The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To MESSRS COUTTS & CO,1 1 AUGUST 1867

Text from Facsimile on eBay, Jan 2021.

Gad's Hill
Rochester
1 August 1867

Sell my £1000 India Bonds2

                CHARLES DICKENS3

• 1. Bankers, of 59 Strand, with whom CD had an account from Nov 1837 to the end of his life.
  
• 2. CD invested in India government bonds with a face value of £1000 in 1866. There was a small premium on the investment, for which he paid £501.17s.5d on 23 October and £501.15s.7d on 26 October. The bonds produced £24.11s.8d for the (approximately) five months to 31 March 1867, thus implying an annual interest rate of 5.9%. CD sold them on 2 August 1867 for £1049.8s.10d, which included four months’ further interest accrued. At 5.9%, that would have been £19.13s.1d; hence the capital value of the sold bonds was £1029.15s.9d, which represents an increase of 2.6% during the nine months of CD’s ownership. The combined return of interest and capital growth was good by comparison with British government bonds, which were then paying 3% interest and not varying much in value, but the investment in Indian bonds was less secure. The disposal was necessary for the maintenance of cash flow in CD’s bank account: he sold the bonds when his bank balance was £309.13s.7d, and he knew that his spending in the next month would far exceed his income. Apart from the bond proceeds, in Aug 1867 CD received only £192 into his bank account, while his expenditure in the same period was £1082.16s.6d.  Dickens had other investments that he could have liquidated instead; but the India bonds were presumably less attractive to him because of their higher risk.
• 3. Only the signature is in CD's hand.