support for the Southern
cause. The "Confederate Cotton Loan" was undertaken with the double
object of providing funds for Southern agents in Europe and of creating
an interested support of the South, which might, it was hoped,
ultimately influence the British Government.

By 1863 it had become exceedingly difficult, owing to the blockade, for
the Government at Richmond to transmit funds to its agents abroad.
Bullock, especially, required large amounts in furtherance of his
ship-building contracts and was embarrassed by the lack of business
methods and the delays of the Government at home. The incompetence of
the Confederacy in finance was a weakness that characterized all of its
many operations whether at home or abroad[1048] and was made evident in
England by the confusion in its efforts to establish credits there. At
first the Confederate Government supplied its agents abroad with drafts
upon the house of Fraser, Trenholm & Company, of Liverpool, a branch of
the firm long established at Charleston, South Carolina, purchasing its
bills of exchange with its own "home made" money. But as Confederate
currency rapidly depreciated this method of transmitting funds became
increasingly difficult and costly. The next step was to send to Spence,
nominated by Mason as financial adviser in England, Confederate money
bonds for sale on the British market, with authority to dispose of them
as low as fifty cents on the dollar, but these found no takers[1049]. By
September, 1862, Bullock's funds for ship-building were exhausted and
some new method of supply was required. Temporary relief was found in
adopting a suggestion from Lindsay whereby cotton was made the basis for
an advance of L60,000, a form of cotton bond being devised which fixed
the price of cotton at eightpence the pound. These bonds were not put on
the market but were privately placed by Lindsay & Company with a few
buyers for the entire sum, the transaction remaining secret[1050].

In the meantime this same recourse to cotton had occurred to the
authorities at Richmond and a plan formulated by which cotton should be
purchased by the Government, stored, and certificates issued to be sold
abroad, the purchaser being assured of "all facilities of shipment."
Spence was to be the authorized agent for the sale of these "cotton
certificates," but before any reached him various special agents of the
Confederacy had arrived in England by December, 1862, with such
certificates