Mr. Peabody quickly took a prominent rank among the merchants of Baltimore.  His manner was frank and engaging, and won him many friends.  He was noted for “a judgment quick and cautious, clear and sound, a decided purpose, a firm will, energetic and persevering industry, punctuality and fidelity in every engagement, justice and honor controlling every transaction, and courtesy—­that true courtesy which springs from genuine kindness—­presiding over the intercourse of life.”  His business continued to increase, and in 1822 it became necessary to establish branches in Philadelphia and New York, over which Mr. Peabody exercised a careful supervision.  He was thoroughly familiar with every detail of his business, and never suffered his vigilance to relax, however competent might be the subordinates in the immediate charge of those details.  In 1827 he went to England on business for his firm, and during the next ten years made frequent voyages between New York and London.

In 1829 Mr. Riggs withdrew from the firm, and Mr. Peabody become the actual head of the house, the style of the firm, which had previously been “Riggs & Peabody,” being changed to “Peabody, Riggs & Co.”  The firm had for some time been the financial agents of the State of Maryland, and had managed the negotiations confided to them with great skill and success; and every year their banking department became more important and more profitable.

In 1836 Mr. Peabody determined to extend his business, which was already very large, to England, and to open a branch house in London.  In 1837 he removed to that city for the purpose of taking charge of his house there, and from that time London became his home.

The summer of this year was marked by one of the most terrible commercial crises the United States has ever known.  A large number of the banks suspended specie payment, and the majority of the mercantile houses were either ruined or in the greatest distress.  Thousands of merchants, until then prosperous, were hopelessly ruined.  “That great sympathetic nerve of the commercial world, credit,” said Edward Everett, “as far as the United States was concerned, was for the time paralyzed.  At that moment Mr. Peabody not only stood firm himself, but was the cause of firmness in others.  There were not at that time, probably, half a dozen other men in Europe who, upon the subject of American securities, would have been listened to for a moment in the parlor of the Bank of England.  But his judgment commanded respect; his integrity won back the reliance which men had been accustomed to place in American securities.  The reproach in which they were all involved was gradually wiped away from those of a substantial character; and if, on this solid basis of unsuspected good faith, he reared his own prosperity, let it be remembered that at the same time he retrieved the credit of the State of Maryland, of which he was agent—­performing that miracle by which the word of an honest man turns paper into gold.”