Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1865-03-20
The Biters Rita Singular aud Yer
Foolish Transaction,


A firm of Tennessee seeessionists, doing
business in Nashville under the style OF J
/ G. French s. Co, lately msie s malignant
and marvelously foolish effort to discredit
the national currenry by protesting some
coupons. It appears that these parties had
one hundred and tWenty-three United
States bonds, the coupons of which, worth
$l.S3 each, had Just fallen due. The course
pursued by them is thus narrated by the
Washington correspondent of the Cincin-
natl GaIstte;
They carried the coupons 10 q National
bank, threw them down, and demanded
payment. The bank said, "certsinly, but
there seems to be quite q quantity of
them; please TO make up q schedule of
the number and amounts" The holders
refused, gathered up the coupons in great
wrath, started strsightWsy to a notary
public, and had separate notice of pro
test made out for each one of the hun
dred and tWenty-three coupons; affixed
TO these, one hundred and tWenty-three
notsrisl papers, as many twenty-five
cent internal revenue stamps; tied up the
whole package, and sent it BY mail, placing
several dollars worth of postage stamps on
it, when it was entitled 10 come free and
modestly demanding the Treasurer of the
United states the puyment of the coupons,
with the notsrisl fees, costs of stamps, post
age, DC, amounting in all TO over double
the value of the coupons themselves"
Mr.. United States Treasurer Spinner re-
piled TO this surprising missivs in the fol-
lowing terse and vigorous manner:
TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES, !
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 1855. I
GENTLEMEN: Your extraordinary letter
of the 10th inst, the very extraordinary
papers that were attached to the coupons
that came inclosed with the letter, as we'll
as the very extraordinary other one hun
dred and Twenty-three missives that pre-
ceded the letter, are all before me-
You say " "they were protested in accord
anee with law as we (you) understand It."
Now, it is very evident that you do not
understand law at sll. You should have
consulted good lawyer. II is not neces-
sary that maker of commercial or other
peeuniary obligation should have notice of
the non-psyment of his own paper. It is
only necessary that indorsers of such paper
should be notified Of the non payment Of
the obligation Of their principals. It
should have occurred 70 you that there was
no inderser to these cases; that the United
States was the principal, and that gov
ernment cannot be sued. Then why at
tempt to protest at al 2
Then, too, you forget that the debt was
entitled 10 grace. You, in your esgerness
TO do bright smart thing" jumped on the
instant that the day of payment came in
sight, and, 10 esp the climax of sbsurdities,
you presented the papers for payment to a
party that was under no legal or other OBJ
legations to make such payments. Ishould
certainly be led TO think that you were Sc
cessionists of the most malignant kind that
is'groWing at the North, and had done this
thing with view TO bring the credit of
the United States into bad repute, were
the idea not precluded by the fact that you
put heap Of postage grstuitously and
unnecessarily on the package addressed
to me, which by law, as 1 understand it,
might as well have come free of postage,
And !, then, too, your unnecessarily lib
eral expenditure of one hundred and
twenty-three one quarter of q dollar re-
venue stamps, proves that you are really
anxious TO aid the Government in its en-
deavors to crush the rebels.
The amount of the coupons you state
correctly at s279.224. 1 will send you this
amount, with a half cent additional, by my
draft on New York, or return you all the
papers, as you may elect. As 70 the other
and larger claim that you make for costs,
the less said about it, and the sooner you
charge it to "proft and loss" the better.
Respectfully yours, sc,
F. 3. SPINNER,
Treasurer United States.
Messrs. J. G. French s. Co., Nashville,
Tenn.