Bedford Inquirer And Chronicle

Is not James Buchanan a good Financier?

Previous to the 30th of June, 1855, Ministers to foreign countries received an outfit of $9000, a yearly salary of $9000, and an outfit of $4500. Under this law, if a Minister remained but a week at a foreign Court over a year, he received two years pay—in other words, for the least fraction of a year he always received pay for a full year. Mr. Buchanan went out Minister in 1853-4, Congress passed a new Diplomatic and Consular bill, raising the salary of a Minister to England to $17,500 a year. The act went into operation on the 30th day of June, 1855. Upon that day Mr. Buchanan had been two years and about two months in England, and as this was a fraction over two years, Mr. Buchanan pocketed $27,000 dollars, or the pay of three years at $9000 per annum, although he had served but two years and about two months. Nor is this all. Mr. Buchanan left England in April 1856, nine months after the diplomatic and consular law went into operation, and yet he pocketed seventeen thousand five hundred dollars for only nine months service. When money is to be put into his own pocket, is not James Buchanan an admirable financier?