The Express.
London, England, 1847-07-20 00:00:00

MONEY MARKET.

MONDAY EVIININO.
The funds opened rather heavy this morning at
Saturday's prices, and so continued with limited
dealings till late in the day. A gloom evidently hung
over the market, which reports of higher or firmer
prices in the corn market, the weather less propitious,
and the harvest not so promising, did not contribute
to improve. But the chief cause of depression was
the uneasy feeling about the state of affairs is Paris,
about which many rumours were in circulation. Ap-
prehensions, in fact, were currently expressed of some
forthcoming commotions in that capital, founded doubt-
less on representations of the unhealthy condition of
the public mind there, and of the collection of troops in
certain camps, which it was conjectured might have
for object to overawe or act on occasion against the
capital. From 891 to 1 for account Consols declined
to 89 for account, but at the close were a shade better
at 89 to 1, for money 881, the market not firm.
Reduced Threes, 891 to 1. Three-and-a-Quarter per I
Cents., 911 to 1. Exchequer Bills 9s. to 12s. premium.
Long Annuities, 9 1-16 to 1. India Bonds, ss. to 10s.
premium. Bank Stock, 196 to 8.
There is little alteration to notice in the foreign
market, where the dealings were still on a very
limited scale. Spanish Fives were 211 to 2 ; the
Threes, 311 to 2. Portuguese, 30; to 11. Dutch Two-
and-a-Half per Cents, 371 to 8; the Fours, 901 to 1.
Danish, 85 to 7. Mexican, 191,t0 1. Chilian Bonds,
91 to 3. Ecuador, 31 to 1.
The letter addressed on behalf of the committee of
Spanish bondholders to the Spanish ambassador
at this court, inserted in the E.rpress this
evening, seems scarcely calculated to fulfil its object.
It confounds Spain, that is, the Spanish people,
with the acts and conduct of the Spanish government,
with which the people have as little connexion as
may be. The uncourteous conduct of the ambas-
sador, however, in refusing an interview to a
deputation of the committee, has not passed with-
out reprehensien in the City, where personally
in his years of exile he was well known, and
a daily frequenter of the Royal Exchange. It is not
forgotten that Senor Isturiz was a not uniofluential
member of that Cortes which contracted or sanctioned
those loans from 1820 to 1823, now constituting the great
bulk of that Spanish debt, the non-fulfilled obligations
of which by equally faithless successive governments
is the intolerable grievance, the cause of such wide-
spread ruin in families, so justly complained of and
stigmatised.
Such is the tenor of all recent accounts from Madrid,
however, that for the present, if not for a long time
to come, there is little encouragement for the bond-
holders to hope for any regard to their reclama-
tions beyond mere words of course, still less
for any approach tgwarcls substantial redress of
grievances. In quarters with sufficient means of
information about what is going forward there, the
conviction is prevalent that the apparent, but not
direct, assent of Salamanca, the Minister of Finance,
to the scheme of converting the whole foreign debt
into a 3 per cent. stock suggested to Mr. Henderson,
was a mere artifice, so to propitiate popular opinion
abroad and at home Ellf to improve the credit of
Spanish securities, and of the Spanish government,
for the momentary occasion of facilitating the ne-
gotiation of new loans, first of all that now proposed
for one hundred millions of reale, and further for
raising the prices of Spanish bonds, both of the home
and domestic debt, in the interests more purely
selfish of speculators. Soon after the accession of
the present Spanish ministry to office, an ex-
tensive speculation is stated to have been en-
tered into on the Madrid and other foreign
stock exchanges, with the object of running
'up the prices of Spanish securities, and then,
upon some declaration favourable to the interests
of the bondholders, of selling out again at the higher
prices ensuing. This speculation, to which parties
high in office at Madrid are known not to be stran-
gers, has broken down through the double influence
of the food crisis and the monetary panics both in
France and England. The speculators, in other
words, amongst whom figure names deemed worthy
here of better association, have bought up masses of
stock which they cannot hold, and, more, they cannot
pay for, whilst, as prices have ruinously gone down,
there is no market to sell upon. The result is,
as may be imagined, a break up and bankruptcy
of the confederacy all but declared. One unfortunate
English gentleman of property resident in Madrid,
seduced into speculation, to which unaccustomed and
a stranger, paid the penalty by rain, and suiside
afterwards, on receipt of a note from one of the prin-
cipal Spanish parties, his friend and seducer, that he
could lend him no assistance to meet his share of the
losses.

So have fared the speculators, nor does the con-
fusion appear to be less in the Treasury. The Bank
of San Fernando has so injured itself by its advances
to the government, and so incurred disfavour with
the government, by refusing further to compromise
itself, that its shares have suffered a serious discredit
and decline. Another bank, in which the Minister of
Finance is understood to be largely interested, has not
been the better for the connexion. Hitherto the go-
vernment has been able to raise money in emergencies
at home with the aid of the banks, conjointly some-
times with foreign capitalists, but now it appears to
be destitute of all credit at home, so that its agents
are travelling abroad in search of capitalist adven-
turers willing, upon considerations proportionate, to
supply the mean, needful to replenish an empty ex-
chequer.