cur in the project. Upon Jackson's return, in July, he urged Duane to consent, but in vain, and an arrangement appears to have been made with Taney to take the Treasury if Duane should still refuse.
In August, Duane wrote, "It is true that there is an irresponsible cabal that has more power than the people are aware of. * * * What I object to is that there is an undercurrent, a sly, whispering, slandering system pursued."[1] October 23, he wrote: "I had not been twenty-four hours in office when I felt, as I wrote my father, my vessel on the breakers. I found that the President was in the hands of men whom I would not trust, personally or politically. A contest at once began, the object of which was to drive me out of office, as the "Globe" called me 'a refractory subordinate.'"[2] In his history of the matter, written five years later, he says: "I had heard rumors of the existence of an influence at Washington unknown to the Constitution and to the country; and the conviction that they were well founded now became irresistible. I knew that four of the six members of the last cabinet, and that four of the six members of the present cabinet, opposed a removal of the deposits, and yet their exertions were nullified by individuals whose intercourse with the President was clandestine. During his absence [in New England] several of those individuals called on me and made many of the identical observations in the identical language used by himself. They represented Congress as corruptible, and the new members as in need of special guidance. * * * In short, I felt satisfied from all that I saw and heard that factious and selfish views alone guided those who had influence with the Executive, and that the true welfare and honor of the country constituted no part of their objects."
In July occurred an incident which increased very much the animosity which was felt against the Bank. The line of action which it adopted was blamed by many of its friends.
July 4, 1831, a treaty was made with France by which she agreed to pay certain claims for spoliations during the Napoleonic wars. According to the treaty, the first installment was due February 2, 1833, but on account of the unpopularity of the treaty in France no appropriation had been made to pay it. The Secretary of the Treasury drew a draft for it on the 7th of February, as for a commercial debt, which draft he sold to the Bank for $961,240.30. Congress passed an act, March 2, ordering the Secretary to loan this sum at interest. The draft when presented at the French Treasury could not be paid. It was protested and was taken up by Hottinguer for the Bank as endorser. The Bank had put the money to the credit of the Treasury, and it claimed to prove, by quoting the account, that the purchase money had actually been drawn. Hence it declared that it was out of funds for twice the amount of the bill.[3] It demanded 15 per cent. damages under an old law of Maryland which was the law of the District of Columbia. The Treasury repaid the purchase money and offered to pay the actual damage
