Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

“Did you renew, if you had ever broken it off, your connection with the Peoples' Bank in Kentucky?”

“Yes, sir.”

“ How long did you remain in Montreal?”

“I came here from there in December, last.”

“Did you set up your business here in your present firm name?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who came with you?”

“My brother, younger than myself.”

“Who are your partners?”

“My brother and Jesse D. Bright, the president of the Jeffersonville Railroad, Indiana.”

“How much capital did you have?”

“Eighty thousand dollars in greenbacks.”

“Who put it in?”

“My brother and myself put in one half, and Bright put in the other. I put in thirty thousand dollars and my brother ten thousand dollars.”

“This has been your place of business ever since?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what is the exact form of your business, that is, what kind of broker's business do you do?”

“General speculating in gold.”

“Your business has been very profitable, hasn't it?”

“Quite profitable: yes, sir.”

“And have you had any capital furnished you to speculate with besides your own?”

“Oh, yes; my friends and correspondents have sent me very considerable amounts.”

“Well, Mr. Lyons, I have been informed,” --reading from a paper which I held in my hand, and which the assistant treasurer had given me--“that in the course of the last fourteen days you have bought and paid for and sent out of the country upwards of twelve million dollars in gold, and have now in your actual possession in your vaults, rising three million dollars in gold. Is that so?”

“I cannot give the actual amount from memory,” was his answer, “but you are substantially correct.”