regarding this important episode in the history of California. The
original paper is now in the possession of his granddaughter, Mrs.
Raymond H. Oveson of Groton, Massachusetts.

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Many of the evils which afflicted the people of San Francisco may be
traced to the peculiar circumstances attendant upon the settlement of
California. The effect all over the world of the discovery of gold at
Sutter's Mill in 1848 was electric. A movement only paralleled by that
of the Crusades at once commenced. Adventurers of every character and
description immediately started for the far away land where gold was to
be had for the gathering. The passage round Cape Horn, which from the
earliest times had been invested with a dreamy horror, and had inspired
a vague fear in every breast, was now dared with an audacity which only
the all absorbing greed for gold could have produced. Old condemned
hulks which, at other times, it would not have been deemed safe to
remove from one part of the harbor to another, were hastily fitted up,
and with the aid of a little paint and a few as deceptive assurances of
the owners, were instantly filled with eager passengers and dispatched
to do battle, as they might, with the storms and perils of the deep
during the tedious months through which the passage extended. The
suffering and distress consequent upon the packing so many human beings
in so confined a space; the miserable quality and insufficient quantity
of the provisions supplied; the weariness and lassitude engendered by
the intolerable length of the voyage; the ill-temper and evil passions
so sure to be roused and inflamed by long and forced companionship
without sympathy or affection, all tended to make these trips, for the
most part, all but intolerable, and in many cases left feelings of hate
and desire for revenge to be afterwards prosecuted to bloody issues.