So far it was only a case of a thoroughly speculative transaction carried through by means of the usual accompaniments. A defaulting State believed to be possessed of great potential wealth, thought, or was induced to think, that by building a railway it could tap that wealth. The whole thing was a pure possibility. If the loan had been successfully placed at the issue price it would have sufficed to build the first section (fifty-three miles) of railway, and to leave something over for work in the mahogany forests. It is barely possible that in time the railway might have enabled the Government to produce enough stuff out of its forests to meet the charges of the loan. But the possibility was so remote that the terms offered had to be so liberal that they frightened the public, which happened to be in a sensible mood, until it was induced to buy by the creation of a market on the Stock Exchange; the employment of intermediaries on disastrous terms, and finally default, as soon as the loan charge could no longer be paid out of the proceeds of the loan, completed the tale. In May, 1869, the Minister for Honduras in Paris, M. H----, "took steps" to issue a loan for 62,250,060 francs, or £2,490,000. Out of it a small sum (about £62,000) was paid to the railway contractors in London, but little of it seems to have been genuinely placed, since, when the Franco-German war broke out in July, 1870, M. H---- sent 2,500,000 francs in cash (£100,000), and 39,000,000 francs in bonds, to Messrs. B---- and G---- in London. Messrs. B---- and others made an agreement with Mr. C. L----, presumably the gentleman who had taken over and dealt with the unplaced balance of the First London Loan. By its terms the net price to be paid by him for each 300 francs (£12) bond issued originally at 225 francs (£9), was 124 francs (not quite £5). He succeeded in selling bonds enough to realize £408,460, and he, together with Messrs. B---- and G----, received £51,852 in commission for so doing.