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Show 506 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF they having committed the most diabolical deed that ever disgraced the annals of frontier life. I continued in this service of carrying dispatches some four months, varying my route with an occasional trip to San Francisco. At this time society in California was in the worst condition to be found, probably, in any part of the world, to call it civilized. The report of the discovery of gold had attracted thither lawless and desperate characters from all parts of the earth, and the government constituted for their control was a weaker element than the offenders it had to deal with. The rankest excesses were familiar occurrences, and men were butchered under the very eyes of the officers of justice, and no action was taken in the matter. What honest men there were became alarmed, and frequently would abandon the richest placers .for the mere security of their lives, and leave a w~1ole community of rowdies to prey upon each other. Disorder attained its limit, and some reactionary means would naturally be engendered as a c6rrective to the existing evils. The establishment of "Vigilance Committees" among the better order of citizens operated as a thunderbolt upon the conniving civil officers and the rank perpetrators of crime. Scores of villains were snatched from the hands of these mock officers and summarily strung up to the limb of the nearest' tree. Horse and cattle thieves had their necks disjointed so frequently that it soon became safe for a man to leave his horse standing in the street for a few mor~_ ents, while he s~epped into a house to call upon his fnend, and that Widely-practiced business was quickly done away with. Such sudden justice overtook murderers robbers and other criminals, that honest people began ~o breath~ • JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 507 more freely, and acquired a sense of security while engaged in their ordinary pursuits. The materiel for crime still existed, and is yet present in California to an alarming extent; but order may be considered as confirmed in the supremacy, though inevitably many social evils still exist, which time alone will remedy. In the month of April, 1849, the steamship California touched at Monterey, she being the first steamvessel that had visited there from the States. I, witl1 a party of fifteen others, stepped on board, and proceeded as far as Stockton, where we separated into various parties. I left with one man to go to Sonora, where we erected the first tent, and commenced a business in partnership. I had carried a small lot of clothing along with me, which I disposed of to the 1niners at what now seems to me fabulous prices. Finding the business thus profitable, I sent my partner back to Stockton for a farther supply, and he brought several mules laden with goods. This lot was disposed of as readily as the first, and at prices equally remunerative. This induced us to continue the business, he performing the journeys backward and forward, and I remaining behind to dispose of the goods and attend to other affairs. Sonora was rapidly growing into a large village, and our tent was replaced with a roomy house. I had a corps of Indians in my employ to take charge of the horses left in my care by miners and other persons, sometimes to the number of two hundred at once. I also employed Indians to work in the mines, I furnishing them with board and implements to work with, and they paying me with one half of their earnings. Their general yield was from five to six ounces a day each man, a moiety of which they faithfully rendered to me. Among my earliest visitors was a party |
