"The two-fifths of the 1869 loan, and the whole of the loan of 1870, produced net £2,051,511; out of this sum only £145,254 has been paid to the railway contractors; a sum of £923,184 would have been sufficient to discharge the interest and sinking fund in respect of the issued bonds of the three loans, yet the trustees ... paid to Mr. L----£1,339,752 or £416,568 beyond the sum so required to be paid upon the issued bonds of the loans. "There was paid to him for commissions (apart from expenses) on the three loans, out of the above proceeds, the sum of £216,852. He also received out of the same proceeds £41,090, being the difference between £370,000 cash paid to him by the trustees and £328,910 scrip returned by him to them. This £41,090 probably represents the premiums paid on the purchase of the scrip before or immediately after the allotment of the loan, and was certainly a misapplication of the proceeds of the loan. "Mr. L---- was also paid, out of these proceeds, a further sum of £57,318, nearly the whole of which seems to be a payment in discharge of an allowance of £8 per bond in respect of the dealings in the 1867 loan.... In addition ... it will be remembered that Mr. L---- received £50,000 'to maintain the credit of Honduras.' "He also on the 18th of June, 1872, obtained £173,570 by delivering to the trustees ... 5042 bonds of the 1870 loan, at £75 Per bond and 33,000 bonds of the 1869 loan at 104 francs per bond, and retaking them at the same time from the trustees at £50 and 104 francs per bond respectively. Mr. L---- had contracted to pay for these bonds and they had been issued to him at the prices of £75 and 104 francs respectively, and the remission in the price therefore amounted to a gift to him of £173,570 ... out of this portion of the loan of 1869, and the loan of 1870, Mr. L----has received in cash, or by the remission of his contracts, £955,398." It is little wonder that Honduras has been in default on these loans ever since. In its Report the Committee commented severely on the action of Don C---- G----, the London representative of the Republic. "He sanctioned," it says, "Stock Exchange dealings and speculations in the loans which no Minister should have sanctioned. He was a party to the purchase of the mahogany cargoes, and permitted the public to be misled by the announcements in relation to them. By express contract he authorized the 'additional drawings.' He assisted Mr. L---- to appropriate to himself large sums out of the proceeds of the loans to which he was not entitled." Very likely he had not a notion as to what the whole thing meant, and only thought that he was doing his best to finance his country along the road to wealth. But the fact remains that by these actions he made his Government a party to the proceedings that were so unfortunate for it and so ruinous to the holders of its bonds.