When he wrote me that he had traded the blankets for flour, and had gone
to the Yuba river with the flour, I knew that it was a lie, and that he
was a rascal, and I found that blankets had been in great demand, at a
high price, and likewise learned that he had been connected with a
forgery in New York city, but that his brother was a respectable
merchant there, so for the time I gave up my $800 as lost. What was my
surprise after six weeks at my hotel (which was an expensive one), to
see my man at the tea table. I greeted him most cordially and asked no
questions about the blankets, but talked to him about the brig I owned
and had running to Stockton; that I had been looking for him to come
back; there was such a splendid chance for us to make purchases in San
Francisco, and for him to take them up on my vessel and sell them out in
the Southern gold mines, near that place; that what we had lost on the
blankets we could more than make up on the first venture, and that there
would be big money in that kind of a speculation. We spent the evening
together most cordially. The next morning I detained him in conversation
until about the time for the Miners' Bank to open, then we went out
together. When we got opposite the bank I took out my watch and said to
him, that I did not think it was so late. I said I had a note of $800
due there that morning; I asked him if he had the gold dust about him to
that amount. He said yes. I said let me have it and I will take up my
note. He said there was no place to weigh it. I said yes, here there was
a place where I was acquainted. It was weighed and handed to me. I told
him I would see him at dinner, which I did. I then opened on him, and
told him how despicably he had acted when I so generously trusted to his
honor. He made no reply; he virtually admitted the truth of my
statement. I never saw him afterward. That was the only time I ever
played the confidence game in my life, and my conscience has approved of
it ever since.
My friend, Mr. R., had got his brewery well under way in Happy Valley,
as they called that part of the city, had used up his $8,000 and
commenced borrowing money on my indorsement, at ten per cent a month,
the regular interest at that time. He had a friend, Lieutenant S., who
resigned from the regular army, a graduate from West Point, who had been
up in the country, and came back with a flaming account of a place on
the Toulama river, which empties into the San Joaquin, which was the
head of navigation on that river, and was the place to start a town,
and if we would furnish him with $1,500 to do it with, we would each own
a third of it. I did not take to it, but Mr. R. was so earnest about it,
and had such confidence in his friend, that I finally let him have the
money. There was quite a spirit of speculation of that kind at that
time. Colonel Stevenson had laid out one on Suisan bay, at the mouth of
the San Joaquin river, named New York of the Pacific. Marysville, on the
Sacramento river, was laid out a short time previous, and proved a great
success, making the fortunes of the projectors. Of course, a few were
successful, and many failed. It seemed to have been a legitimate thing
to do to make a fortune in a new country. I became acquainted with
Broderick. It was Koyler & Broderick. They had an office in the same
building with Colonel Stevenson. Broderick, who was afterward United
States Senator from California, and I became very intimate. He was not
intellectually a very brilliant man, but a solid, able and strictly
honest man, and a thoroughly posted politician of his day. He had run as
a Democratic candidate for Congress from the city of New York, but was
not elected. In California he was first elected to the State Senate from
the city. It was he who conceived the project of laying out the water
lots on the bay, and got the bill through the Legislature. He advised me
to buy one or more. I looked at where he suggested to me to buy, and
found them six feet under water. Although they could be bought very
cheap then, their prospective value seemed so remote to me I thought
they were not worth the trouble of bothering with. It shows how easy it
is to be mistaken in apprehending the future. I understand they are now
the most valuable part of the city.