All through 1877 the letters exchanged between Huntington and his partners in the West show the strain which the Central Pacific was under. Huntington was continually wiring for money in lots of $50,000 to $100,000. Colton was sending it, sometimes by telegraphic transfer, sometimes in coin. As early as in May, 1877, Colton was talking of dull business and of reducing expenses. On August 23 he said that he did not exactly like the present financial outlook. The following day he spoke of the need of keeping credit good. “We cannot afford to ever be called on for money,” he wrote, “and not be able instantly to respond. Our affairs are too extended and extensive for us to take any chances of suspicion. It would hurt us in many ways, and take a long time to restore confidence.... I will now commence to renew our loans for six or twelve months, and take in sail everywhere.”[252] In September he repeated, “I am going to send you, for the next three months, every dollar I can, and, for God’s sake, keep all you can for the January interest. That must be paid. We will not pay out a dollar here, I am not obliged to. I read _every_ department a lecture on economy about once a week.”[253] Earlier in the year the accounts of the Huntington group with the London and San Francisco Bank and with the Bank of California had been overdrawn from $150,000 to $350,000 each, and Colton was picking up every dollar outside which he could secure without showing his hand.[254] Indorsement of Notes As a general practice the associates seem to have refused to put their personal indorsement on the notes which they discounted. Huntington was very insistent that no indorsements be given; yet in January, 1878, conditions had grown so bad that Huntington asked the associates to indorse 100 blank notes and send them to him, to be used as a last resort, and this was done in spite of the violent protest of Mark Hopkins. Colton wrote Huntington: I told him [Hopkins] I felt the wise thing for us _all_ to do, was to stand in and protect all interests against the debts now owing, but to _all_ agree _not to incur any more, not to build any_ more road, or to buy _any_ steamship, or property, either jointly or individually, until we got out of debt, and had the money in bank to pay for what we bought. That proposition just met his views, and he said that if I would agree that we would _all_ live up to that, he would sign 20 of the blank notes, which he did, 10 of each.[255] [Illustration: Mark Hopkins] Conditions in California grew worse rather than better after the notes were sent, but those in the East improved, and the indorsed notes do not seem to have been used. Yet, of course, the large accumulation of floating indebtedness of the Central Pacific could not be hidden altogether, and the credit of the company was correspondingly impaired.[256] Sale of Securities