CHAPTER V.
ELDORADO.
About a month after Mr. Townsend became the owner of nearly half of a new and flourishing western city, he sent an agent out to examine the condition of things there, and to take charge of certain improvements it was his intention to begin forthwith. The agent had been gone a little over six weeks, when the following letter was received from him:
“Dear Sir:—After some considerable difficulty, I have, at last, succeeded in finding ‘Eldorado.’ No one, in this part of the country, had ever heard of such a place. When I showed the plan of the city, and map of the surrounding country, people shook their heads, and said there must be some mistake. But, by the aid of a State surveyor, who knew rather more about matters and things than the common people, I was able to find the exact place which, with some of the natural advantages, as that of a water-power, for instance, which have been assigned to it, is yet as wild and unbroken a spot as I have met in these wild regions. I learn that an actual survey of it was made about a year ago, and the whole tract purchased for a hundred dollars, and thought dear at that by those who did not know for what it was designed. Of the railroads that are to run through it, only one is commenced, or likely to be these ten years, and that will not pass within sixty miles of the place. In a word, sir, not the first spade-full of earth has been turned in this beautiful city of ‘Eldorado,’ nor the first tree cut down. I fear that you have been most shamefully deceived. I will await your reply to this letter before returning home. Very respectfully, yours, etc.”
“Forty thousand dollars more as good as cast into the sea!” said Mr. Townsend, with forced composure, as he read the last sentence of this letter, and comprehended the whole matter. “Fool! Fool! Why did I not send the agent before I made the purchase? Was ever a man so beside himself!”
As soon as the mental blindness and confusion that this intelligence produced, had, in a degree, subsided, Mr. Townsend began to think whether he could not save something by a forced sale of his interest in “Eldorado.” But the idea of selling, for a consideration, something that was utterly worthless, he could not exactly make up his mind to do. While turning the matter over in his thoughts, it occurred to him that, perhaps, Cleveland, who might be ignorant of the precise state of things, would not hesitate to purchase back the interest in “Eldorado,” if he could get it at five or ten thousand dollars less than he had received for it. With the intention of making him the offer, at least, Townsend called upon the sharp-witted speculator, who received him with unaccustomed coolness, and seemed to feel uneasy in his presence.
“Don’t you wish your interest in ‘Eldorado’ restored?” said the merchant, with as much coolness as he could assume. Cleveland compressed his lips tightly, and shook his head, while an expression that Mr. Townsend did not at all like, crossed his face. The merchant returned to his counting-room, without saying any thing more on the subject. A few minutes after he had come back, one of his clerks handed him the morning paper, with his finger upon a paragraph, saying, as he did so,
“Have you seen that, sir?”
Mr. Townsend ran his eyes hurriedly over the article pointed out by his clerk. It was from a western paper, and read as follows:
“Eldorado.—We were shown, a day or two since, the plan of a city with this name, located on the L—— river, in our county. The two great railroads that are to cross the State, in opposite directions, were made to pass each other at right angles in the centre of this town, although neither of them will ever come within forty miles of it. Streets, squares, churches, public halls, and all were there in beautiful order; and extensive mills were shown erected on the river. All, or nearly all of them, the person who had the plan expected to find; and we gathered from him that one third of the town of ‘Eldorado’ had been sold at the East for the handsome little sum of forty thousand dollars—not much for the third of a splendid city, we confess, but rather a large price for a part of ‘Eldorado,’ which still lies in primitive forest, with trees of a hundred years’ growth, rising from the very spot where the public halls and pillared churches are made to stand.”
“In a word, this ‘Eldorado’ is a splendid fraud, but only one of a thousand that are daily practiced. We warn the public against it; and we can do so with the belief that our warning will not be disregarded, for we happen to know that there is as little chance of a great city, or even a small village, springing up in this out of the way spot, as upon one of the peaks of the Rocky Mountains.”
After he had read this, Mr. Townsend understood the meaning of that expression in Cleveland’s face, which had struck him as peculiar. He had, doubtless, seen this paragraph, and learned therefrom, that the bubble he had helped to blow up, was ready to explode. Of course, he didn’t want “Eldorado” property at any price.
In a day or two, the paragraph from the western paper appeared in all the city papers, and with various comments from the different editors. In one of them it was remarked, that a certain shipping merchant had, only a few weeks before, paid seventy thousand dollars for half of the “city.” “Of course,” the article went on to say, “here are seventy thousand dollars lost in a single gambling operation. When such splendid stakes as these are lost and won, we must not be astonished if we hear of failures by the dozens in the ranks of our merchant princes. In this number we shall not be at all surprised to find the owner of half of ‘Eldorado.’”
Mr. Townsend read this with pain, mortification, and a strange fear about his heart. In a little over a year, property, amounting to nearly a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, had melted away, and passed from his hands, irrecoverably. It seemed like a dream, so rapidly had transpired the singularly disastrous incidents. But worse than the mere loss of money, was the effect produced upon the merchant. His confidence in all business operations was gone; and he came into the unhappy state of those who believe that the fates are against them. If a ship came in, he was afraid to send her forth again, lest the voyage should prove unsuccessful; and he sold to even his best customers with timidity. To continue to do business in such a state of doubt as to the result, was not possible for Mr. Townsend, and he concluded, after a long and anxious consideration of the subject, to withdraw from trade, and seek some safe investment of the remainder of his property; the interest from which would be ample for the maintenance of his family in the style of elegance in which they had been accustomed to live.
The execution of this determination was hastened by the loss of another ship and cargo in a typhoon in the Indian Ocean. In this case insurance had been regularly effected; and the loss was promptly paid; but the disaster completed the overthrow of Mr. Townsend’s confidence in all business operations. More clearly than he had ever perceived it in his life, did he see the uncertainty that, as a natural consequence, must attend all commercial adventures, subject as they were to fluctuations and disturbances in the markets; the caprices of the winds and the waves, and the doubtful integrity of man. He wondered at the signal success that had attended his career as a merchant, and felt that something more than his own sagacity was involved therein.
The amount received from the underwriters for the ship and cargo which had been lost, was sixty thousand dollars. This sum was invested in stock of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania, as the safest productive disposition of it that could be made. Then, with an earnest devotion of his time and energies to the end in view, did Mr. Townsend proceed to wind up his business. His ships were sold; his goods disposed of as rapidly as possible, and, at last, his store was closed, and he removed his counting-room to a second story, retaining a single clerk to assist in the final settlement of his affairs.
As fast as money was realized, United States Bank stock was purchased, as a temporary disposal of it, until some other and safer investment could be made. Ground rents, and loans on bond and mortgage, were looked to as the ultimate mode of investing the bulk of his fortune—now reduced, he found, to a little over a hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and a portion of that in doubtful hands.
Months passed from the time the first purchase of United States Bank stock was made, and still no other investment of money had taken place. Several ground rents in the heart of the city, secured by costly improvements, had come into market, but Mr. Townsend hesitated about taking them until it was too late. He had received any number of applications for loans, to be secured by bond and mortgage, but could not make up his mind about the safety of any one of the operations. Thus, the time passed, and more and more of his property was daily becoming represented by United States Bank scrip, until nearly every thing he possessed was locked up in the stock of an institution, looked upon by every one as the safest in the country, yet, really, tottering upon the verge of ruin.