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 our bank, wrote his note for twenty-five thousand dollars, and secured it by mortgage on real estate and city warrants, and substituted the three acceptances of the Hamburg firm for the overplus.  I surrendered to him all his former notes, except one for which he was indorser.  The three acceptances duly matured and were paid; one morning Meiggs and family were missing, and it was discovered they had embarked in a sailing-vessel for South America.  This was the beginning of a series of failures in San Francisco, that extended through the next two years.  As soon as it was known that Meiggs had fled, the town was full of rumors, and everybody was running to and fro to secure his money.  His debts amounted to nearly a million dollars.  The Hamburg house which, had been humbugged, were heavy losers and failed, I think.  I took possession of Meiggs’s dwelling-house and other property for which I held his mortgage, and in the city warrants thought I had an overplus; but it transpired that Meiggs, being in the City Council, had issued various quantities of street scrip, which was adjudged a forgery, though, beyond doubt, most of it, if not all, was properly signed, but fraudulently issued.  On this city scrip our bank must have lost about ten thousand dollars.  Meiggs subsequently turned up in Chili, where again he rose to wealth and has paid much of his San Francisco debts, but none to us.  He is now in Peru, living like a prince.  With Meiggs fell all the lumber-dealers, and many persons dealing in city scrip.  Compared with others, our loss was a trifle.  In a short time things in San Francisco resumed their wonted course, and we generally laughed at the escapade of Meiggs, and the cursing of his deluded creditors.

Shortly after our arrival in San Francisco, I rented of a Mr. Marryat, son of the English Captain Marryat, the author, a small frame-house on Stockton Street, near Green, buying of him his furniture, and we removed to it about December 1,1853.  Close by, around on Green Street, a man named Dickey was building two small brick-houses, on ground which he had leased of Nicholson.  I bought one of these houses, subject to the ground-rent, and moved into it as soon as finished.  Lieutenant T. H. Stevens, of the United States Navy, with his family, rented the other; we lived in this house throughout the year 1854, and up to April 17, 1855.