250 MR. LARKIN'S SECOND LETTER. are losing their crews; my clerks have had one hundred per cent. advance offered them on their wages to accept employment. A complete revolution in the ordinary state of affairs is taking place; both of our newspapers are discontinued from want of workmen, and the loss of their agencies; the Alcaldes have left San Francisco, and I believe Sonoma likewise; the former place has not a Justice of the Peace left. The second Alcalde of Monterey to-day joins the keepers of our principal hotel, who have closed their office and house, and will leave to-morrow for the golden rivers. I saw on the ground a lawyer who was last year Attorney General of the King of the Sandwich Islands, digging and washing out his ounce and a half per day; near him can be found most all his brethren of the long robe, working in the same occupation. To conclude; my letter is long, but I could not well describe what I have seen in less words, and I now can believe that my account may be doubted; if the affair proves a bubble, a mere excitement, I know not how we can all be deceived, as we are situated. Gov. Mason and his staff have left Monterey to visit the place in question, and will, I suppose, soon forward to his department his views and opinions on this subject. Most of the land, where gold has been discovered, is public land; there are on different rivers some private grants. I have three such, purchased in 1846 and 1847, but have not learned that any private lands have produced gold, though they may hereafter do so. I have the honor, dear sir, to be, very respectfully, THOMAS O. LARKIN. Hon JAMES BUCHANAN, Secretary of State, Washington City. The following are the latest Official Dispatches received up to the present time. MR. LARKIN'S THIRD LETTER. From the Washington Union, January 21, 1849. 251 Extract from a letter from Thomas O. Larkin, Esq.; late Consul, and now Navy Agent of the United States, to the Secretary of State, dated at Monterey, November 16, 1848. The digging and washing for gold continues to increase on the Sacramento placer, so far as regards the number of persons engaged in the business, and the size and quantity of the metal daily obtained. I have had in my hands several pieces of gold, about twenty-three carats fine, weighing from one to two pounds, and have it from good authority that pieces have been found weighing sixteen pounds. Indeed, I have heard of one specimen that weighed twenty-five pounds. There are many men in the placer, who in June last had not one hundred dollars, now in possession of from five to twenty thousand dollars, which they made by digging gold and trading with the Indians. Several, I believe, have made more. A common calico shirt, or even a silver dollar has been taken by an Indian for gold, without regard to size; and a half to one ounce of gold-say eight to sixteen dollars— is now considered the price of a shirt, while from three to ten ounces is the price of a blanket. One hundred dollars a day, for several days in succession, was and is considered a fair remuneration for the labor of a gold-digger, though few work over a month at a time, as the fatigue is very great. From July to October, one-half of the gold-hunters have been afflicted either with the ague and fever or the intermittent fever, and twenty days absent from the placer during those months is necessary to escape the diseases. There have not, however, been many fatal cases. The gold is now sold, from the smallest imaginary piece in size to pieces of one pound weight, at sixteen dollars per troy ounce, for all the purposes of commerce; but those who are under the necessity of raising coin to pay duties to the government, are obliged to accept from ten to eleven 252 COMMODORE JONES' LETTER. dollars per ounce. All the coin in California is likely to be locked up in the custom-house, as the last tariff of our Congress is in force here in regard to the receipt of money. Could you know the value of the California placer as I know it, you would think you had been instrumental in obtaining a most splendid purchase for our country, to put no other construction on the late treaty. The placer is known to be two or three hundred miles long; and, as discoveries are constantly being made, it may prove one thousand miles in length-in fact it is, not counting the intermediate miles yet unexplored. From five to ten millions of gold must be our export this and next year. How many more years this state of things will continue, I cannot say. Extract from letter, dated October 25, 1848, from Commodore Jones to the Honorable Secretary of the Navy. Nothing, sir, can exceed the deplorable state of things in all Upper California at this time, growing out of the maddening effects of the gold mania. I am sorry to say that even in this squadron some of the officers are a little tainted and have manifested restlessness under moderate restrictions imperiously demanded by the exigencies of the times, as you will perceive by the enclosed paper, addressed to three of the lieutenants. I am, however, happy to say that I have not been disappointed in the good effect of the means employed to prevent desertion, and to maintain order in the squadron, as but one desertion has taken place since the rush of eight from this ship on the evening of the 18th instant; and that the views and opinions of the few officers who were sceptical as to the right and efficiency of the means employed to prevent offences and to punish crime, have undergone a most favorable change, whereby I shall be enabled to keep on this coast until the whirlwind of anarchy and confusion confounded is superseded by the COMMODORE JONES' DESPATCHES.. 253 establishment of some legal government potent enough to enforce law and to protect life and property, which at this time is in great jeopardy everywhere outside our bulwarks. FLAG SHIP OHIO, BAY OF MONTEREY, November 1, 1848. SIR: By Lieutenant Lanman, who left here on the 26th ultimo, in the ship Izaak Walton, for the coast of Peru, where he expected to intercept the Panama steamers, I forwarded several communications acquainting you with my movements up to that date, which I hope you will receive early, and that they may prove satisfactory. The enclosed extract from my last letter (No. 34) will convey the unpleasant tidings of the utter prostration of all law and order in our California possessions, brought about by the extraordinary developments of gold in this vicinity.. I have the honor to be your obedient servant, THOS. AP C. JONES. Commander-in-chief U. S. Naval forces, P. O. Hon. J. Y. MASON, Secretary of the Navy. FLAG SHIP OHIO, BAY OF MONTEREY, November 2, 1818. SIR: In my letter No. 24, from La Paz, I recommended · the retention on this coast of all cruising ships of the Pacific squadron, and pointed out how they could be kept in repair and manned without returning round Cape Horn to the Atlantic States. When that recommendation was made I had no conception of the state of things in Upper California. For the present, and I fear for years to come, it will be impossible for the United States to maintain any naval or military establishment in California; as at the present, no hope of reward nor fear of punishment is 254 COMMODORE JONES' DESPATCHES. sufficient to make binding any contract between man and man upon the soil of California. To send troops out here would be needless, for they would immediately desert. To show what chance there is for apprehending deserters, I enclose an advertisement which has been widely circulated for a fortnight, but without bringing in a single deserter. Among the deserters from the squadron are some of the best petty officers and seamen, having but few months to serve, and large balances due them, amounting, in the aggregate, to over ten thousand dollars. ..... There is a great deficiency of coin in the country, and especially in the mines; the traders, by taking advantage of the pressing necessity of the digger, not unfrequently compelling him to sell his ounce of good gold for a silver dollar; and it has been bought, under like circumstances, for fifty cents per ounce, of Indians. To this state of dependence laboring miners are now subjected, and must be until coin is more abundant. Disease, congestive and intermittent fever, is making great havoc among the diggers, as they are almost destitute of food and raiment, and, for the most part, without houses of any kind to protect them from the inclement season now at hand. The commerce of this coast may be said to be entirely cut off by desertion. No sooner does a merchant ship arrive in any of the ports of California, than all hands leave her; in some instances, captain, cook, and all. At this moment there are a number of merchant ships thus abandoned at San Francisco; and such will be the fate of all that subsequently arrive. The master of the ship "Izaak Walton," that brought stores for the squadron to this port, offered, without success, fifty dollars per month to Callao, and thence twenty dollars per month home, to disbanded volunteers, not seamen. We were obliged at last to supply him with four men whose |