But notwithstanding all this, when I turned my face towards Marysville
I was, in a pecuniary sense, ruined. I had barely the means to pay my
passage home. My ventures, after my expulsion from the bar, in June,
1850, had proved so many maelstroms into which the investments were
not only drawn but swallowed up. My affairs had got to such a pass
that before I left Marysville for the Legislature I felt it to be my
duty to transfer all my real property to trustees to pay my debts,
and I did so. And now when I stepped upon the landing in Marysville my
whole available means consisted of eighteen and three-quarter cents,
and I owed about eighteen thousand dollars, the whole of which bore
interest at the rate of ten per cent. a month. I proceeded at once to
the United States Hotel, kept by a Mr. Peck, who had known me in the
days of my good fortune. "My dear Mr. Peck," I said, "will you trust
me for two weeks' board?" "Yes," was the reply, "and for as long as
you want." "Will you also send for my trunks on the steamer, for
I have not the money to pay the carman." "Certainly," the good man
added, and so the trunks were brought up. On the next day I looked
around for quarters. I found a small house, thirty feet by sixteen,
for an office, at eighty dollars a month, and took it. It had a small
loft or garret, in which I placed a cot that I had purchased upon
credit. Upon this cot I spread a pair of blankets, and used my valise
for a pillow. I secured a chair without a back for a wash-stand, and
with a tin basin, a pail, a piece of soap, a toothbrush, a comb, and
a few towels, I was rigged out. I brought myself each day the water
I needed from a well near by. I had an old pine table and a
cane-bottomed sofa, and with these and the bills which had passed the
Legislature, corrected as they became laws, and the statutes of
the previous session, I put out my sign as an attorney and
counsellor-at-law, and began the practice of my profession.