When I entered the Treasury Department in March, there had not been sales of gold nor purchases of bonds by the Treasury Department as a policy, and but few transactions on either side had been made by my predecessors in office. As early as the 12th day of May I commenced the purchase of bonds for the sinking fund and for the reduction of the interest-bearing public debt. The total purchases during the year 1869 amounted to something more than $88,000,000, for which there was paid in currency $102,000,000 and a margin over. At that time, the customs receipts were in gold exclusively, and the purchase of bonds could only be made by a sale of gold or by a direct purchase of bonds to be paid for in gold. Suggestions were made by bankers and others in the city of New York, and perhaps elsewhere, that the purchase of bonds should be made in gold. This suggestion was not acceptable to me, and upon the ground that the sale of gold would be limited to those who had bonds, or who could procure bonds, for the payment of gold. From the 29th of April, when the first sale of gold was made, until the 31st day of December, the sales amounted to something more than $53,000,000, and the proceeds to something over $70,000,000. The difference in the amount realized from the sale of gold and the amount paid for bonds purchased was met by the excess of receipts over the expenditures of the Government during that period. As having some connection, and perhaps an important connection, with what is to be said hereafter touching General Grant's action in the days of September, when the speculation was going on, I think it proper to make a statement of my relations to the President. I had declined the office of Secretary of the Treasury, and on the morning of my nomination to the Senate I wrote a letter to Mr. Washburne, through whom the invitation of the President that I should accept the office was made, requesting him and urging him to say to the President that I was unwilling to accept the place. My nomination was sent to the Senate and confirmed, and as there seemed to be no alternative for me, I entered upon the duties of the office. Due in part to these circumstances, as I think, the President accepted the idea that the management of the Treasury Department was in my hands, and from first to last, during the four years that I was in his Cabinet, his acts and his conversation proceeded upon that idea. Moreover, he was influenced by a military view that an officer who was charged with the conduct of a business, or of a undertaking, should be left free to act, that he should be made responsible, and that, in case of failure, the consequences should rest upon him. It happened, and as a plan on my part, that neither the President nor the Cabinet was made responsible for what was done in the Treasury Department. Hence it was that I presented to the Cabinet but two questions. One of these was of no considerable consequence.