CHAPTER VI.
OBSERVATIONS UPON AMERICA. 1
On gold in California - Bigness of the Republic - Inland navigation -Thrift and loftier motives -Chances not good for young foreigners of the better class - Nothing stops the Americans - Missouri in wartime - Brigandage and terror - The Mason and Slidell affair - Scenes at the firing on Sumter - Essay on the causes of the war - Both sides of the quarrel - The North and the South on slavery - Situation at the close of hostilities - The Missouri Test Oath - Persecution of Catholics - Grant's election.
it N the last two months thousands of emigrants have passed through St. Louis, going to the California mines; every day some of them come to see me to ask counsel and advice. I have succeeded in curing some of them of the gold fever. Imagine thousands of adventurers of all countries, deserters, sailors, robbers, murderers, the scum of the States, of Mexico, Peru, Chile, the Sandwich Islands (with some honest men among them, no doubt), all living lawless and unbridled lives, and that is the condition in California at this time. The news of the abundance of gold seems to have shaken the United States to the foundation. The fever seems to be slackening a little. Twenty million dollars in values and specie has been sent to California.
P. S.- In 1840 I climbed a lofty mountain a few days' travel from the Sacramento. The bed of a stream that came down from it seemed to me to be of gold sand. It was so abundant that I could not believe the thing was real, and I
1 Extract from a letter in French to his brother, Charles, April 26, 1849.