owed us about eighty thousand dollars--all, however, secured by
city warrants; still, he kept bank accounts elsewhere, and was
generally a borrower. I instructed Nisbet to insist on his
reducing his line as the notes matured, and, as he found it
indelicate to speak to Meiggs, I instructed him to refer him to me;
accordingly, when, on the next steamer-day, Meiggs appealed at the
counter for a draft on Philadelphia, of about twenty thousand
dollars, for which he offered his note and collateral, he was
referred to me, and I explained to him that our draft was the same
as money; that he could have it for cash, but that we were already
in advance to him some seventy-five or eighty thousand dollars, and
that instead of increasing the amount I must insist on its
reduction. He inquired if I mistrusted his ability, etc. I
explained, certainly not, but that our duty was to assist those who
did all their business with us, and, as our means were necessarily
limited, I must restrict him to some reasonable sum, say,
twenty-five thousand dollars. Meiggs invited me to go with him to a
rich mercantile house on Clay Street, whose partners belonged in
Hamburg, and there, in the presence of the principals of the house,
he demonstrated, as clearly as a proposition in mathematics, that
his business at Mendocino was based on calculations that could not
fail. The bill of exchange which he wanted, he said would make the
last payment on a propeller already built in Philadelphia, which
would be sent to San Francisco, to tow into and out of port the
schooners and brigs that were bringing his lumber down the coast. I
admitted all he said, but renewed my determination to limit his
credit to twenty-five thousand dollars. The Hamburg firm then
agreed to accept for him the payment of all his debt to us, except
the twenty-five thousand dollars, payable in equal parts for the
next three steamer-days. Accordingly, Meiggs went back with me to