When Amschel realised his mistake, he found it "astonishing"-the more so as he was held responsible for the fall of sterling in Berlin! "Could I have been more careful?" he retorted, stung by his brothers" criticisms. "You really want to be able to go out in the rain without getting wet." Salomon"s gloomy conclusion was that Nathan had overreached himself: "No man on earth can at any time fix the rate of the pound except a government which would be ready to risk half a million pounds during one year in order to carry out a monetary plan . . . I do not think there is any point in buying sterling for the purpose of keeping the rate of the pound from falling, because there is too much of this currency already in the world." James even suggested a change of strategy: running up sterling debts on the a.s.sumption of continuing depreciation. It was only gradually-and with Nathan "operating . . . as much as lies in my power" to push the rate back up-that the brothers recovered their confidence in the pound. By November James found that it was once again enough for him "to put in an appearance" at the Hamburg stock exchange for the pound to rise, and the same was true when he visited Berlin early in the New Year.3 By February he could confidently report to Nathan: "It depends solely on me whether the pound rises or falls in Paris." By February he could confidently report to Nathan: "It depends solely on me whether the pound rises or falls in Paris."
There was another (and not dissimilar) way of profiting indirectly from the subsidy business: by speculating on fluctuations in bond prices. Like exchange rates, bond prices were highly sensitive to large international transfers, as well as to related political developments. For example: the price of Russian bonds had plummeted from 65 per cent of their face value to just 25 between February and October 1812, for the reason that the French invasion had led to the suspension of interest payments on the government debt. News of the retreat from Moscow led to a rally: on November 30 they were quoted at 35 in Amsterdam and by March 1813 they had risen to 50, only to fall back to 41 in June on news of Napoleon"s victories in Saxony. As the prospect of an Allied victory neared, so Russian bonds rallied, with the payment of subsidies from Britain strongly implying an imminent resumption of interest payments. It therefore made sense for anyone who antic.i.p.ated the defeat of France to buy the bonds of states allied to Britain while they were still in the doldrums. The Rothschilds attempted to do so, albeit rather late in the day. By the time Nathan sent his brother-in-law Moses Montefiore to Paris with instructions to make some speculative purchases, Russian bonds were already close to par. Nevertheless, James was convinced that they would go higher, having received information (from Gervais) that interest payments would soon be resumed. Amschel also made purchases of modest amounts of bonds from neighbouring German states that August. And in March 1815 Rothschild purchases based on similar calculations pushed up the price of Austrian bonds. However, it seems that much less money was made from these transactions than from arbitrage and foreign exchange speculation, which were on a much larger scale. Indeed, the last bond purchases very probably led to considerable losses-for reasons which will become clear.
Nathan"s Waterloo.
As soon as the French had been defeated, of course, and Napoleon exiled to Elba, the end of the subsidy business was in sight-or seemed to be. Nor did any major new money-making opportunity present itself. The French financial position in 1814 appeared to preclude the payment of reparations. Although the debts of the French state acc.u.mulated in the period before around 1800 had been largely wiped out by the a.s.signat inflation, Napoleon"s wars had run up a new internal debt of 1.27 billion francs and rentes perpetuelles (the French equivalent of British consols) stood at around 58 (that is, 42 per cent below par). Napoleon had succeeded in reforming the currency, giving a monopoly on note issue to the Banque de France and effectively placing the new franc on a bimetallic (gold and silver) standard. But by 1814 the reserves of precious metal in Paris were severely depleted. The most the victorious Allies therefore asked of the restored Bourbon regime was a modest contribution to the costs of the military occupation of France in the form of interest-bearing bons royaux. The Rothschilds might have expected to play a major part in these transactions, given their dominant role in the British subsidy transfers. But they were disappointed. Although they seem to have handled some franc-denominated payments to Russia, their bid to convert the Austrian share of the bons royaux into cash for a commission of 0.5 per cent was rejected, as were later proposals to the other Allied powers.
For this reason, it is tempting to see Napoleon"s return from Elba on March 1, 1815, as an immense stroke of luck for the Rothschilds. Just as the brothers appeared to be losing the peace, Bonaparte"s "Hundred Days" plunged Europe back into war, restoring the financial conditions in which the Rothschilds had hitherto thrived. This idea that Nathan profited from the dramatic events of 1815 is central to Rothschild mythology: it has been repeatedly claimed that, by obtaining the first news of Napoleon"s defeat at Waterloo-before even the government itself-Nathan was able to make a huge sum of money on the Stock Exchange. The more fabulous elements of the myth-Nathan"s presence at the battle itself, his riding alongside Wellington, his stormy night crossing from Ostend to Dover, his profits of between 20 and 135 million-have long ago been debunked. Nevertheless, historians-including Victor Rothschild himself-have continued to a.s.sume that the Rothschilds benefited at least to some extent from the resumption of war and the final Allied victory. Even if the money made from buying British government stock immediately after the battle can have amounted to little more than 10,000, their total profits from the Waterloo campaign have been estimated at around a million pounds.
The real story is very different. It is true that the resumption of war appeared appeared to promise a return to the lucrative business conditions of 1814-but not because of its effect on consols, which, as we have seen, had hitherto been of relatively minor importance to Nathan. (It was the Barings who were once again given responsibility for a new issue of gilts in 1815.) Rather, it was to a resumption of his previous business with Herries that he now looked, on the a.s.sumption that Napoleon"s return would create the same urgent need for transfers of money from England to the continent as the year before. Up to a point, this was perfectly correct. But the Rothschild correspondence reveals that the resumption of payments to Wellington and to Britain"s continental allies proved a source of far less easy pickings than in 1814. Indeed, it is possible that a series of miscalculations by the brothers led to losses rather than profits in the critical period before and after Waterloo. On this occasion, it seems, reality is diametrically opposite to myth. to promise a return to the lucrative business conditions of 1814-but not because of its effect on consols, which, as we have seen, had hitherto been of relatively minor importance to Nathan. (It was the Barings who were once again given responsibility for a new issue of gilts in 1815.) Rather, it was to a resumption of his previous business with Herries that he now looked, on the a.s.sumption that Napoleon"s return would create the same urgent need for transfers of money from England to the continent as the year before. Up to a point, this was perfectly correct. But the Rothschild correspondence reveals that the resumption of payments to Wellington and to Britain"s continental allies proved a source of far less easy pickings than in 1814. Indeed, it is possible that a series of miscalculations by the brothers led to losses rather than profits in the critical period before and after Waterloo. On this occasion, it seems, reality is diametrically opposite to myth.
To begin with, Napoleon"s return was, as Nathan put it, nothing but "unpleasant news" for the Rothschilds. Early March had seen the brothers buying Austrian stocks in the expectation of a bull market in both Vienna and London. When the news of the escape from Elba reached Nathan on March 10, this prospect evaporated. There was, he informed Salomon, "stagnation on "Change . . . in the bill way, and I am prevented from making you a large remittance." The effect on Paris was even worse: "It is practically not possible to continue business at present," reported James. True, Nathan was quick to reorientate his operations. On the a.s.sumption that the British government would soon once again need cash on the continent, he began buying up bullion in London, which he then sold to Herries for shipment to Wellington. Immense sums were involved: in the first week of April alone, Nathan bought "100,000 guineas gold, 50,000 foreign and upwards of 100,000 Spanish dollars and . . . nearly 200,000 good bills." To maximise the amount he could offer Herries, Nathan also sent Salomon to Amsterdam and James to Hamburg with orders "to purchase plenty of gold for the armies" and send it to London. The first shipment to the continent-three ingots worth around 3,000-was despatched on April 4; around 28,000 followed on May 1, and by June 13 more than 250,000 had been sent. On April 22 Nathan sold Herries gold worth around 80,000; by October 20 he had provided gold coins worth a total of 2,136,916-enough to fill 884 boxes and 55 casks. In addition, he offered his services again to relay a new tranche of subsidies to Britain"s allies, which at their peak reached the unprecedented level of a million pounds a month. This time, not only Russia and Prussia but the previously aloof Austrians found they had little option but to accept payment from the Rothschilds-as did a gaggle of other states, including Saxony, Baden, Wurttemberg, Bavaria, Saxe-Weimar, Hesse, Denmark and Sardinia. Altogether, Herries"s account with Nathan in 1815 amounted to 9,789,778.4 a.s.suming that the commissions charged for these transfers were, as in 1814, somewhere between 2 and 6 per cent, that figure might seem to imply profits in the region of 390,000. However, this overlooks the role of exchange rate fluctuations which, as in 1814, were the key to the profitability of the transfer payments. The immediate impact of Nathan"s bullion purchases in London was to weaken sterling, pushing up the price of gold by as much as 23 per cent. This represented a major gamble, as it remained uncertain throughout March whether Britain would in fact go to war against Bonaparte once more. (Had it been postponed, Nathan might have found himself with a large stock of unwanted and depreciating bullion.) When the decision for war was finally confirmed, Nathan sought once again to strengthen sterling"s exchange rate with the continental currencies-he was duly credited with pushing the pound up from 17.50 francs to the pound to 22. The Rothschilds" "commanding general" was now quite confident of his ability to control the exchanges: "You need be under no uneasiness from anywhere," he told James. "Our resources here are like lions, equal if not superior to all and every demand." He was equally sanguine in a letter to Carl: "I am not limited to a trifling difference in the exchange . . . which will give me great command over the market." Nathan was also convinced that his latest agreement with Herries was effectively risk-free, as it provided for immediate reimburs.e.m.e.nt of every amount sent to the continent (where previously he had advanced the government considerable sums).
But he miscalculated in two vital respects: in a.s.suming that it would take another lengthy war to defeat Napoleon, and in a.s.suming that the financial paralysis which had prevailed on the continent a year before would quickly return, leaving the field empty of compet.i.tion. In fact, barely three months elapsed between the return from Elba and the defeat at Waterloo, and for the first two of these there was minimal military action. As a consequence, the Rothschilds" rivals in Amsterdam, Hamburg and Frankfurt were able to compete in the money markets in a way they had not in 1814. The first signs of trouble came in Hamburg, where-to Nathan"s dismay-James found himself unable to hold up the exchange rate in his purchases of bullion. Then from Amsterdam it was reported that Wellington had more bullion than he knew what to do with, so that on May 5 Nathan "received orders from Government this day to desist in my operations owing to your having sent off so much specie." Furiously, he laid the blame on James: I certainly feel at a loss to understand the reason you cannot follow the instructions I have so repeatedly given you . . . I am certain you cannot be aware of the injury you are doing me . . . by your inattention I have lost at least of the business I expected . . . What do you suppose will be the result for they are not my orders but Government"s for they are not my orders but Government"s as I before mentioned and I am continually blamed. I beg of you to do nothing whatever for the present in purchasing coins or bills to draw on London a single bill, and if you do I shall not countenance your operations in any way whatever, and will not accept the bills, but let them be returned protested to you. I hope I shall not have occasion to repeat this. as I before mentioned and I am continually blamed. I beg of you to do nothing whatever for the present in purchasing coins or bills to draw on London a single bill, and if you do I shall not countenance your operations in any way whatever, and will not accept the bills, but let them be returned protested to you. I hope I shall not have occasion to repeat this.
Yet it was hardly James"s fault. It was simply-as Davidson pointed out-that he was being undercut by continental bankers like Heckscher who discerned the absurdity of the Rothschilds" shipping gold from Hamburg and Amsterdam to London only to ship it back to the continent: When I left London, Mr R, the Commissary in Chief in fact everyone was anxious that as much bullion might be obtained as possibly might be done. To execute this order there was no alternative but to draw on London. Things have since taken a different turn, and the long expected war remains. .h.i.therto only in preparation, and no actual war having commenced, has the effect that bullion can be collected fom all quarters. Moreover the Houses which at the time when Bony recaptured France had no desire to be connected in that line of business, appear more anxious to receive a share thereof.
James-despatched back to Paris in disgrace-and Salomon, now joined in Amsterdam by Carl, struggled to reverse the slide of sterling, but the damage had been done.
It was at this juncture that the military situation came to its epoch-ending climax at Waterloo. No doubt it was gratifying to receive the news of Napoleon"s defeat first, thanks to the speed with which Rothschild couriers were able to relay a newspaper version of the fifth and conclusive extraordinary bulletin-issued in Brussels at midnight on June 18-via Dunkirk and Deal to reach New Court on the night the 19th. This was just twenty-four hours after Wellington"s victorious meeting with Blucher on the battlefield and nearly forty-eight hours before Major Henry Percy delivered Wellington"s official dispatch to the Cabinet as its members dined at Lord Harrowby"s house (at 11 p.m. on the 21st). Indeed, so premature did Nathan"s information appear that it was not believed when he relayed it to the government on the 20th; nor was a second Rothschild courier from Ghent.5 But no matter how early it reached him, the news of Waterloo was anything but good from Nathan"s point of view. He had expected nothing as decisive so soon; indeed, just five days before the battle, he had arranged a new million pound loan for the British government in Amsterdam, and was in the middle of organising a subsidy payment to Baden even as his courier neared London. Now Waterloo threatened to bring his financial operations on behalf of the anti-French coalition to a premature and highly inconvenient end. For the brothers were enc.u.mbered not only with substantial amounts of depreciating bullion, but also with over a million pounds" worth of treasury bills to be sold in Amsterdam, to say nothing of a succession of half-finished subsidy contracts which would cease the moment a peace treaty was signed. As reports reached New Court confirming that the end of the war was imminent, Nathan was faced not with the immense profits of legend but with heavy and growing losses. John Roworth, his agent with the British army, described a gruelling journey on foot from Mons to Genappe, walking by day "in the midst of a cloud of dust under a burning and scorching sun" and sleeping at night "under the cannon"s mouth on the ground." But when he finally caught up with Wellington"s Commissary-General Dunmore, he was handed back unwanted Prussian coins worth 230,000. But no matter how early it reached him, the news of Waterloo was anything but good from Nathan"s point of view. He had expected nothing as decisive so soon; indeed, just five days before the battle, he had arranged a new million pound loan for the British government in Amsterdam, and was in the middle of organising a subsidy payment to Baden even as his courier neared London. Now Waterloo threatened to bring his financial operations on behalf of the anti-French coalition to a premature and highly inconvenient end. For the brothers were enc.u.mbered not only with substantial amounts of depreciating bullion, but also with over a million pounds" worth of treasury bills to be sold in Amsterdam, to say nothing of a succession of half-finished subsidy contracts which would cease the moment a peace treaty was signed. As reports reached New Court confirming that the end of the war was imminent, Nathan was faced not with the immense profits of legend but with heavy and growing losses. John Roworth, his agent with the British army, described a gruelling journey on foot from Mons to Genappe, walking by day "in the midst of a cloud of dust under a burning and scorching sun" and sleeping at night "under the cannon"s mouth on the ground." But when he finally caught up with Wellington"s Commissary-General Dunmore, he was handed back unwanted Prussian coins worth 230,000.
Although Nathan told his brothers to carry on delivering specie to Wellington"s military chest, the business had ceased to be viable. Towards the end of July an "alarmed" Carl temporarily halted payments to the military chest. Two months later James found himself so strapped for cash that he had to do the same. Amschel, by contrast, was "swimming" in money in Frankfurt, but money which no one needed. As Carl admitted, "Now we don"t need money for the army, as the army has enough." By the end of the year James was reduced to offering Drummond deposit facilities in Paris in an attempt to get some of the specie back-a suggestion which was curtly rejected. Even bigger difficulties arose in Amsterdam, where Carl found himself unable to sell the British treasury bills at the relatively modest discount agreed between Nathan and Herries. Indeed, the sudden advent of peace had made the Amsterdam market so liquid that such long-dated bills could scarcely be sold at all, precipitating another round of ill-tempered recrimination between the brothers.6 The French collapse also had a disruptive impact on the subsidy business. In Berlin, James"s negotiations with the Prussian government were thrown into confusion as the news of Waterloo caused a surge in the sterling exchange rate. Other German states quickly began demanding more generous exchange rates for their subsidy payments. To compound the brothers" misery came news of a family tragedy: the death of their sister Julie at the age of thirty-five. "I feel my spirits very depressed indeed," Nathan confessed to Carl just two weeks after Waterloo, "and [am] by no means able to attend to business as I could wish. The melancholy communication of the death of my sister has entirely unhinged my mind and have done but very little business today on that account." Far from being hugely profitable, the aftermath of Wellington"s victory was a period of acute crisis for the Rothschilds. The French collapse also had a disruptive impact on the subsidy business. In Berlin, James"s negotiations with the Prussian government were thrown into confusion as the news of Waterloo caused a surge in the sterling exchange rate. Other German states quickly began demanding more generous exchange rates for their subsidy payments. To compound the brothers" misery came news of a family tragedy: the death of their sister Julie at the age of thirty-five. "I feel my spirits very depressed indeed," Nathan confessed to Carl just two weeks after Waterloo, "and [am] by no means able to attend to business as I could wish. The melancholy communication of the death of my sister has entirely unhinged my mind and have done but very little business today on that account." Far from being hugely profitable, the aftermath of Wellington"s victory was a period of acute crisis for the Rothschilds.
In London, a frantic Nathan sought to make good the damage; and it is in this context that the firm"s purchases of British stocks have to be seen. On July 20, the evening edition of the London Courier Courier reported that Nathan had made "great purchases of stock." A week later Roworth heard that Nathan had "done well by the early information which you had of the Victory gained at Waterloo" and asked to partic.i.p.ate in any further purchases of government stock "if in your opinion you think any good can be done." This would seem to confirm the view that Nathan did indeed buy consols on the strength of his prior knowledge of the battle"s outcome. However, the gains made in this way cannot have been very great. As Victor Rothschild conclusively demonstrated, the recovery of consols from their nadir of 53 in fact predated Waterloo by over a week, and even if Nathan had made the maximum possible purchase of 20,000 on June 20, when consols stood at 56.5 and sold a week later when they stood at 60.5, his profits would barely have exceeded 7,000. Much the same can be said of Omnium (another form of government bond), which rose eight points on the news of victory. In fact, the brothers" correspondence suggests that such purchases were not made on a large scale until some time later, in the period before the Paris peace treaty was finally signed. An unusually anxious letter from Nathan suggests that even these were nerve-racking speculations, dependent as they were on the a.s.sumption that this time the French would not seek to resist the peace terms: reported that Nathan had made "great purchases of stock." A week later Roworth heard that Nathan had "done well by the early information which you had of the Victory gained at Waterloo" and asked to partic.i.p.ate in any further purchases of government stock "if in your opinion you think any good can be done." This would seem to confirm the view that Nathan did indeed buy consols on the strength of his prior knowledge of the battle"s outcome. However, the gains made in this way cannot have been very great. As Victor Rothschild conclusively demonstrated, the recovery of consols from their nadir of 53 in fact predated Waterloo by over a week, and even if Nathan had made the maximum possible purchase of 20,000 on June 20, when consols stood at 56.5 and sold a week later when they stood at 60.5, his profits would barely have exceeded 7,000. Much the same can be said of Omnium (another form of government bond), which rose eight points on the news of victory. In fact, the brothers" correspondence suggests that such purchases were not made on a large scale until some time later, in the period before the Paris peace treaty was finally signed. An unusually anxious letter from Nathan suggests that even these were nerve-racking speculations, dependent as they were on the a.s.sumption that this time the French would not seek to resist the peace terms: Everything is going well, so help me G.o.d, better [even] than you would imagine. I am quite pleased. I went to see Herries, he made me feel . . . well. He swears that everything is going well. I bought stock at 61 and 61 and Herries swears . . . that everything is going well, with G.o.d"s help . . . We are all in better spirits. I hope it will have the same effect on you.
According to Salomon, Nathan had also purchased around 450,000 of Omnium funds at 107; if he had followed his brother"s advice and sold at 120, his profit would have been around 58,000. But this evidently did not strike him as a significant sum; he fretted at having bought too few in the first place, and held on for higher prices in the new year. Indeed, it may not have been until quite late in 1816 that Nathan made perhaps his most successful speculation in stocks to date: the purchase of 650,000 at an average price of 62, much of which he sold in November 1817 at 82.75, yielding a profit of 130,000. However, this was not his to keep, as the original investment had been made with government funds at Herries"s suggestion.
A second and more important way of recouping some of the losses caused by Waterloo lay in prolonging for as long as possible the subsidy payments to Britain"s allies. In this, the Rothschilds had invaluable accomplices in the Allied powers themselves, who naturally wished to pocket as much as they could before peace was signed and the subsidies ceased. In October the Prussian representative Jordan privately admitted that the continental powers were spinning out the negotiations to secure an extra month"s subsidy; a gift of 1,100 in British stocks ensured that the Rothschilds handled the payment. Another amenable official was, as before, the Russian Gervais, who received a generous cut (2 per cent) of the subsidy business he sent the Rothschilds" way. "The main thing," reported James from Paris, "is that Gervais, thank G.o.d, had been made Commissar in Chief for everything. Yesterday he said to me: "Rothschild, we must make money!" " The previously wary Austrian government too (thanks partly to lobbying by Limburger) now entrusted some of its subsidy business to the Rothschilds. As Carl observed, it was "not easy to do business with the Austrians . . . but once you have their confidence you can depend upon it." On the other hand, the increase of compet.i.tion on the continent reduced the commissions which could be charged, and it was harder to make money on the side from arbitrage. Some governments-for example, that of Saxe-Weimar-were eager to avoid "falling completely and utterly into the hands of Mr Rothschild, who is, after all, a Jew." The brothers repeatedly alluded to the meagreness of the profits (often as little as 1 per cent) they were making in this period, and it seems questionable whether the various petty German states which Amschel provided with subsidy payments-including Frankfurt as well as Saxe-Coburg and Coburg-Saarfeld-were worth the "heartbreak" of which he complained. Salomon and Amschel were philosophical: "You can"t make millions every day," wrote the former as negotiations with Prussia dragged on. "Nothing in this world can be forced to happen. Do what you can; you can do no more." The whole world could not "belong to Rothschild." "Things here are not the way they are in England, where transactions worth millions happen every week. For a German 100,000 gulden is a big deal." It is doubtful whether such fatalism impressed their brother in London.
The summer of 1815 was therefore anything but a time of unalloyed success for the Rothschilds. The agreement drawn up in March of that year would seem to suggest that the brothers" collective a.s.sets had grown substantially since the last balance sheet of 1810. But no less than two-thirds of the total capital in 1815 was credited to Nathan, and he had not been party to the 1810 agreement. Taking into account only the shares of his four brothers, there may in fact have been a contraction in the continental side"s capital. Moreover, this agreement predated the crisis of the Hundred Days and should therefore be regarded as evidence of earlier success (primarily, it seems reasonable to conclude, the highly lucrative business done for Herries in 1814). By the summer of 1816, it is true, the brothers estimated that their combined capital amounted to between 900,000 and 1 million, implying a doubling of their capital between March 1815 and July 1816. Given that the figure agreed between them in June 1818 was 1,772,000 (a three-quarters increase over two years), this was a remarkable rate of growth. But there is good reason to doubt whether the period immediately after Waterloo was when the bulk of this increase occurred.
The trouble is that it is almost impossible to say precisely how the Rothschilds performed financially in this period because they had no idea themselves. So tumultuous were the events precipitated by Napoleon"s return from Elba, and so enormous the turnover of their various transfer operations during 1814 and 1815, that their already rudimentary accounting procedures collapsed altogether.
The problem first surfaced in June 1814, as Carl scrambled to raise the cash needed for an especially large subsidy instalment. The only way he had been able do this, he complained, was by "swindling" (issuing accommodation bills, or bills unrelated to "real" purchases of commodities). When James complained about this, Carl pointed out that it was not his responsibility to "keep the books." At this stage, it was Salomon who was regarded as the accountant of the family-the one who could always cheer their father up by making him "on paper . . . rich in a minute." But even he was soon unable to keep track of the immense commitments Nathan was making on his brothers" behalf. By August 1814 he and Amschel had to confess that they were "completely confused and do not know where the money is." "Together we are all rich and if all the five of us are taken into consideration we are worth quite a lot," wrote Salomon anxiously to Nathan. "But where is the money?" Nathan"s (perhaps rather acid) response was that "a book [should] be kept where [Carl] should enter business rules."
The problem recurred in September 1815, when the brothers on the continent experienced a severe cash-flow crisis. "But dear Nathan," wrote Salomon, "you must have a frightful amount of money over there because here I am in debt [and] Amschel hasn"t much left over. It must all be over there and [yet] you write that you are so much in debt. Where is our [cash] reserve?" Calculating that he owed as much as 120,000 in Paris alone, he repeated the question a few days later: You must have all our money over there with you. We here are stinking poor. We haven"t a penny to spare. Amschel has less than a million left and therefore the whole lot must be with you, including what we owe . . . Work out where the family money is, my good Nathan. I don"t know . . . Where is our money? Well, it"s just absurd. G.o.d willing it will turn up when we do the spring cleaning!
When Nathan wrote back suggesting that it was Amschel who was the "big rich man," there was something close to panic.
The problem was that Amschel had a string of subsidy payments to make in Berlin and elsewhere, and virtually no cash in hand, while Carl"s funds were almost entirely tied up in the British treasury bills in Amsterdam. In Paris too the position was alarmingly tight. "This eternal indebtedness is not very pleasant," complained James. "The payments we have to make are big, far too big," echoed Salomon. "Dear Nathan, you write that you have one million or two million over there. Well you really must have, because our brother Amschel is bust. We are bust. Carl is bust. So one of us must have the money." In fact, the continental Rothschilds averted "bankruptcy" at this time only by means of short-term borrowing and by making further use of accommodation bills. Not surprisingly, they blamed Nathan for their predicament. Echoing their father"s earlier criticisms, Salomon bitterly accused his brother of mismanagement: "We are relying on miracles and luck, and I say to you once again that you don"t write clearly enough. In the name of G.o.d, such important transactions have to be carried out precisely. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no order in the way you deal with these." Too much of their accounting was being done "in the head" instead of on paper. Was it any wonder the Austrian government feared that the Rothschilds might "go bankrupt?"
Nathan tried to rea.s.sure his brothers that their position was secure. But Amschel continued to yearn for some tangible proof of the family"s wealth. "You state that I need not enquire as to where the money actually is," he complained to Nathan. "In this respect I am like little Anselm [Salomon"s son, then aged thirteen] who always inquires as to where the money is. "People say my father possesses five millions," he says. He would like to see it all in one single heap." Were they millionaires, he demanded to know, or bankrupts? The uncertainty was making him ill: "I have to tell you that since Sukkoth Sukkoth [October 1815] I have not been well and I cannot bear it any longer. If you wish to keep your brother in good health then you must try to reduce his money worries. I have sacrificed my health. I have to take it easy . . . I have lost my spirit of speculation." They were, he complained, "living like drunkards": "We don"t know whether we owe money to the English Government or not." [October 1815] I have not been well and I cannot bear it any longer. If you wish to keep your brother in good health then you must try to reduce his money worries. I have sacrificed my health. I have to take it easy . . . I have lost my spirit of speculation." They were, he complained, "living like drunkards": "We don"t know whether we owe money to the English Government or not."
To compound the problem, this period of chaos came just as Herries was facing allegations of "maladministration" in the Commons and was therefore pressing Nathan for detailed account statements. His princ.i.p.al parliamentary critic, Alexander Baring, had an axe to grind, needless to say. On the other hand, there was some justification for his claim. In their dealings with at least one government (the Russian) the Rothschilds had secured additional commissions and paid bribes about which Herries had not been informed. In addition, they had made the most of exchange rate differences during the early phase of subsidy payments. The need to cook books which were already in a state of some confusion no doubt explains the months of prevarication in the face of repeated requests for accounts from the "very particular" Herries. Even if it meant keeping the clerks in Paris working until midnight, it was vital, as Salomon said, to avoid damaging the Rothschilds" reputation in London, "as England is our bread basket." So fearful was Nathan of a scandal that in early 1816 he wrote to Amschel advising him not to purchase a new house in Frankfurt: I asked Herries and he gave me a rather incomplete answer saying that I should not go in for luxuries because the papers would immediately commence writing against me and officials here would start questioning . . . It would be best to take mine and Herries"s advice, do not buy a house, wait until my accounts are straight.
Herries was already receiving disquieting reports from Drummond in Paris about a "simulated transaction" which James a.s.sured him had been necessary to avoid disturbing the exchange rate. "This I dare say is very true," commented Drummond nervously, "but on the other hand in matters of account that are to come before the auditors nothing is more to be avoided than fiction to which a suspicion is always likely to be attached . . . Would it not be a proper general injunction to all accountants to banish all fiction banish all fiction?" What Drummond did not know was the extent of the fiction. When his colleague Dunmore paid a visit on James in March 1816, the latter confessed: "My heart was beating terribly as I was scared that he might give me the order to send his money to the army." James had in fact no more than 700,000 francs, far less than the sum Dunmore could legitimately have demanded.
In the end, none of the brothers was equal to the task of untangling the accounts. It was left to Benjamin Davidson to try to reconstruct the extraordinary transactions of the previous year-and then to try to conceal the numerous irregularities which had occurred. The difficulties he confronted were daunting. For a start, none of the brothers had yet adopted the system of double-entry book-keeping. As Amschel put it, the Berlin banker Mendelssohn "know[s] how he stands with each of [his joint accounts] while in the House of Rothschild we have to rely on what the book keepers say. Ga.s.ser tells me: "We have made nice profits on the Prussian transactions" and I have to believe him." This in itself is remarkable: after all, the double-entry system had first been described by the Venetian Luca Pacioli in 1494 and was widely known in most European countries by the end of the sixteenth century. The fact that the Rothschilds were so slow to adopt it suggests that the capitalism of the Frankfurt Judenga.s.se was technically quite backward (though it also, of course, suggests that business geniuses can do without accountants-for a time). Secondly, there were substantial gaps in the records, reflecting the habits of concealment which had developed in Frankfurt and elsewhere during the period of French occupation. Thirdly, there was the problem of the large profits which had been made on exchange rate fluctuations without Herries"s consent. Finally, and most embar ra.s.singly, there were the "fictional" accommodation bills which had been issued, which totalled more than 2 million. As Davidson put it drily, "One should have thought earlier . . . that one day Herries [would] have to look at these accounts."
Fortunately, Davidson was able to arrive at figures which showed the government rather than the Rothschilds as the princ.i.p.al beneficiary of the subsidy and other payments; and in the end Salomon"s verdict seems to have been accepted by Liverpool and his colleagues that "not even a hundred banking houses would have been able to carry out a business transaction of this size within nine months and to show a profit for the government." Herries was discharged honourably with a pension when the office of commissary was wound up in October 1816 and a Commons motion to prevent his appointment as auditor of the Civil List was defeated. Nevertheless, Salomon was still fretting about the accounts as late as January 1818: We are not yet in the clear with the government . . . As long as the government leaves the accounts with Herries in suspension, we are not yet in the clear. [Are we] rich men or are we at ease? As far as I can see, the serving boy is more at ease with the little he has than we are with the great deal we have. Why? Because he doesn"t have a bungled account with a government hanging round his neck . . .
It is fair to conclude that the huge profits of 1814 and 1815 were made in ways much more mysterious-and hazardous-than the traditional Waterloo myth implies.
Fraternity.
The idea of brotherhood was profoundly important in nineteenth-century Europe. Freemasons, liberals and later socialists all idealised the fraternal relationship, creating a bewildering variety of a.s.sociations which sought to forge artificial brotherhoods beyond the narrow familial realm. This was nothing new, of course. Religious orders had done the same for centuries. But "Alle Menschen werden Bruder" was a line which, when penned by Schiller and set by Beethoven, had a thinly disguised revolutionary significance. As the French Revolution"s best-known slogan implied, to imagine all men becoming brothers was as radical as to imagine them all becoming free and equal.
Contemporaries often inferred from the Rothschilds" extraordinary success that they exemplified this ideal of fraternity. This was not because it was exceptional, as it is in Europe today, for a family to produce five sons or, indeed, five daughters, as Mayer Amschel and Gutle Rothschild also did. Francis Baring also had five sons. Indeed, as late as the 1870s nearly a fifth (18 per cent) of women who married in Britain had ten or more live births, and more than half had six or more; the statistics for Germany are similar. What impressed contemporaries was that the Rothschild brothers seemed to work together in uncommon harmony. This had been one of the points strongly emphasised by Friedrich Gentz in his influential article for the Brockhaus Encyclopaedia: Encyclopaedia: With the greatest conscientiousness, the brothers [have] obeyed their father"s heartfelt deathbed injunction to maintain unbreakable unity and co-operation in all business transactions . . . [E]ach [business] proposition is the subject of their joint deliberations; every operation of even moderate importance is carried out according to an agreed plan and with co-ordinated efforts; and all the brothers have an equal share in the results. With the greatest conscientiousness, the brothers [have] obeyed their father"s heartfelt deathbed injunction to maintain unbreakable unity and co-operation in all business transactions . . . [E]ach [business] proposition is the subject of their joint deliberations; every operation of even moderate importance is carried out according to an agreed plan and with co-ordinated efforts; and all the brothers have an equal share in the results.
Simon Moritz von Bethmann, their rival in Frankfurt, echoed this view: "The harmony between the brothers contributes largely to their success. None of them ever thinks of finding fault with another. None of them adversely criticises any of the others" business dealings, even when the results do not come up to expectations." "The prosperity of the Rothschilds," remarked Benjamin Disraeli later, "was as much owing to the unity of feeling which alike pervaded all branches of that numerous family as in their capital & abilities. They were like an Arabian tribe." This soon hardened into the myth of "the five Frankfurters." As one German writer put it in the 1830s: These five brothers together formed an indomitable phalanx . . . and, true to their principle never to undertake anything individually and to agree all operations precisely among themselves, always followed the same system and pursued the same goal.
Such comments would have been otiose if fraternal harmony had been the norm; the paradox is that, unlike the idealised brotherhood of the poets, real brothers seldom worked well together. Jews and Christians alike knew the story of Joseph and his brothers, one of the best biblical accounts of fraternal strife: the hatred of Gad and Asher for their half-brother, the precocious favourite Joseph; the intense affection between Joseph and his young brother Benjamin; the ambivalent feelings of Reuben, the first born; the violent confrontation and final reconciliation. Relations between the Hope brothers and the Baring brothers were less turbulent, but they failed to transcend their personal differences in the name of fraternal unity. As the Rothschild brothers overtook them financially, they seemed to personify an elusive ideal.
In reality, however, brotherly love was far from easy to maintain in the chaotic circ.u.mstances of 1814 and 1815. As their resources were stretched by a succession of huge and risky undertakings, personal relations between the Rothschild brothers frequently deteriorated-on occasion, to the point of complete rupture. The main reason for this was undoubtedly Nathan"s increasingly imperious treatment of his supposed partners in the business. Technically, according to the 1815 agreement, the brothers were equals: profits were divided equally, and Nathan gave each of them a promissory note worth 50,000 to compensate for his much larger share of the capital. But as Salomon and others commented at the time, the combination of Nathan"s aggressive temper and the increasingly Anglocentric nature of the firm"s operations effectively reduced the other brothers to the status of mere agents. Nathan was, as Salomon half joked, "the commanding general," the others were his "marshals," while the sums of "capital resources" they had to dispose of were "soldiers" who had to be "kept in readiness." The implied comparison with Napoleon himself-against whom, after all, their financial operations were ultimately directed-was a revealing one, and Nathan"s brothers were not alone in making it. As Swinton Holland said to his partner Alexander Baring in 1824: "I must candidly confess that I have not the nerve for his operations. They are generally well planned, with great cleverness and adroitness in execution-but he is in money and funds what Bonaparte was in war, and if any sudden shake comes, he will fall to the ground like the other." To Ludwig Borne, Nathan and his brothers were all "Finanzbonaparten," and the parallel was still being drawn by writers in the 1870s. But it was really Nathan who became the Bonaparte of the banking world, and he shared with the French Emperor his superhuman appet.i.te for risks and his intolerance of inept subordinates.
As early as 1811-even before their father"s death-Nathan"s brothers had begun to complain about the occasionally bullying tone of his letters. But it was not until the middle of 1814 that he really began to emerge as the dominant, not to say domineering, partner. The key issue was his desire to dictate his brothers" movements. In June 1814 he ordered Salomon to go to Amsterdam to a.s.sist James and took the opportunity to let fly at their brothers in Frankfurt: "I tell you, Amschel and Carl make me d.a.m.ned upset. You have no idea how idiotically they write and they draw on me like madmen . . . By G.o.d, they write me such idiocies that today I feel very cross. Amschel writes to James as if he could do the business by himself." This evidently touched a raw nerve, and Davidson"s appeal to Nathan to desist from "disparaging correspondence" came too late. A distraught Carl took to his bed, warning that "if he carried on in this way," Nathan would "soon have a partner in the other world," so ill did his letters make him feel. Salomon also complained of "severe pains in my back and legs," but his tone was angrier: I cannot for one moment believe that even if I were the learned Nathan Rothschild I would regard the other four brothers as stupid schoolboys, and myself as the only wise one . . . I do not wish to be upset any more and made more ill than I already am. To put it quite bluntly, we are neither drunk nor stupid. We have something you in London obviously do not have-we keep our books in order . . . If my tears were black I would write a lot more easily than with ink . . . The English mail day is a regular terror for me. Every night I dream of these letters . . . One just doesn"t write that way to one"s family, one"s brothers, one"s partners.
But all their protests merely elicited from Nathan a stark threat to dissolve the business: I have to admit that I was thoroughly fed up with the longwinded business and its disagreeable consequences . . . And now from today on . . . I think that it would be best if Salomon would close the Paris accounts and come to London. And David[son] can bring the Amsterdam accounts with him. Then we could clear up the accounts. I expect from Frankfurt an account [too] . . . because I am fed up with the partnership . . . I know that you are all clever men and now all five of us shall have, thank G.o.d, peace.
This had the desired effect; henceforth Nathan gave the orders more or less unchallenged, as Salomon acknowledged in a letter to Salomon Cohen in August 1814: My brother in London is the commanding general, I am his field marshal and consequently I have my duty to fulfil in my capacity as such, and therefore I have to give the commanding general reports, comments etc. I may have made the case somewhat stronger so as to show him how serious I am in what I say, but it is still an exaggeration to say that I lose my head . . . Being a good general, you ought to know exactly what a good general has to know and not think continually of advancing only, but you ought to go on the defensive occasionally in order to safeguard your strength. My brother in London is the commanding general, I am his field marshal and consequently I have my duty to fulfil in my capacity as such, and therefore I have to give the commanding general reports, comments etc. I may have made the case somewhat stronger so as to show him how serious I am in what I say, but it is still an exaggeration to say that I lose my head . . . Being a good general, you ought to know exactly what a good general has to know and not think continually of advancing only, but you ought to go on the defensive occasionally in order to safeguard your strength.
As this letter suggests, Salomon continued to worry that Nathan was overreaching himself, but he now obviously saw himself in a subordinate, advisory role: "[W]e regard you as general-in-chief, with ourselves as lieutenants-general. G.o.d may give us luck and blessing, and success. In this case we [remain] generals. Those, who, G.o.d forbid, have no peace, nor luck, are not even corporals." Carl too accepted Nathan"s primacy, though he employed a slightly different metaphor: "I am only the last wheel [of the carriage] and look upon myself in the sense of a machine only." He and Salomon might not care for Amsterdam, but they stayed there if Nathan told them to. Even Salomon"s requests to return to Frankfurt-where he had spent just three weeks in the previous three years-to see his wife or to be present at his son"s barmitzvah were evidently regarded by Nathan as unreasonable; the second request was granted only on condition that Salomon return to Paris after just a day and attend to the Frankfurt accounts while he was there. Nathan had only one concern: business. "All you ever write," complained Salomon wearily, "is pay this, pay that, send this, send that."
Since 1811 . . . I have gone where business called me. If I were needed today in Siberia I would . . . go to Siberia . . . Please do me a favour and desist from posting any more ill-tempered letters. One sits in his inn, often at the light of a candle, waiting for the brothers" letters. Instead of going to bed in a happy mood, one is depressed and remains sleepless. What kind of pleasures are still open to us? We are all well on in years, the pleasures of youth are out of our reach; unfortunately we have had to say "good night" to [all] that; our stomachs are bad [so] there is no gluttony for us. Consequently nearly all the worldly pleasures are closed to us. Should we have to renounce the pleasure of correspondence [too]?
But Nathan gloried in his ascetic materialism: I am writing to you giving my opinion, as it is my d.a.m.ned duty to write to you . . . I am reading through your letters not just once but maybe a hundred times. You can well imagine that yourself. After dinner I usually have nothing to do. I do not read books, I do not play cards, I do not go to the theatre, my only pleasure is my business and in this way I read Amschel"s, Salomon"s, James"s and Carl"s letters . . . As far as Carl"s letter [about buying a bigger house] is concerned . . . all this is a lot of nonsense because as long as we have good business and are rich everybody will flatter us and those who have no interest in obtaining money through us begrudge us for it all. Our Salomon is too good and agreeable to anything and anybody and if a parasite whispers something into his ear he thinks that all human beings are n.o.ble minded[;] the truth is that all they are after is their own interest.7 Privately, even Gentz had to acknowledge that in reality Nathan was primus inter pares primus inter pares. It was he who had the "remarkable instinct which causes them always to choose the right, and of two rights the better": Baring"s most profound reasoning inspires me, now that I have seen everything at close quarters, with less confidence than the sound judgement of one of the more intelligent Rothschilds-for among the five brothers there is one whose intelligence is wanting and another whose intelligence is weak-and if Baring and Hope ever fail, I can state with confidence that it will be because they have thought themselves cleverer than Rothschild and have not followed his advice.
The use of the singular "Rothschild" is important. There was only one true Finanz bonaparte. Finanz bonaparte.
It was probably Amschel and Carl whom Gentz had in mind when he spoke of "one whose intelligence is wanting and another whose intelligence is weak." This was unfair: a more accurate characterisation would be that they were more risk-averse than their brothers. Amschel was the most cautious of the five and constantly yearned to lead "a quiet life." "Me, I don"t want to eat the world," he wrote in a typically homespun letter. His ideal was "to work in tranquillity," without the anxieties which Nathan"s Napoleonic approach necessarily generated. Carl, the fourth brother, was nervous and insecure, and shared Amschel"s limited ambition. "I am fed up with business," he confided to his eldest brother in a characteristic letter. "I wish G.o.d would give me but little, enough to live, garments for myself and bread to eat. I do not wish to float above the skies." This feeling doubtless intensified at the time of the Amsterdam treasury bills fiasco, which brought a torrent of recrimination down upon him. After this, as Salomon wrote, Carl was genuinely "afraid" of Nathan, though he was still capable of muttering criticisms behind "the boss"s" back. As we have seen, Salomon himself had the intellect and self-confidence to question Nathan"s strategy; but he was too "quiet and thoughtful" and "took things too much to heart"-according to senior Rothschild employees like Davidson and Braun-to withstand his brother"s belligerence. He preferred, where possible, to side with Nathan against the others.
Yet Nathan"s dominance was never absolute: the partnership did not degenerate into a dictatorship. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, Nathan"s youngest brother James-who was just twenty-three in 1815-was markedly less submissive to his will than the other three. At the height of the bitter row in June 1814, James remained cool, sardonically telling Salomon Cohen that he was allowing Nathan "to dictate to him about millions as if they were apples and pears." Although there were times when James contemplated leaving Paris, it is unlikely that he stayed there just because Nathan told him to. The youngest brother was intellectually and temperamentally Nathan"s equal; he also had the advantage of a better schooling. Revealingly, it was James who urged his brothers to adopt double-entry book-keeping. It was only really the age difference between the two which obliged James to defer for the next twenty years to his brother. Even in acknowledging Nathan"s leadership, James was less than deferential. "The main point is now to work out a sensible plan for England," he wrote to Nathan in March 1818. "You will have to do this . . . I leave the decision to you. My duty is mainly to draw your attention to this matter and your duty, as chief commander, is to work it all out." As early as December 1816 Carl had cause to complain about James"s critical letters, the burden of which was that the Frankfurt house was not making enough money. Already he was evincing Nathan-like traits. At the same time, Nathan (and later James) occasionally needed to be restrained by their less bullish relations. As Amschel said to James following one of the most serious setbacks of the post-war period: will have to do this . . . I leave the decision to you. My duty is mainly to draw your attention to this matter and your duty, as chief commander, is to work it all out." As early as December 1816 Carl had cause to complain about James"s critical letters, the burden of which was that the Frankfurt house was not making enough money. Already he was evincing Nathan-like traits. At the same time, Nathan (and later James) occasionally needed to be restrained by their less bullish relations. As Amschel said to James following one of the most serious setbacks of the post-war period: [O]ne should [n]ever lose one"s head. Here lies the advantage of a partnership. If one of the partners loses his senses, the others must remain serene. If all of them lose their heads-then good night. I hope that [this letter finds you] quietened down and that you will give thanks to G.o.d that we gained a fortune quicker than anybody else.
There were indeed occasions when Nathan was only too glad to postpone a difficult decision by claiming that he needed to consult his brothers. At times, this was a gambit; at times, he genuinely listened to them.
Finally, no matter how much they quarrelled, the brothers had no one else whom they could trust as much. We know that on occasion Salomon forged Nathan"s signature on bills when Nathan had forgotten to endorse them; it is inconceivable that anyone else could have done so. Even the best clerks were kept at one remove: when one named Feidel appeared to be gaining an undue influence over Amschel, Carl"s response can only be described as jealous. Similarly, their brothers-in-law-sisters" husbands and wives" brothers alike-were always viewed with a measure of suspicion, as outsiders with designs on their business. James was especially worried that Nathan was confiding too much to his wife"s relatives Salomon Cohen and Abraham Montefiore (Moses"s brother), and was relieved to hear otherwise: It is rare that a man should realise that even what friends are telling him is nothing more than flattery, that there is not a true word in it; when they leave you they are laughing at your credulity. Well, dear Nathan . . . you are clever and honest, you know the world . . . Before your letter arrived, a stone fell from my heart because Salomon told me that London is now different, not only are [Abraham] Montefiore and Salomon Cohen no longer allowed to read and deliberate [about] the letters and all the business, but not even Davidson is allowed to do so. This is now confirmed by your letter.
In the same way, the other brothers were kept abreast of Carl"s attempts to find a wife in Hamburg because it was a matter of intense interest to all of them which family Carl married into. In the end, there were authentic bonds of brotherly love, forged in the Judenga.s.se, which no other ties could rival. "Did anyone promise us more when we all slept in one little attic room?" asked Salomon when Nathan was grumbling at having sold some consols too soon. Such memories were never wholly forgotten, no matter how far apart the brothers lived and how many harsh words they exchanged by post.
The extent-and limits-of fraternal unity were most apparent as the brothers debated whether or not to modify the 1815 partnership agreement. The legacy of the great transactions of 1814 and 1815 was a tangle of financial interdependence which could not easily be undone. The question now was whether James should be allowed to establish a new house in Paris under the explicitly collective name of "de Rothschild Freres." Although James was against merging the accounts of the various establishments, Amschel had his anxieties, fearing that James might embroil him in risky business. He and Carl were only brought round when James agreed that the capital of the partnership should not be made public-an important decision in favour of secrecy which was to set an enduring precedent. The result was a compromise which it took almost two years to hammer out. The 1818 agreement accordingly defined the brothers" partnership as "three joint mercantile establishments [conducted] under their the said five partners" mutual responsibility" but at the same time "form[ing] but one general joint concern but one general joint concern." It was a nice distinction which quite accurately encapsulated the way the brothers reconciled their individual differences with a deep and enduring sense of common fraternal purpose.
FOUR.
A" Court Always Leads to Something" (1816-1825) You are certainly right that there is much to be earned from a government which has no money. But you have to take risks.
-JAMES ROTHSCHILD TO NATHAN ROTHSCHILD.
N. M. Rothschild . . . has the money, the strength and the power.
-NATHAN ROTHSCHILD TO CHRISTIAN ROTHER.
In 1823 the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth cantos of Byron"s Don Juan were published in London, at a time when their author was embroiled-fatally, as it proved-in the Greek struggle for independence. Byron"s aristocratic profligacy with money was by now as notorious as his libertinism. Nevertheless, these late verses indicate a keen awareness of the power of money-and specifically of the new kind of financial power personified by Nathan Rothschild. "Who hold the balance of the world?" asked Byron in the twelfth canto, "Who reign O"er Congress, whether royalist or liberal?
Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain?
(That make old Europe"s journals squeak and gibber all.) Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?
The shade of Bonaparte"s n.o.ble daring? - Jew Rothschild, and his fellow Christian Baring.1 Those lines have been quoted by historians before. It is worth, however, reading the verse which follows too, for it nicely ill.u.s.trates the ambivalent feelings with which contemporaries regarded the spectacular financial boom of the early 1820s. To Byron, Rothschild and Baring were, along with the "truly liberal Laffitte," "the true Lords of Europe," whose every loan Is not a merely speculative hit, But seats a nation or upsets a throne.
Republics also get involved a bit; Columbia"s stock hath holders not unknown On "Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru, Must get itself discounted by a Jew.
Byron went on to discuss-with remarkable insight-that ascetic materialism which, as we have seen, was such a distinctive early Rothschild trait. Indeed, it seems not unreasonable to suggest that the poet"s reflections on "gaunt Wealth"s austerities" may have been inspired by Nathan himself: He is your only poet;-pa.s.sion, pure And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays Possess"d, the ore, of which the ore, of which mere hopes mere hopes allure allure Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure; On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze, While the mild emerald"s beam shades down the dyes Of other stones, to soothe the miser"s eyes.The lands on either side are his: the ship From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads For him the fragrant produce of each trip; Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads, And the vine blushes like Aurora"s lip; His very cellars might be kings" abodes; While he, despising every sensual call, Commands-the intellectual lord of all.Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind, To build a college, or to found a race, A hospital, a church,-and leave behind Some dome surmounted by his meagre face: Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind Even with the very ore which makes them base: Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation, Or revel in the joys of calculation.
The allusion to "his nation" may indicate that there was more of Rothschild than of Baring in this inspired evocation of financial might.
That Byron could suggest-even satirically-that Nathan Rothschild held, along with Alexander Baring, "the balance of the world" requires some explanation. The name of Baring was, of course, well established. Like the Rothschilds the family hailed from Germany (Francis Baring had emigrated from Bremen in 1717); and, like Nathan, Francis"s son John had made his fortune in the textiles business, as a wool manufacturer, before his sons established the merchant bank of Baring Brothers in 1770. However, as Lutherans the Barings had easily been absorbed into the social elite of Exeter and later London. John"s younger son Francis had been an MP since 1784, a member of the board of the East India Company since 1779 and a baronet since 1793. Alexander, his son and successor at the bank, also became an MP in 1806. By contrast, only a few years before Don Juan, Don Juan, the Rothschilds" role in the financing of the war against Napoleon was still largely a secret, known only to political and financial insiders. Even the Paris banker Jacqu