LCDR as financial advisor. With the collapse of the company the accusation was made that Peto was party to the scheme to circumvent the loan restrictions. At the time of the LCDR insolvency Peto was the Liberal Member of Parliament for Bristol, and on 22 October 1866 addressed a meeting in Bristol to explain his involvement with the LCDR. Although reports of the meeting are very complimentary and sympathetic to Peto, further contemporary analysis was less so. At the Bristol meeting, Peto was quite open with his admission that his business, Peto and Betts, was party to a scheme where they would give the LCDR a receipt for money paid to them as contractors, and the LCDR gave Peto and Betts a counter-receipt for money paid "for deposit, and in anticipation of calls." It was made to appear that share capital had been paid which had not been paid. On the strength of these fictitious receipts, again, the statutory declaration was made before a justice of the peace and authority given to raise loans. However, Peto did not consider himself in any way to be at any fault. In his view, as it was the LCDR company solicitors that had suggested this course of action, and had drawn up the fraudulent statutory declaration and the loan documentation papers, he did not think that he should shoulder any of the blame. When they heard how Peto had implicated them, the company solicitors retorted that they had never done anything of the kind, and that they regarded any attempt to borrow money, except on the basis of "a bona fide subscription and a bona fide payment of half the capital," as "utterly indefensible." Peto's attitudes were not unique. One of his supporters (and himself a railway director and deputy chairman) made a statement to the meeting to the effect that railway boards of directors cannot afford to be too nice, "It is very difficult to make a railway out of nothing … Parliamentary requirements almost necessitate the doing of things which are not strictly right and proper." Financial market reaction Financial commentators were scandalised. Typical of the comments published were: Of course, we may expect to hear more about this part of the question; but even supposing Sir Morton Peto's apology to be true in point of fact, what a pitiful apology it is! He, an experienced man of business, and the