’Let it circulate throughout Europe that a member of the United States Senate in 1849 has openly proclaimed, that at a recent period the Governor and legislative assemblies of his own State deliberately issued fraudulent bonds for five millions of dollars to ‘sustain the credit of a rickety bank;’ that, the bonds in question having been hypothecated abroad to innocent holders, such holders have not only no claim against the community by whose executive and representatives this act was committed, but that they are to be taunted for appealing to the verdict of the civilized world rather than to the judgment of the legal officers of the State by whose functionaries they have been already robbed; and that the ruin of toil-worn men, of women, of widows, and of children, and the ‘crocodile tears’ which that ruin has occasioned, is a subject of jest on the part of those by whom it has been accomplished; and then let it be asked if any foreigner ever penned a libel on the American character equal to that against the people of Mississippi by their own Senator.’

Such was the opinion then expressed by the London Times of Jefferson Davis and of the repudiation advocated by him.  It was denounced as robbery, ’the ruin of toil-worn men, of women, of widows, and of children.’  And what is to be thought of the ‘faith’ of a so-called Government, which has chosen this repudiator as their chief, and what of the value of the Confederate bonds now issued by him?  Why, the legal tender notes of the so-called Confederate Government, fundable in a stock bearing eight per cent, interest, is now worth in gold at their own capital of Richmond, less than ten cents on the dollar (2_s._, on the pound), whilst in two thirds of their territory such notes are utterly worthless; and it is TREASON for any citizen of the United States, North or South, or any ALIEN resident there, to deal in them, or in Confederate bonds, or in the cotton pledged for their payment.  No form of Confederate bonds, or notes, or stock, will ever be recognized by the Government of the United States, and the cotton pledged by slaveholding traitors for the payment of the Confederate bonds is all forfeited for treason, and confiscated to the Federal Government by act of Congress.  As our armies advance, this cotton is either burned by the retreating rebel troops, or seized by our forces, and shipped and sold from time to time, for the benefit of the Federal Government.  By reference to the census of 1860, it will be seen that three fourths of the whole cotton crop was raised in States (now held by the Federal army and navy) touching the Mississippi and its tributaries, and all the other ports are either actually held or blockaded by the Federal forces.  The traitor pledge of this cotton is, then, wholly unavailing; the bonds are utterly worthless; they could not be sold at any price in the United States, and those who force them on the London market, in the language of the Times, before quoted, will only accomplish ’the ruin of toil-worn, men, of women, of widows, and of children.’