CHAPTER XXI Concluding Observations.


* * * * *




WHY AND HOW I CAME TO CALIFORNIA.


Some months previous to the Mexican War, my brother David Dudley
Field, of New York City, wrote two articles for the Democratic Review
upon the subject of the Northwestern Boundary between the territory of
the United States and the British Possessions. One of these appeared
in the June, and the other in the November number of the Review for
1845.[1] While writing these articles he had occasion to examine
several works on Oregon and California, and, among others, that of
Greenhow, then recently published, and thus became familiar with the
geography and political history of the Pacific Coast. The next Spring,
and soon after the war broke out, in the course of a conversation upon
its probable results, he remarked, that if he were a young man, he
would go to San Francisco; that he was satisfied peace would never be
concluded without our acquiring the harbor upon which it was situated;
that there was no other good harbor on the coast, and that, in his
opinion, that town would, at no distant day, become a great city. He
also remarked that if I would go he would furnish the means, not only
for the journey, but also for the purchase of land at San Francisco
and in its vicinity. This conversation was the first germ of my