There was absolutely but one way to avert national calamity and our country’s disgrace; and this way was adopted when, on the seventeenth day of January, 1894, the Secretary of the Treasury issued a notice that bids in gold would be received until the first day of February following for $50,000,000 in bonds of the United States, redeemable in coin at the pleasure of the Government after ten years from the date of their issue, and bearing interest at the rate of five per cent. per annum. It was further stated in the notice that no bid would be considered that did not offer a premium on said bonds of a fraction more than seventeen per cent., which would secure to the purchaser an investment yielding three per cent. per annum. It should here be mentioned that the only Government bonds which could be sold in the manner and for the purpose contemplated were such as were authorized and described in a law passed in 1870, and which were designated in the law of 1875 providing for the redemption of United States notes as the kind of bonds which the Secretary of the Treasury was permitted to sell to enable him “to prepare and provide for” such redemption. The issues of bonds thus authorized were of three descriptions: one payable at the pleasure of the Government after ten years from their date, and bearing interest at the rate of five per cent.; one so made payable after fifteen years from their date, bearing four and a half per cent. interest; and one in like manner made payable after thirty years from their date, bearing interest at the rate of four per cent. The five per cent. bonds were specified in the Secretary’s offer of sale because on account of their high rate of interest they would command a greater premium, and therefore a larger return of gold, and for the further reason that the option of the Government regarding their payment could be earlier exercised. The withdrawals of gold did not cease with the offer to sell bonds for the replenishment of the reserve, and on the day before the date limited for the opening of bids the fund had decreased to less than $66,000,000. In the meantime, the perplexity of the situation, already intense, was made more so by the fact that the bids for bonds under the offer of the Secretary came in so slowly that a few days before the 1st of February, when the bids were to be opened, there were plain indications that the contemplated sale would fail unless prompt and energetic measures were taken to avoid such a perilous result.