I drafted and secured the passage of an act concerning county sheriffs, in which the duties and responsibilities of those officers, not only in the execution of process and the detention of prisoners, but as keepers of the county jail, were declared and defined; also an act concerning county recorders, in which the present system of keeping records was adopted.  This latter act, though drawn by me, was introduced by Mr. Merritt, of Mariposa, but he does not hesitate to speak publicly of my authorship of it.  I also prepared a bill concerning divorces, which was reported from the Judiciary Committee as a substitute for the one presented by Mr. Carr, of San Francisco, and was passed.  In this act, aside from the ordinary causes of adultery, and consent obtained by force or fraud, for which divorces are granted, I made extreme cruelty and habitual intemperance, wilful desertion of either husband or wife for a period of two years, and wilful neglect of the husband to provide for the wife the common necessaries of life, having the ability to provide the same, for a period of three years, also causes of divorce.  I also drew the charters of the cities of Marysville, Nevada, and Monterey, which were adopted—­that of Monterey being reported by the Judiciary Committee as a substitute for one introduced by a member from that district.  Other bills drawn or supported by me were passed, the provisions of which are still retained in the laws of the State.

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