inseparably associated with legitimate business methods. In giving one of his captains instructions he wrote, as was his invariable policy, the most explicit directions to exercise secretiveness and cunning in his purchases of coffee at Batavia. Be cautious and prudent, was his admonition. Keep to yourself the intention of the voyage and the amount of specie that you have on board. To satisfy the curious, throw them off the scent by telling them that the ship will take in molasses, rice and sugar, if the price is very low, adding that the whole will depend upon the success in selling the small Liverpool cargo. If you do this, the cargo of coffee can be bought ten per cent cheaper than it would be if it is publicly known there is a quantity of Spanish dollars on board, besides a valuable cargo of British goods intended to be invested in coffee for Stephen Girard of Philadelphia.
By 1810 we see him ordering the Barings of London to invest in shares of the Bank of the United States half a million dollars which they held for him. When the charter expired, he was the principal creditor of that bank; and he bought, at a great bargain, the bank and the cashier's house for $120,000. On May 12, 1812, he opened the Girard Bank, with a capital of $1,200,000, which he increased the following year by $100,000 more.2
A DICTATOR OF FINANCE.
His wealth was now overshadowingly great; his power immense. He was a veritable dictator of the realms of finance; an assiduous, repellent little man, with his devil's eye, who rode roughshod over every obstacle in his path. His every movement bred fear; his veriest word could bring ruin to any one who dared cross his purposes. The war of 1812 brought disaster to many a merchant, but Girard harvested fortune from the depths of misfortune. "He was, it must be said," says Houghton, "hard and illiberal in his bargains, and remorseless in exacting the last cent due him." And after he opened the Girard Bank: "Finding that the salaries which had