty to rumor, placed the ex-Secretary in a position of unenviable notoriety before his countrymen. Having been indicted (January 28th) on two am Mr. tha unr assu absc and, second, for conspiracy with others to defraud the Government-he found it concenient to absent himself, and take refuge in Virginia, under the plea of "attending to her interests." Having robbed the Government two of millions-having contributed to arm the ably revolutionists and to humiliate the Adminis- they tration, he was well qualified to assume a give leading part in a drama based upon perjury ed. and deception. Benedict Arnold received the gold of the British Government for his "services," but no honorable Englishman ever would allow the contaminating touch of his traitor's hand-if Mr. Floyd was welcomed by the conspirators, in his escape from the hand of the Government he had betrayed, the people of Virginia put him away from their hearts, as unworthy of an honorable man's respect. The price of his treason was the overwhelming contempt of his own fellowcitizens. Mr. Floyd wrote from his retirement a protest to the report of the Special Committee, saying: Floyd's Protest. "The numerous assaults which have been made upon a few mon gued just, rested moth The at th 15th tive severa a feeli cared no clea depths ness se around ed to b where r threate and mel my character for several weeks past in the newspapers, and which from their source and nature could not be replied to, have at length culminated in a report from the Committee of the House of Representatives, submitted to that body on the 12th inst. The report is an ex parte arraign-which 1 ment of my official conduct upon ex parte testimony, taken in secret in my absence. It is a labored attempt by innuendo, and by means and circumstances in the absence of proof, to fix upon me some unexpected complicity with a robbery of the Government of which I had no knowledge until about the time it waw publicly disclosed; and now that these charges have been put in form, and have emanated from an authoritative source, I pledge myself to meet them by full response as soon as the report of this Committee, with the evidence taken by it, has been printed, and can be examined. in dead fering v capital olation. fireside there sti was to a greater t as men s of Febru of those BELLION. urage to “attend to his intenso. were Mr. Benjamin, Mr. E- CHAPTER XXX. The hearing was ex parte, sal to PROCEEDINGS OF CONGRESS CONTINUED. ble, was simply refreshing for tate of the country State of t ELEVEN VIRGINIA SHOWS HER COLORS. INTERESTING RES VER, DE THE Eleventh week of the Thirty-sixth | Government could only obSession of Congress (February 11th-16th) tain money at large disscarcely sustained the interest excited by the counts, the proposition was previous week's proceedings. The brilliant inopportune and unwise. Wha speeches of that week rendered it one of the ed suspicious was the fact that most memorable of the session. The week posed were of the class req which followed was distinguished by only Southern waters-ports of the one or two speeches of note, Virginia "showed He was not willing to vote on her colors" most unmistakably, and, for that addition to the navy which reason, if for no other, the Eleventh week will coercion of any State that had be remembered. Mr. Fessenden, (Rep.,) of M In the Senate, Monday, (February 11th,) Mr. Hunter that precisely the a great number of petitions were presented vessels, and the same number by Messrs. Crittenden and Bigler, for the pas-ommended by the Committee sage of compromise resolutions. Senator session, and that Mallory, o Wade also presented four numerously signed Chairman of that committec. petitions, from citizens of Philadelphia, ask- that they were recommended ing Congress to stand firm by the Union, the because they were of the char Constitution as it is, and the enforcement of required for Southern portsthe laws. all these States had seceded, fit they were especially design no propriety in the project forward again without there use the vessels against those v Seven Steam-Sloops date of February Febr as one of compara. ace. Excitement consequent * cts of secession had given p ■ of anxiety for the future, ¤¿.. confess. The dim perspect light to lure the mind on top Deyond. Ghosts of a buried, med to flit in the gloom Voices of the illustrious dess eathe upon the very air of the en brooded over the destructie ed the Republic. Shadows d but to form again, making y ade the soul sick-picturesconflict, of burning bos Omen and beggared childr cked and ruined, and a isto These were the visitants f every thoughtful citiza: ~ I was a struggle for compri pease treason in order to rrors of a state of civil r ffer and grow strong, ry was silently preparing th made to lead for the greate me. Out of that ordeal of struggle came the hearts of th steel, which were to save en the trumpet called b Mr. Grimes, (Rep.,) of Iowa, the absolute requirements of no country was any longer b vessels for naval use-that t proposed sloops was only abou The Naval Appropriation bill being called, Mr. Hale, (Rep.,) of New Hampshire, submitted several amendments-one of which embraced the building of seven steam sloopsof-war. This called up Hunter, (Dem.,) of Virginia, who wished to know the amount proposed to be appropriated, and the reasons for it; and why, at this time, it is proposed to make this large addition to the Navy?"-that Great Britain had two Mr. Hale answered that it was a matter seventy-four of the same class recommended by the Navy Department, and the economy of manning and had been urged upon Congress for years. vice of such vessels was so g The idea of another sailing vessel being add- required by heavier craft, as ed to the navy was an absurdity. The navy building a matter of actual thenceforth was to be a steam navy. Mr. Treasury. Upon that ground Hale then read the recommendations of the measure been brought forwar Secretary of the Navy on the subject. cion" was proposed by their c Mr. Hunter answered, that, in the then After further discussion, w |