eat
sympathetic nerve of the commercial world, credit," said Edward Everett,
"as far as the United States was concerned, was for the time paralyzed.
At that moment Mr. Peabody not only stood firm himself, but was the
cause of firmness in others. There were not at that time, probably, half
a dozen other men in Europe who, upon the subject of American
securities, would have been listened to for a moment in the parlor of
the Bank of England. But his judgment commanded respect; his integrity
won back the reliance which men had been accustomed to place in American
securities. The reproach in which they were all involved was gradually
wiped away from those of a substantial character; and if, on this solid
basis of unsuspected good faith, he reared his own prosperity, let it be
remembered that at the same time he retrieved the credit of the State of
Maryland, of which he was agent--performing that miracle by which the
word of an honest man turns paper into gold."

The conduct of Mr. Peabody, as well as the evidences which he gave of
his remarkable capacity for business, in this crisis, placed him among
the foremost merchants of London. He carried on his business upon a
large scale from his base of operations in that city. He bought British
manufactures in all parts of England and shipped them to the United
States. His vessels brought back in return all kinds of American produce
which would command a ready sale in England. Profitable as these
ventures were, there was another branch of his business much more
remunerative to him. The merchants and manufacturers on both sides of
the Atlantic who consigned their goods to him frequently procured from
him advances upon the goods long before they were sold. At other times
they would leave large sums in his hands long after the goods were
disposed of, knowing that they could draw whenever they needed, and that
in the meanwhile their money was being so profitably invested that they
were certain of a proper interest for their loans. Thus Mr. Peabody
gradually became a banker, in which pursuit he was as successful as he
had been as a merchant. In 1843 he withdrew from the house of Peabody,
Riggs & Co., and established the house of "George Peabody & Company, of
Warnford Court, City."

His dealings were chiefly with America, and in American securities, and
he was always regarded as one of the best specimens of the American
merchant ever seen in London. He was very proud of his country; and