and dollars. He endorsed the check,
"Presented to the State of Maryland with the best wishes of G. Peabody,"
and gave it back. Peabody's success with Threadneedle Street tapped for
him a reservoir of power. To bring Great Britain and America into closer
financial and industrial relationship now became his life-work. In
Eighteen Hundred Thirty-five he moved his principal office to London.
This was for the purpose of facilitating the shipment of English goods
to America. The English manufacturers were afraid to sell to American
merchants. "Capital is timid," said Adam Smith, the truth of which many
of us can attest.

Peabody knew the trade of America; and his business now was to make
advances to English jobbers on shipments going to "the States." Thus did
he lubricate the wheels of trade.

London bankers had been trying to show English manufacturers that
trading with the "American Colonies" was very risky, inasmuch as these
"Colonies" were "rebels," and entertained a hate and jealousy toward the
Mother Country which might manifest itself in repudiation almost any
time. This fanning of old embers was to keep up the rate of discount.
The postage on a letter carried from England to America, or America to
England, was twenty-five cents when Peabody first went to England. He
saw the rate reduced to ten cents, and this largely through his own
efforts.

Now we send a letter to Great Britain for two cents, or as cheaply as a
letter can be sent from New York City to Yonkers. Through the influence
of George Peabody, more than any other man of his time, the two great
countries grew to understand each other.

The business of Peabody was to maintain the credit of America. To this
end he made advances on shipments to the States. Where brokers had
formerly charged ten per cent, he took five. And moreover, where he knew
the American importer, he advanced to the full amount of the invoice.

He turned his money over four times a year, and thus got an interest on
it of twenty per cent. His losses averaged only one-half of one per
cent. When he wanted funds he found no difficulty in borrowing at a low
rate of interest on his own paper. The business was simple, easy, and
when once started yielded an income to Peabody of from three hundred
thousand to a half-million dollars a year. And no one was more surprised
than George Peabody himself, who had once worked for a certain Sylvester
Proctor of Danvers for four years, and at the end of tha