Ratcliffe hardly needed to promise an equivalent.

The business was arranged in ten minutes.
"I only need say," added Ratcliffe, "that if my agency in the affair is known, Mr.Carrington will certainly refuse the place, for he is one of your old-fashioned Virginia planters, proud as Lucifer, and willing to accept nothing by way of favour.

I will speak to your Assistant Secretary about it, and the recommendation shall appear to come from him." The very next day Carrington received a private note from his old friend, the Assistant Secretary of State, who was overjoyed to do him a kindness.
The note asked him to call at the Department at his earliest convenience.

He went, and the Assistant Secretary announced that he had recommended Carrington's appointment as counsel to the Mexican claims-commission, and that the Secretary had approved the recommendation.

"We want a Southern man, a lawyer with a little knowledge of international law, one who can go at once, and, above all, an honest man.