Sir Arthur Helps, in his life of Mr. Brassey, remarks:—“There were few,
if any, of the great undertakings in which Mr. Brassey embarked that gave
him so much trouble in respect of the financial arrangements as the
Spanish railway from Bilbao to Tudela. The secretary, Mr. Tapp, thus
recounts the difficulties which they had to encounter:—
“‘The great difficulty in Spain was in getting money to pay the men for
doing the work—a very great difficulty. The bank was not in the habit of
having large cheques drawn upon it to pay money; for nearly all the
merchants kept their cash in safes in their offices, and it was a very
debased kind of money, coins composed of half copper and half silver, and
very much defaced. You had to take a good many of them on faith. I had
to send down fifteen days before the pay day came round, to commence
getting the money from the bank, obtaining perhaps £2,000 or £3,000 a
day. It was brought to the office, recounted, and put into my safe. In
that way I accumulated a ton-and-a-half of money every month during our
busy season. When pay week came, I used to send a carriage or a large
coach, drawn by four or six mules, with a couple of civil guards, one on
each side, together with one of the clerks from the office, a man to
drive, and another—a sort of stableman—who went to help them out of their
difficulty in case the mules gave any trouble up the hilly country. I
was at the office at six o’clock, and I was always in a state of anxiety
until I knew that the money had arrived safely at the end of the journey.
More than once the conveyance broke down in the mountains. On one
occasion the axle of our carriage broke in half from the weight of the
money, and I had to send off two omnibuses to relieve them. I had the
load divided, and sent one to one section of the line and one to the
other.
“‘Q.—Was any attempt made to rob the carriage?
“‘A.—Never; we always sent a clerk armed with a revolver as the principal
guard. We heard once of a conspiracy to rob us; but, to avoid that, we
went by another road. We were told that some men had been seen loitering
about the mountain the night before.’”