Production was slack, invention at a standstill, and taxation heavy. I
suppose the President's talents were more adapted to founding a
state in the shock and turmoil of war, than to the dull details of
administration; and although he was nominally assisted by a cabinet of
three ministers and an assembly comprising twenty-five members, it
was on his shoulders that the real work of government fell. On him,
therefore, the moral responsibility must also rest--a burden the
President bore with a cheerfulness and equanimity almost amounting to
unconsciousness.
I first set foot in Aureataland in March, 1880, when I was landed
on the beach by a boat from the steamer, at the capital town of
Whittingham. I was a young man, entering on my twenty-sixth year, and
full of pride at finding myself at so early an age sent out to fill
the responsible position of manager at our Aureataland branch. The
directors of the bank were then pursuing what may without unfairness
be called an adventurous policy, and, in response to the urgent
entreaties and glowing exhortations of the President, they had decided
on establishing a branch at Whittingham.
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