6338. PANICS, Stocks and.—
What a
loss you would have suffered if we had laid out
your paper for bank stock? * * * Though
it would have been improper for me to have
given at any time, an opinion on the subject of
stocks to Mr. Brown, or any man dealing in
them, yet I have been unable to refrain from
interposing for you on the present occasion.
I found that your stock stood so as not to
charge Donald & Co. I know Brown to be a
good man, but to have dealt in paper, I did not
know how far he was engaged. I knew that
good men might sometimes avail themselves
of the property of others in their power, to
help themselves out of a present difficulty in
an honest but delusive confidence that they
will be able to repay; that the best men and
those whose transactions stand all in an advantageous
form, may fail by the failure of
others. Under the impulse, therefore, of the
general panic, I ventured to enter a caveat in
the treasury office against permitting the transfer
of any stock standing in your name, or
in any other for your use. This was on the
19th of April. I knew your stock had not been
transferred before March 31, and that from that
time to this, Mr. Brown had not been in
Virginia, so as to give me a reasonable confidence
that it had not been transferred between
the 1st and 19th inst. If so, it is safe.
But it would be still safer invested in Ned
Carter's lands at five dollars the acre.—
To William Short.
Ford ed., v, 510.
(Pa.,
April. 1792)
See Speculation.
