Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 32.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

In September, 1862, Commissioner Mason wrote to his government that twenty or twenty-five millions could be had for its uses for ‘cotton obligations.’ Now the income of the United States, in 1860, was about $75,000,000 only. At a single draft our government was able to command one-third that sum. ‘Cotton obligations’ of the government consisted in a simple pledge of honor to deliver so many pounds of lint, at a price named, at a convenient seaport within the Confederate limits, within three calendar months after the arrival of peace. So attractive to foreign money lenders were the ‘cotton obligations’ that Mr. Erlanger, of the private banking firm of Erlanger & Co., Paris, made his way through the blockade to Richmond to urge the authorities there to sell large blocks of this character for gold delivered in London.