could not live, and, at another time, that being much depressed and
discouraged on account of his many troubles, he had taken to drinking
very hard, and in all probability would live but a short time; while at
the same time, he was lecturing on temperance to the English people, and
was in fact a total-abstinence man. These stories were extensively
circulated; the value of his paper was depreciated in the market, and
was, in several instances bought for a small sum.

Since writing the foregoing with regard to his coming into the Company,
and, as he states, being ruined by it, I have ascertained to my own
satisfaction, that our connection with him was the means of ruining the
Company. A few days since I was talking with a man who has been more
familiar than myself with the whole transaction, and he told me it was
his opinion that if we had never seen Barnum we should still have been
making clocks in that factory. It was a great mystery to me, and to
every body else, how the Company could run down so rapidly during the
last year. I think I have found out, and these are my reasons. Instead
of having an amount of twenty thousand dollars to cancel of the Terry &
Barnum debts and accounts (which the Secretary foolishly agreed to do.)
it eventually proved to be about seventy thousand; (this I have found
out since the failure.) This great loss the Secretary kept to himself,
and it involved the Company so deeply that he became almost desperate;
for knowing by this time that he had been greatly embarrassed, he was
determined to raise money in any way that he could, honestly, and get
out of the difficulty if possible. He had, as he thought, got to keep
this an entire secret, because if known it would ruin the credit of the
Company. When these extra drafts and notes of Terry & Barnum were added
to the debts of the Company, he was obliged to resort to various
expedients to raise money to pay them. This led him to the exchange of
notes on a large scale, which proved to be a great loss, as many of the
parties were irresponsible. There was a loss of thirty thousand dollars
by one man, and I am sure that there must have been more than fifty
thousand dollars lost in this way. He was also obliged to issue short
drafts and notes and raise money on them at fearful rates. The Terry &
Barnum stock which was taken in at par, was not worth twenty-five per
cent, which had a tendency to reduce the value of the stock of our
Company, though I have