By the closing of these transactions Mr. Gould was entirely freed from all connection with Erie and was enabled to seek new fields for cultivation. It had been a few years before, during the Erie troubles, that Gould and his coadjutors originated the scheme for cornering gold, which consummated on the day which is now remembered as “Black Friday,” the other most disgraceful of the conspiracies of his life. CHAPTER VIII. THE GOLD CONSPIRACY. “Black Friday,” that darkest day in the financial history of America, was not the creation of sudden circumstance, but the culmination of a plan conceived by Gould and his associates, with all its details arranged for weeks before. Whether the whole truth has ever been written about Mr. Gould’s gold operations is open to doubt. The explanation given by Henry Clews, in his noted work, “Twenty-eight years in Wall Street,” seems a trifle naive to those who are not so deeply initiated in Wall street methods. He says: “In the year 1869, this country was blest with abundant crops far in excess of our needs, and it was apparent that great good would result from any method that could be devised to stimulate exports of a part, at least, of the surplus. “Letters poured into Washington by the thousand from leading bankers, merchants and business men, urging that the Treasury department abstain from selling gold, as had been the practice for some time, so that the premium might, as it otherwise would not, advance to a figure that would send our products out of the country, as the cheapest exportable material in place of coin, which, at its then artificially depressed price, was the cheapest of our products, and at the same time the only one undesirable to part with. So the government decided to suspend gold sales indefinitely. “Jay Gould and others, being satisfied that this was to be the policy of the administration, commenced at once buying large amounts of gold, actuated, doubtless, by the purest of patriotic motives, namely, to stimulate cotton and cereal exports. They succeeded in accumulating a considerable amount of gold at prices ranging from 135 to 140, covering a period of three months’ steady buying. “This was the honest foundation on which the great ‘Black Friday’ speculative deal was erected. “The eruption on ‘Black Friday’ was really caused by the erratic conduct of James Fisk, Jr., who actively joined the movement on Thursday, the day before, and became wild with enthusiasm on the subject of high gold.” [Illustration: The Men of Black Friday. 1.--JAY GOULD. 2.--JIM FISK, JR. 3.--DANIEL DREW. 4.--COMMODORE VANDERBILT. 5.--PETER B. SWEENY. 6.--E. R. STOKES.]