He said he was a book-keeper for a firm in Newport, Rhode Island, at a
small salary. He made up his mind that if they would not raise his pay
$100 per year on the 1st of January he would leave them. They refused,
so he lost his situation, and it was dull times, and he could not get
another one, so he shipped on a whaling vessel as a sailor. His health
was poor, and he found he could not stand the hardships of that life.
The vessel put in the harbor of San Francisco for water and fresh meat
on their way to the Arctic ocean, so he deserted the ship and secreted
himself until it left. Then he had to do something there for a living,
so he squatted on one hundred veras of land on the beach, and put up a
shanty and sold fruit and probably some liquor, etc., to make a living.
No one disturbed him for one year. He applied to the alcalde and paid
his $16 and got a good, valid title. After the gold was discovered it
became the most valuable property in the city. When I was doing
business with him he had a three-story brick store, which he owned. The
whaling ship had been gone to the Arctic ocean two or three years and
had heard nothing of the discovery of the gold, and wonderful changes in
San Francisco, and the captain thought he would put in that port on his
return and hunt up his runaway sailor, and behold, his absconding sailor
was rich enough when he found him to buy his ship and his whole cargo of
whale oil. I was introduced by him to his captain and shook hands with
him, and we had a good talk over it. Wherein does our stories of
fiction, of our boyhood, of Arabian Nights, surpass the actual events of
life, of the wonderful fluctuations of fortunes in California in the
days of the Forty-niners?
[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN AND THE RUNAWAY SAILOR.]
On the death of President Taylor, a meeting was called for the purpose
of having funeral obsequies there in his honor. A man was named for
president of the day. Then it was proposed to name a vice-president for
each State and Territory, which was done. There were persons in the
crowd from every one of them. A day was set apart for the ceremonies,
and all business was to be suspended. There was a long procession on
that day, and the masons and all societies and the people in general
turned out in full force, including the Chinese, who were smart enough
to think it would make a favorable impression in their favor. After the
parade was dismissed in the plaza, the Chinese were requested to remain,
and a missionary addressed them, and a Chinaman interpreted to them in
their own language. I noticed that their language was much more
condensed than ours. It took about a third of the time for him to
translate what the missionary said. When the missionary closed, he said
he hoped that we would all meet together in another and a better world.
It seemed to them so absurd that they looked at each other and smiled as
if it was a good joke. In those early days there were no particular
prejudices against them. Pagans, as we call them, practised the
Christian virtues toward their own countrymen. When the ship arrived
from China they were down to greet the newcomers, whom they had never
seen before, and invite them to their homes. The present laws of
restriction against them, I think, are all right. We cannot afford to
run the risk of having the institutions of our country injured by an
emigration that is uncongenial to it. We have gone too far in that line
already, not from selfishness, but to perpetuate the institutions
founded by our revolutionary ancestors, in their purity, for the
interests of mankind.
I received a letter from my blanket friend. He informed me that he could
not sell the blankets, and had traded them off for flour, and would
start the next day for the Yuba, which was the most remote gold river.
That was all a lie. He did that so that I would not follow him up. He
had not a dollar invested in them. They were my property. I knew at once
I had been dealing with a rascal, but I was powerless to do any thing
about it, so I wrote him back that it was all right; that I had bought a
brig; and that I had it running to Stockton, and he could take ventures
up on that and make up what we had lost on the blankets, and much more.
(More of him later on.)