145. Gould's first purchases had been made as low as 130-1/4, which was about the normal price.
But it should be said at the outset that there is not a particle of evidence that Gen. Grant was ever personally concerned in the speculation or that he winked at members of his official household being so. On the contrary, the evidence is all the other way. Grant never seemed to like Gould. When the latter succeeded in getting his first interview with the President, Gen. Grant reprimanded his servant for allowing him so easy an access to his person, and at a later day the President remarked to his Secretary that he did not like to have that man—referring to Gould—around so much. "He is always trying to get something out of me," was the President's remark.
After the party returned to New York, Gen. Grant, Mr. Gould and Mr. Corbin had private interviews on the gold question at Mr. Corbin's house. As a result of these interviews, according to Mr. Gould's testimony, the President remarked that the government would do nothing during the fall months to put down the price of gold or to make money tight. Just after those interviews Mr. Gould purchased two millions in government bonds for Mr. Corbin's account. The next interview with President Grant on this great subject was at Newport, where James Fisk, Jr., followed him.
Fisk testified that Corbin told him that Mrs. Grant had an interest in the gold speculations; that five hundred thousand of gold had been taken by
