a valuable cargo of British goods intended to be invested in coffee for Stephen Girard, of Philadelphia.
During my long commercial experience, I have noticed that no advantage results from telling one's business to others, except to create jealousy or competitors when we are fortunate, and to gratify our enemies when otherwise.
If my remarks are correct, I have no doubt they will show you the necessity of being silent, and to attend with activity, perseverance, and modesty, to the interests of your employer.
As my letters of instruction embrace several interesting objects, I request you to peruse them in rotation, when at sea in fine climates, during your voyage to Batavia, and to take correct extracts, so as to render yourself master of the most essential parts. I conclude by directing your attention to your health and that of your crew.
I am yours, respectfully,
Stephen Girard.
Mr. Girard was not only rigidly precise in his instructions, but he permitted no departure from them. He regarded it as dangerous to allow discretion to any one in the execution of his plans. Where a deviation from his instructions might cause success in one case, it would cause loss in ninety-nine others. It was understood among all his employés that a rigid obedience to orders, in even the most trifling particulars, was expected, and would be exacted. If loss came under such circumstances, the merchant assumed the entire responsibility for it.
Upon one occasion one of his best captains was instructed to purchase his cargo of teas at a certain port. Upon reaching home he was summoned by the merchant to his presence.
"Captain——," said Mr. Girard, sternly, "your instructions required you to purchase your cargo at——."
"That is true, Mr. Girard," replied the Captain, "but upon reaching that port I found I could do so much better at——, that I felt justified in proceeding to the latter place."
"You should have obeyed your orders, sir," was the stern retort.
"I was influenced by a desire to serve your interests, sir. The result ought to justify me in my act, since it puts many thousands more into your pocket than if I had bought where I was instructed."
"Captain——," said Girard, "I take care of my own interests. You should have obeyed your orders if you had broken me. Nothing can excuse your disobedience. You will hand in your accounts, sir, and consider yourself discharged from my service."
He was as good as his word, and, though the captain's disobedience had vastly increased the profit of the voyage, he dismissed him, nor would he ever receive him into his service again.
To his knowledge of his business Mr. Girard joined an unusual capacity for such ventures. He was, it must be said, hard and illiberal in his bargains, and remorseless in exacting the last cent due him. He was prompt and faithful in the execution of every contract, never departed in the slightest from his plighted word, and never engaged in any venture which he was not perfectly able to undertake. He was prudent and cautious in the fullest sense of those terms, but his ventures were always made with a boldness which was the sure forerunner of success.
His fidelity to his word is well shown by a circumstance which had occurred long after he was one of the "money kings" of the land. He was once engaged with his cashier in a discussion as to the length of time a man would consume in counting a million of dollars, telling out each dollar separately. The dispute became animated, and the cashier declared that he could make a million of dots with ink in a few hours.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Girard, who was thoroughly vexed by the opposition of the other, "I'll wager five hundred dollars that I can ride in my gig from here to my farm, spend two hours there, and return before you can make your million of dots with ink."
The cashier, after a moment's reflection, accepted the wager, and Mr. Girard departed to his farm. He returned in a few hours, confident that he had won. The cashier met him with a smile.
"Where is my money?" asked Girard, triumphantly.
"The money is mine," replied the cashier. "Come and see."
He led the merchant to an unused room of the bank, and there, to his dismay, Girard saw the walls and ceiling covered with spots of ink, which the cashier had dashed on them with a brush.
"Do you mean to say there are a million of dots here?" he cried, angrily.
"Count them, and see," replied his subordinate, laughing. "You know the wager was a million of dots with ink."
"But I expected you would make them with the pen."
"I did not undertake any thing of the kind."
The joke was too good, and the merchant not only paid the amount of the wager, but the cost of cleaning the walls.
In 1810 the question of renewing the charter of the old Bank of the United States was actively discussed. Girard was a warm friend of that institution, which he believed had been the cause of a very great part of the prosperity of the country, and was firmly convinced that Congress would renew the charter. In this belief he ordered the Barings, of London, to invest all his funds in their hands in shares of the Bank of the United States, which was done, during the following year, to the amount of half a million of dollars. When the charter expired, he was the principal creditor of that institution, which Congress refused to renew. Discovering that he could purchase the old Bank and the cashier's house for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, he at once secured them, and on the 12th of May, 1812, opened the Girard Bank, with a capital of one million two hundred thousand dollars, which he increased the next year by one hundred thousand dollars more. He retained all the old officers of the Bank of the United States, especially the cashier, Mr. Simpson, to whose skill and experience he was greatly indebted for his subsequent success.
Finding that the salaries which had been paid by the Government were higher than those paid elsewhere, he cut them down to the rate given by the other banks. The watchman had always received from the old Bank the gift of an overcoat at Christmas, but Girard put a stop to this. He gave no gratuities to any of his employés, but confined them to the compensation for which they had bargained; yet he contrived to get out of them service more devoted than was received by other men who paid higher wages and made presents. Appeals to him for aid were unanswered. No poor man ever came full-handed from his presence. He turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of failing merchants to help them on their feet again. He was neither generous nor charitable. When his faithful cashier died, after long years spent in his service, he manifested the most hardened indifference to the bereavement of the family of that gentleman, and left them to struggle along as best they could.
Yet from the first he was liberal and sometimes magnificent in the management of his bank. He would discount none but good paper, but it was his policy to grant accommodations to small traders, and thus encourage beginners, usually giving the preference to small notes, by this system doing very much to avert the evils that would of necessity have sprung from the suspension of the old Bank of the United States. The Government credit was almost destroyed, and money was needed to carry on the war. He made repeated advances to the treasury, unsolicited by the authorities, and on more than one occasion kept the Government supplied with the sinews of war. In 1814, when our prospects, both military and financial, were at their lowest ebb, when the British forces had burned Washington and the New England States were threatening to withdraw from the Union, the Government asked for a loan of five millions of dollars, with the most liberal inducements to subscribers. Only twenty thousand dollars could be obtained, and the project seemed doomed to failure, when it was announced
