commenced to build one that would cost $30,000 with that capital, which
was his mistake. If he had commenced in a small way he would have made
his fortune. (In my personal narrative he had much to do with my
affairs.)

At this point in writing my manuscript, I have just heard of the death
of Colonel Jonathan Stevenson, aged ninety-four, in California, to whom
I had a letter of introduction from Governor William L. Marcy. I found
him the warmest, the truest and most generous friend. He was a little
unpopular when I first met him, for what I conceived the most noble
action of his life. There were in his regiment roughs from the city of
New York, where it was organized, who, when the war was over with
Mexico, would go into saloons and places and help them selves to what
they wanted and refused to pay. They were termed "The Hounds." There was
a vigilance committee organized against them, which public sentiment, at
that time, fully indorsed. They had seized a number of them and were
about to hang them. Colonel Stevenson faced the excited crowd and asked
to have them give the men a trial and punish the guilty. He said that
when he returned to New York and their mothers asked him what had become
of their sons, how could he face them if they were put to death in that
way; but if he could say to them that they had a fair trial, were found
guilty of crime, and had been punished according to law, it would be
different. I think they were not executed, but banished; but it set up a
cry against the colonel that he had taken the part of "The Hounds," so
unjust is often, for a time, public sentiment. That was the first
vigilance committee; the great one came afterward, but I am confined to
the days of the "Forty-niners."

It was rumored, at the time, that there was a jealousy between him and
Colonel Freemont. It was not on the part of Stevenson. I boarded at the