On January 26, 1870, the Legislature authorized President Edward J. Roye to negotiate a loan not exceeding £100,000, at not more than 7 per cent interest; the bonds were to run for fifteen years, and three years’ interest advanced might be deducted. Of the sum to be received upon this loan £20,000 was to be used in buying up all the checks, scripts, currency debentures, and government paper of whatever kind then afloat; £20,000 more was to be deposited securely as a basis for the issue of a paper currency in what were to be known as Treasury Notes; the balance of the proceeds of the loan was to be deposited in some reliable bank as an emergency fund to be drawn upon at need by special act of the Legislature. At the time when this action of the Legislature was taken, President Roye was about to go to England; it was supposed that he would attend to the business while in London, and that considerable expense would be saved to the nation by his personal attention to the details of the arrangement; for some reason or other, he did not take up the matter while he was absent. On his return to Monrovia, however, he proceeded to secure the loan. He appointed David Chinery, at that time consul for Liberia in London, Henry V. Johnson, Sr., and W. S. Anderson, commissioners--the two latter being sent to London for the purpose--to negotiate the loan. President Roye should of course have submitted this whole matter to the Legislature; there was considerable objection to the loan, and no serious steps should have been taken regarding it without the authorization of the legislative body. The commissioners succeeded in negotiating the loan for £100,000 at 7 per cent interest, at 30 per cent below par; three years’ interest were deducted from the £70,000, leaving a balance of £49,000 to be placed to the credit of the commissioners. “Then followed,” to quote the words of President Roberts, “a system of charges, speculations, and frauds unparalleled, I presume, in any public loan transactions of modern times.” No sooner had the news of the negotiation reached President Roye, than he commenced to draw against it for himself and others, not waiting for any part of it to be paid into the treasury of the Republic for the purposes specified in the act, and before the Legislature had accepted the loan or taken any action in regard to it. More than that, without legislative authority, he sent an order drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury--a member of his own family--approved by himself for £10,000 value of merchandise, alleging that this was on account of the government. Mr. Chinery, in filling this order, sent merchandise invoiced at more than £14,000, including transportation, shipping-charges, freight, insurance, etc., most of the articles being charged at amounts in excess of their market value, many of them inferior in quality, and some nearly, and others entirely, useless in Liberia. How much was actually realized of this