give security to trade or maintain friendly relations between the authorities of the Island and those of the United States.'

"It will be seen by examination of the letter of the commander of the 'Blasco de Garay,' hereto annexed, under date of August 13th, that he complains that my acts do not come up to my professions of friendship and the courtesies of my language. I have, therefore, appended all of the more important of my correspondence with the Spanish authorities here, so that the department may see whether, either in the manner or matter of that correspondence, there is anything which should be a casus belli between two otherwise friendly nations.

"That I answered somewhat sharply the letter of the captain of the 'Blasco de Garay,' who seized the occasion in replying to a note, wherein I offered him assistance and courtesy, to read me a lecture on my duties, I admit. I thought, and still think, I was justified in so doing.

"A nation may be friendly and its consul quite the reverse, as witness the late Prussian consul, who is now a general in the rebel army, for which he recruited a battalion of his countrymen.

When, therefore, I find a consul aiding the rebels, I must treat him as a rebel; and the exceptions are very few indeed among the consuls here. Bound up with the rebels by marriage and social relations, most of the consular offices are only asylums where rebels are harbored and rebellion fostered.

"Before I close this report, which pressure of public duties more urgent has delayed till the departure of the mail on the 6th of October, allow me to repeat that, with the blessing of God, to whom our most devout thanks are daily due for His goodness, the fell scourge, the yellow fever, has been kept from my command and the city of New Orleans till now, when all danger is past, by the firm administration of sanitary and quarantine regulations, in spite of complaints and difficulties; and if my acts need it, I point to the results as an unanswerable vindication."

Here, I believe, we may take leave of the consuls for a while. As time wore on, they came to understand the altered conditions of their tenure of office. They learned that there really was in the world such a power as the United States. They changed their opinion, too, of the man who represented that power in New Orleans; and during the latter half of General Butler's administration, his intercourse with them was generally of the most friendly and agreeable character.

CHAPTER XXI.

EFFORTS TOWARD RESTORATION.

To revive the business of New Orleans and cause its stagnant life to flow again in its ordinary channels, was among the first endeavors of General Butler after reducing the city to order and providing for its subsistence. It was necessary, at first, to compel the opening of retail stores, by the threat of a fine of a hundred dollars a day for keeping them closed. Mechanics refused to work for the United States. Certain repairs upon the light steamers, essential to the supply of the troops, could only be got done by the threat of Fort Jackson. One burly contractor was imprisoned and kept upon bread and water till he consented to undertake a piece of work of urgent necessity. The cabmen and draymen, as we have seen, required to be cajoled or impressed. This state of feeling, however, soon passed away. It was half affectation, half terror-the men only needed such a show of compulsion as would serve them as an excuse to their comrades. The ordinary business of the city soon went on as it had before the capture. The railroads were set running as far as the Union lines extended.

"Will it pay to run it ?" the general would ask.

"Yes."

"Then go ahead."

So the people trafficked, and rode, and passed their days as they had been wont to do while under the sway of Mayor Monroe, General Lovell, and Mr. Soulé. Perfect order generally prevailed. The general walked and rode about the city with a single attendant, by day and by night. A child could have carried a purse in its hand from Carrollton to Chalmette without risk of molestation. The commerce of the city could not be revived before the opening the port. In one of his earliest dispatches, General Butler advised that measure, as well as a general amnesty for all past political offenses. The planters, however, were distrustful, and feared to place their sugar within reach of the Union authorities. To remove their apprehensions, the following general order was iзued:

"NEW ORLEANS, May 4, 1862. "The commanding general of the department having been informed that rebellious, lying and desperate men have represented, and are now representing, to the honest planters and good people of the state of Louisiana, that the United States government, by its forces, have come here to confiscate and destroy their crops of cotton and sugar, it is hereby ordered to be made known, by publication in all the newspapers of this city, that all cargoes of cotton and sugar shall receive the safe conduct of the forces of the United States, and the boats bringing them from beyond the lines of the United States forces, may be allowed to return in safety, after a reasonable delay, if their owners so desire; provided, they bring no passengers except the owners and managers of said boat, and of the property so conveyed, and no other merchandise except provisions, of which such boats are requested to bring a full supply, for the benefit of the poor of this city."

In anticipation of the opening of the port to northern trade, and in order to convince the holders of produce that New Orleans was already a safe market, the general determined, at once, to commence the purchase and exportation of sugar on government account. What merchants would call a "brilliant operation" was the result of his endeavors. Lying at the levee he had a large fleet of transports, which, by the terms of their charters, he was bound to send home in ballast. There is no ballast to be had in New Orleans at any time, and none nearer than the white sand of Ship Island, five days' sail and thirty hours' steam from the city. There was sugar enough on the levee to ballast all the vessels, at an immense saving to the government, to say nothing of the profit to be realized in the sale of the sugar at the North. He determined to buy enough sugar for the purpose.

To show the wisdom of this measure, take the case of the steamer Mississippi, hired at the rate of fifteen hundred dollars a day. "She must have," explained the general, "two hundred and fifty tons of ballast. To go to Ship Island and have sand brought alongside in small boats, will take at least ten days; to discharge the same and haul it away, will take four more. Thus, it will cost the government twenty-one thousand dollars to ballast and discharge the ship with sand, to say nothing of the cost of taking the sand away, or the average delays of getting it, if it storms at Ship Island. Now, if I can get some merchant to ship four hundred hogsheads of su gar in the Mississippi as ballast, which can be received in two days

almost at the wharf where she lies, and discharged in two more, the government will save fifteen thousand dollars by the difference, even if it gets nothing for freight. But, by employing a party to get the ballast, see to its shipment, and take charge of the business, as a ship's broker, and agreeing to let him have all he can get over a given sum-say five dollars per hogshead for his trouble and expenses of lading-the government in the case given will save two thousand dollars more-four hundred hogsheads, at five dollars— say, in all, seventeen thousand dollars."

It was difficult to start the affair from want of money. The government had no money then in New Orleans, and the general had none. By the pledge of the whole of his private fortune ($150,000), he borrowed of Jacob Barker, the well-known banker, one hundred thousand dollars in gold, and with this sum at command, he proceeded to purchase. Merchants were also permitted to send forward sugar as ballast, on paying to the government a moderate freight. The details of this transaction were ably arranged by the general's brother, a shrewd and experienced man of business, who was allowed a commission for his trouble. The affair succeeded to admiration. The ships were all ballasted with sugar. The government took the sugar bought by the general's own money, and repaid him the amount expended; the whole advantage of the operation accruing to the United States. The sole result to General Butler was a great deal of trouble, and, at a later period, a great deal of calumny. The owners of some of the transports conceived the idea that the freight should be paid to them, or at least a part of it. General Butler opposed their claims, and the dispute was protracted through several months. The captains of the vessels, I am told, still rest under the impression that in some mysterious way the general gained an immense sum by this export of sugar. Mr. Chase knows better. He, if no one else, was abundantly satisfied with the transaction.

Having touched upon the subject of the calumnies so assiduously circulated with regard to the administration of General Butler in New Orleans, it may, perhaps, be as well to add here the little that remains to be said on that edifying subject.

First, let me adduce another little operation which has been construed to his disadvantage. I refer to a small quantity of cotton sent home from Ship Island by General Butler, which chanced to

arrive a short time before the papers that explained the transaction.

"This cotton," wrote General Butler to the quartermaster-general, "was captured by the navy on board a small schooner, which it would have been unsafe to send to sea. I needed the schooner as a lighter, and took her from the navy. What should be done with the cotton? A transport was going home empty-it would cost the United States nothing to transport it. To whom should I send it? To my quartermaster at Boston? But I supposed him on the way here. Owing to the delays of the expedition, I found all the quartermaster's men and artisans on the island, whose services were indispensable, almost in a state of mutiny for want of pay. There was not a dollar of government funds on the island. I had seventyfive dollars of my own. The sutler had money he would lend on my draft on my private banker. I borrowed on such draft about four thousand dollars, quite equal to the value of the cotton as I received it, and with the money I paid the government debts to the laborers, so that their wives and children would not starve. In order that my draft should be paid, I sent the cotton to my correspondent at Boston, with directions to sell it, pay the draft out of the proceeds, and hold the rest, if any, subject to my order; so that, upon the account stated, I might settle with the government. What was done? The government seized the cotton without a word of explanation to me, kept it until it had depreciated ten per cent., and allowed my draft to be dishonored; and it had to be paid out of the little fund I left at home for the support of my children in my absence."

Subsequent explanations completely satisfied the government, and the money was refunded.

As these two transactions were the only ones of a commercial nature in which General Butler engaged while commanding the Department of the Gulf, and the only ones, I believe, in which he was ever concerned, the reader now has before him the entire basis of the huge superstructure of calumny raised by the malign persistence of rebels and their allies. Both of these transactions were solely designed to aid the work in hand, to remove unexpected obstacles, to anticipate measures which the government must instantly have ordered had it been near the scene of action.

But, as Mr. Toodles remarks, and repeats, "he had a brother."