Thereupon the ex-lawyer of California simply directed the authorities to seize the company's property as security, revoking at the same time the old charter and granting a new one to Messrs. Randolph and Crittenden. This occurred on the 18th of February. The last act of the old company had been the transportation of two hundred and fifty recruits from San Francisco, the draft for whose passage money was paid by Vanderbilt, some days afterwards, while he was yet ignorant of the sequestration of his property. The Wall Street dictator was very angry, but bided his time and quietly despatched a draft for a much larger sum, payable to the order of Juan Rafael Mora, President of Costa Rica. He then made a formal protest and appeal to Secretary Marcy, invoking the help of the United States. Marcy, however, was too old a politician to identify himself openly with the unsavoury interests of the Transit Company, a corporation whose history is summed up by Minister Squier, as "an infamous career of deception and fraud." He quieted his friend Vanderbilt with promises which were only too well kept. The vengeance of the money king was not contented with abetting Walker's enemies. Nothing short of the filibuster's ruin would suffice to soothe the wounded pride of Vanderbilt. The man of millions was no mean power in affairs commercial and political at home. When he undertook to use his resources against an almost penniless adventurer abroad, the might of money proved to be all but omnipotent. In December Kewen was sent to California to dispose of a million dollars' worth of the bonds of the State of Nicaragua. He was instructed to sell no bonds below a minimum of ninety per cent. of the face value, and it does not appear that he did dispose of any below that price--few, indeed, at or above it. Another feature of a stable government appeared about this time. In the early Spanish invasions the outward adjuncts of religion always followed in the wake of the army. It was in keeping with the changed condition of affairs that the printing-press should accompany the filibuster. Two newspapers were already in full play in Nicaragua, _El Nicaraguense_, of Granada, and the _Herald_, of Masaya. The editors and printers of Nicaragua were not strictly men of peace, but were wont, when occasion served, to exchange the pen for the sword. On this account their war despatches ought to have been most authentic, being commonly written and published on the field. John Tabor, the editor and proprietor of _El Nicaraguense_, was twice wounded in the pursuit of his novel duties, but lived to accompany Walker on his second invasion, in 1857, when, alas! his ready press was not called upon to chronicle any glorious victories. CHAPTER XI