of Spears & Thornton, to collect, by suit, a certain note of Green & Purdy for twelve thousand dollars.  Early in April, I learned that Spears had collected three thousand seven hundred dollars in money, had appropriated it to his own use, and had pledged another good note taken in part payment of three thousand and fifty-three dollars.  He pretended to be insane.  I had to make two visits to Downieville on this business, and there, made the acquaintance of Mr. Stewart, now a Senator from Nevada.  He was married to a daughter of Governor Foote; was living in a small frame house on the bar just below the town; and his little daughter was playing about the door in the sand.  Stewart was then a lawyer in Downieville, in good practice; afterward, by some lucky stroke, became part owner of a valuable silver-mine in Nevada, and is now accounted a millionaire.  I managed to save something out of Spears, and more out of his partner Thornton.  This affair of Spears ruined him, because his insanity was manifestly feigned.

I remained in San Francisco till July 3d, when, having collected and remitted every cent that I could raise, and got all the property in the best shape possible, hearing from St. Louis that business had revived, and that there was no need of further sacrifice; I put all the papers, with a full letter of instructions, and power of attorney, in the hands of William Blending, Esq., and took passage on the good steamer Golden Gate, Captain Whiting, for Panama and home.  I reached Lancaster on July 28, 1858, and found all the family well.  I was then perfectly unhampered, but the serious and greater question remained, what was I to do to support my family, consisting of a wife and four children, all accustomed to more than the average comforts of life?

I remained at Lancaster all of August, 1858, during which time I was discussing with Mr. Ewing and others what to do next.  Major Turner and Mr. Lucas, in St. Louis, were willing to do any thing to aid me, but I thought best to keep independent.  Mr. Ewing had property at Chauncey, consisting of salt-wells and coal-mines, but for that part of Ohio I had no fancy.  Two of his sons, Hugh and T. E., Jr., had established themselves at Leavenworth, Kansas, where they and their father had bought a good deal of land, some near the town, and some back in the country.  Mr. Ewing offered to confide to me the general management of his share of interest, and Hugh and T. E., Jr., offered me an equal copartnership in their law-firm.

Accordingly, about the 1st of September, I started for Kansas, stopping a couple of weeks in St. Louis, and reached Leavenworth.  I found about two miles below the fort, on the river-bank, where in 1851 was a tangled thicket, quite a handsome and thriving city, growing rapidly in rivalry with Kansas City, and St. Joseph, Missouri.  After looking about and consulting with friends, among them my classmate Major Stewart Van Vliet, quartermaster at the fort, I concluded