armies within three months; the payment of 3,000,000 dollars in hand, and of 12,000,000 in four annual instalments, by the United States to Mexico, on account of the ceded territory; and the assumption by the former of certain debts due to their citizens, to the amount of 3,500,000 dollars. Fresh boundaries between the two countries were determined on; New Mexico and Upper California were handed over to the American Federation; and the free navigation of the Gulf of California, and of the river Colorado up to the mouth of the Gila, was

guaranteed to the United States. The old dominion of the Montezumas was thus miserably curtailed. The realm which Cortes added to the Spanish Monarchy was reduced to comparatively small proportions. A singularly successful war had terminated in a peace which brought substantial advantages to the conquerors; and the conquered, relieved from the iron grip of their enemies, and left to the influence of domestic factions, fell back into that condition of anarchy which with them seems chronic and incurable.

THE Presidential Message, at the close of 1847, was mainly occupied with the war then in progress, and the financial and political measures arising out of it. But there were some other topics of which it was necessary to take notice; and among these was an Act, passed on the 6th of August, 1846, to provide for the better organisation of the Treasury, and for the collection, safe keeping, and disbursement of the public revenue. By this Act (the principle of which was similar to that of Mr. Van Buren's Sub-Treasury Bill, repealed under Tyler's Presidency), all banks were discontinued as fiscal agents of the Government, and the paper currency issued by them was no longer permitted to be received in payment of public dues. The Constitutional Treasury, created by the same measure, came into operation on the 1st of January, 1847; and, under the system thus established, the public moneys (said the President) had during the year been collected, safely kept, and disbursed, by the direct agency of officers of the Government, in gold and silver. Transfers of large amounts had been made from points of collection to points of disbursement, without loss to the Treasury or injury to the trade of the country; and the system had had a salutary effect in preventing an undue inflation of the paper currency issued by the banks existing under the State charters. 66 Requiring, as it does," observed the President, "all dues to the Government to be

paid in gold and silver, its effect is to restrain excessive issues of bank paper by the banks, disproportioned to the specie in their vaults, for the reason that they are at all times liable to be called on by the holders of the notes for their redemption, in order to obtain specie for the payment of duties and other public dues. The banks, therefore, must keep their business within prudent limits, and be always in a condition to meet such calls, or run the hazard of being compelled to suspend specie payments, and be thereby discredited." In this way, the feverish over-trading and injurious panics of earlier years were avoided.

A very extraordinary impetus to the trading spirit, however, and to the adventurous spirit as well, was just about to be given. It is a remarkable fact, that during the long period of Mexican rule over the province of Upper California, the existence of vast metallic riches immediately below the surface, and in the very sands of the rivers, was not suspected; while no sooner was the possession of that region confirmed to a more energetic race. energetic race than the hidden wealth of the country was suddenly discovered or revealed. In the very month which saw the signing of the Treaty of Peace at Guadaloupe Hidalgo-the month of February, 1848-an American, employed at a mill situated twenty-five miles up the American fork of the river Sacramento, discovered gold in

1848.]

the bed of that stream.* That California possessed gold-mines was indeed known before; the fact was suspected, and almost ascertained, by Sir Francis Drake when he visited the country; but that enormous stores of the precious metal were to be obtained by the rudest and most primitive labour, was a new and startling fact. When the intelligence first reached the great cities of the United States, it was received with some incredulity. The presence of such boundless metallic deposits in the sands of a river was unparalleled, and it was believed that the accounts were exaggerated. They soon proved to be even within the mark. Not only was the soil of the Sacramento found to be thus impregnated with auriferous grains, the amount of which was apparently exhaustless, but other rivers were similarly productive. The thinly-scattered populations of the neighbouring lands were of course first on the spot; but it was not long ere a stream of emigration flowed into California, intent on golddigging, or, more properly speaking, on gold-washing, for the precious metal lay so near the surface that a very little trouble sufficed to separate it from the mud and ooze of the rivers. The gold appears to have been brought down by the torrents from the neighbouring mountains; and a shovel for digging up the sands, together with a tin bowl for washing the metal from the more earthy alluvial matter, was the whole equipment needed. All classes and conditions of people flocked to the diggings. Nearly the entire male population of the country were engaged in this exciting chase after sudden riches. Ships arriving on the coast were abandoned by their crews. Desertions from the army in that quarter were numerous. † Men of education and refinement were seen toiling side by side with navigators, adventurers, ruffians, Indians, and Sandwich Islanders. Gold was in the mountains; gold was in the river-tides, as they flowed downward from the higher lands; gold was in the very earth all round, and could be extracted as easily as the ground-nuts which the long nails of Caliban could root up at the call of hunger. Timon, striking his spade into the soil beneath the woods of Athens, discovered the yellow slave which he had learned to abhor. There were thousands of Timons in California, hunting for the visible god which they had learned to worship.

To get eight or ten ounces a day in this teeming land was no uncommon circumstance. It was usual with the more business-like among the immigrants

According to some accounts, the discovery of gold was made in December, 1847; but the point is immaterial. + President Polk's Message to Congress, Dec. 5th, 1848.

77

to hire a number of Indians to work for them; and these provident speculators gained the most, for the Indians, knowing nothing of the value of gold, and wondering much at the eagerness of the white men, were willing to sell their labour for any trash that was offered them. A writer from the spot, in one of the American newspapers of the day, spoke of a man who employed sixty of these savages to collect the gold for him. The profits of this man were a dollar a minute. The same authority spoke of seven men who, after working for seven weeks and two days, Sundays excepted, on Feather River, with the assistance (on an average) of fifty Indians, found themselves possessed of two hundred and seventyfive pounds of pure gold. The metal thus extracted was pronounced by American assayers to be equal to the best in quality. Another man collected two pounds and a half of gold in fifteen minutes, and this by simply washing the earth with water in a small basin. The average earnings of individual diggers at this early period, by the use of the very rudest machinery, the operation of which was necessarily highly wasteful, were sixteen dollars a day for each man engaged; but in one case two hundred dollars had been made. It was not merely gold-dust that was found in this overflowing abundance some of the pieces weighed half an ounce, and were called "nuggets." The whole country was a mine, which asked only the barest labour to yield unparalleled results.

When

The Government of the United States, unwilling to believe without confirmation the extraordinary reports which arrived from the newly-acquired territory, caused official inquiries to be made into the facts which had been stated, and the upshot was a complete verification of the alleged riches of the country. The officer commanding the Federal forces in California visited the mineral district in July, 1848, and his report to the War Department was laid before Congress on its assembling. he visited the diggings, about four thousand persons were engaged in the search for gold, and the number was considerably augmented before the close of the year. The rush of emigrants, and the abundance of gold, caused an unprecedented rise in the price of necessaries within a very few months, and the workers at the mines became so reckless that they would give eighteen dollars' worth of gold for a bottle of brandy or a small quantity of tobacco. The allusion to the subject in the President's Message of December 5th added greatly to the popular excitement, and caused a marked increase in the flow of emigration. From the States of the Union, from the coasts of South America, from the English colonies of Australia and New Zealand,

from England itself, from China and the Malay Peninsula, came thousands of adventurers, wild with dreams of fabulous riches, to be gained by a few months' hardship and labour. In England, scores of ships were fitted out for emigrants; companies were formed for working the mines; joint-stock speculations were set on foot; and tradesmen, selling their goods, embarked for the distant gold-fields.* The communication between the older parts of the Union and the banks of the Sacramento was exceedingly difficult and irksome; but this did not deter the adventurous from proceeding to the place of attraction. The three great routes were-by sea along the eastern shores of North America to the Isthmus of Darien, across that narrow strip of land to the opposite coast, and thence by the Pacific to San Francisco; round Cape Horn (a distance of seventeen thousand miles from New York, occupying seven months); and across the deserts. The last-named was the nearest route, but in many respects the most perilous and the most fatiguing. It could be performed, as soon as the deserts were entered, only by stages of fifteen miles a day, and was practicable to none but the young and hardy. But the route by the Isthmus was also full of danger, for the climate of Central America is one of the most deadly in the world. Nevertheless, 30,000 persons from the United States alone left their homes for California in 1849. Many of them, including women and children, who accompanied their male relations, traversed the wastes which stretched from what were then the farthest western settlements to the new land of gold. More than two thousand miles of wilderness were passed by these bands of adventurers, who had to climb two mountain ranges of vast height, and to cross sandy deserts and barren plains, where water could hardly be obtained, and shelter there was

none.

An American writer (Mr. Bayard Taylor) has recorded me details of this wonderful exodus, which show how terrible was the task undertaken.

The starting-point for those who followed the northern route was the city of Independence, in Missouri, near the river of that name. Throughout the whole of May, numerous companies took their departure in mule-trains and waggons, and a line of enormous length trailed off into the desert, to the surprise and consternation of the wandering Indians, who withdrew into the further recesses of those wild and interminable lands. It was not long before the emigrants were attacked by cholera, which was at that time prevalent, and to which these unfortunate people were the more liable on

* Annual Register for 1848.

account of the frequent rains of early spring, and the deprivations of their mode of life. As many as four thousand persons are said to have died from this malady, and their graves were thickly strewn along the route. The epidemic ceased by the time the travellers reached Fort Laramie, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where the purer air of a more elevated region restored the general tone of health. But the passage of these western Alps, with their gigantic masses of cliff, their narrow and stony valleys, and their tortuous defiles, was a most arduous undertaking. The pasturage here became so scarce that the companies were obliged to divide into separate trails, to obtain sufficient grass for their teams. Provisions also ran short, and it was found necessary to kill many of the horses and mules for food, and to eke out their scanty stores by an occasional dish of rattlesnakes. The party would have suffered even more, had they not been generously assisted in the great valley of Utah by the newly-formed colony of the Mormons, whose singular history we have yet to relate. Two or three thousand of the emigrants to California remained in the valley during the whole of the ensuing winter. The others, who comprised the greater number, pushed on, and presently found themselves among the sandy wastes and beetling crags of the Valley of Humboldt's River. Fierce midsummer heats were drying up the grass, and the cattle drooped for want of provender. The stream named after the great German naturalist loses itself in the sands at a place called the Sink. At this point, the single trail divided itself into three branches— one remaining for awhile beside the dwindling river to recruit their beasts, and the others proceeding through the mountains by different paths. The crossing of the Sierra Nevada was a toilsome exploit; but, that granite barrier being surmounted, the settlement of San Francisco was presently reached.

Information being here given that a body of emigrants had halted at the Sink, and were in danger of being lost, or perishing of hunger, relief companies were despatched in search of them. By extraordinary exertions they were discovered, and the greater number were brought in to San Francisco a day or two before the heavy snows of winter. One party, however, was caught in the storm, and with difficulty rescued. Many of the mules died of exhaustion, and the men, stupified with cold and fatigue, could hardly be induced to make sufficient exertion to save themselves. The emigrants who arrived by the lower routes reached the mining region at an earlier date, and built themselves loghuts for the winter, or pitched their tents by the

side of the river Sacramento, where they felled timber, for which they found a ready market at San Francisco.* While these emigrants were arriving by land, others were proceeding by sea. Between the 7th of December, 1848, and the 20th of January, 1849, ninety-nine vessels left the ports of the United States for California; and from October, 1849, to the same month in the following year, not far short of 70,000 emigrants reached San Francisco by sea and land. The growth of the city of Sacramento, in consequence of these immigrations, was so remarkably rapid that, whereas in April, 1849, there were only four houses on the site, it had become, in little more than a twelvemonth, a large and well-built town of nearly 7,000 inhabitants. In another two years, the number was 10,000.

The yield of the mines cannot be exactly estimated. For a considerable period, however, it increased every year, and the total amount of gold thrown into the general currency of the world was immense. The quantity found in 1850 was valued at more than forty-eight millions of dollars, and a few years later the yearly average was greatly in excess of this. In 1852, the amount shipped on board steamers and sailing vessels from San Francisco was certainly worth not less than fiftysix millions of dollars; according to some accounts, it was worth much more. The quantity received at the United States Mint and its branches up to September 30th, 1852, was 136,747,935 dollars; on the 30th of June, 1861, it was 501,290,998. The auriferous region is about five hundred miles in length, and from forty to fifty in breadth. But gold is not the only metal found in this wonderful land. Silver, quicksilver, platina, iron, and copper, are also there; and in addition to these stores are great beds of coal, which may be profitably worked. Nevertheless, it was the gold which proved the chief agent in bringing population to California, and laying the bases of her extraordinary prosperity. The gold-discoveries of 1849 and the succeeding years, together with the vast stores of precious metal shortly afterwards found in Australia, have had a revolutionary effect on the commercial condition of the world. Money has been more abundant, and speculation more rife. At the same time, the superflux of gold has deteriorated its value, so that the purchasing power of the sovereign is less than it was, and the price both of labour and of commodities has increased. The balance, however, speaking in the main, has certainly been

*Bayard Taylor's El Dorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire, 1850. Vol. II.

In the best sense of

in favour of social interests. the word, the nations are richer now than they were in 1849. There are not merely more men of fortune, but, what is far more important, there is less poverty-a more general diffusion of competence. The springs of industry have been quickened through the augmented powers of the capitalist.

In addressing Congress on the 5th of December, 1848, Mr. Polk congratulated his countrymen on the large territorial acquisitions which had marked the history of the previous few years. Referring to Oregon, to Texas, to New Mexico, and to Upper California, the President observed that the area of these several territories, according to a report prepared by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, contained 1,193,061 square miles, while the area of the remaining States, and of the lands not then organised into States, east of the Rocky Mountains the older part of the Union-contained 2,059,513 square miles; so that the regions lately acquired constituted a country more than half as large as that which was held by the United States before their acquisition, and nearly equal to the whole of Europe, if we exclude Russia. By the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, it had been estimated that the extent of the sea-coast of Texas, in the Gulf of Mexico, was upwards of 400 miles; of the coast of Upper California, on the Pacific, more than 970 miles; and of Oregon, including the Straits of Fuca, 650 miles; making the extent of sea-coast on the Pacific 1,620 miles, and the whole extent on both the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, 2,020 miles. The length of coast on the Atlantic, from the northern limits of the United States, round the Capes of Florida to the Sabine, on the eastern boundary of Texas, was estimated by the same authority at 3,100 miles; and it accordingly appeared that the addition of sea-coast, including Oregon, was very nearly two-thirds as great as all that the Federation possessed before. The Republic had thus acquired three great maritime fronts-on the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific; making, on the whole, an extent of sea-coast exceeding five thousand miles, exclusive of the bays, sounds, and small irregularities of the main shore and of the sea-islands. The importance of California, even irrespective of the gold-discoveries, was pointed out by the President. From the position and resources of that country, extending nearly ten degrees of latitude along the Pacific, and embracing the only safe and commodious harbours on the coast for several hundred miles, Mr. Polk inferred that it must command the rich commerce of China, of other parts of Asia, of the Pacific