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DECEMBER 29, 1843,

AMERICAN- NEWS.

ARRIVAL OF THE BRITANNIA.
LIVERPOOL, THURSDAY.—The royal mail steam-
ship Britannia, Captain Lang, arrived this morning
with advices from New York to the 12th, Boston to
the 13th, and Halifax to the 15th inst. respectively.
She was detained off the port for seven hours in con-
sequence of fog.
The Canada, Captain Judkins, arrived at Halifax
on the 11th, after a very rough passage of sixteen
days from this port. The Niagara, Captain Ryrie,
hence, arrived at Halifax on the 13th inst.
The %Vest India mail steamer Forth, Captain
Sturdee, from St. Thomas's and Bermuda, arrived at
New York on the 11th inst., arid would leave on her
return on the 14th inst.
In Congress business had scarcely commenced. A
resolution had been submitted instructing the Com-
mittee on Ways and Means to report a Bill based
upon the principle of the tariff of 1842. The ques-
tion on its passage was taken by " yeas" and " nays,"
and decided in the affirmative by a majority of 33
votes.
It is stated in the Courier and Enquirer, that—
" A movement to modify the existing tariff will be
made at an early day. Its success is doubtful at the
present session, from a declared purpose on the part of
certain leaders to impose all such questions on the in-
coming Administration. The necessity of modification
is apparent to all who understand the practical wants of
the country, and if there was doubt on the subject in
the abstract, the recent popular verdict ought to be suf-
ficient for those who profess to respect the will of the
people."
Reports had been published by the Secretaries of
the Treasury, War, and Navy; that of the Treasury
is a document of great length, entering into elaborate
discussions of party doctrines. A New York paper
gives an epitome of the message, from which we ex-
tract the following:—
"Mr. Walker refers to the revulsions of Europe,
which have injured our trade, and then enters upon an
elaborate vindication of free-trade principles, in opposi-
tion to those of protection, enforced by the example of
the several States of the Union, among which free trade
prevails. A large section of the report is occupied
with this argument, which is skilful and plausible,
though not particularly new. The repeal of the British
corn-laws is attributed to our arguments. The pro-
tective system is characterised as ' agrarian' and a war
upon property."
One or two fatal cases of cholera had appeared at
New York, and it was feared that the epidemic was
spreading. It had also appeared at New Orleans,
brought there by the arrival of the barque Lucia
Field, from Bremen. Twenty or more passengers
died with the cholera, or from black vomit, on the"
passage. At Washington it was also reported to
have appeared.
Mr. Macready was enthusiastically received at
Baltimore on the 12th inst.
The -United States frigate Constantine, Commodore
Gwynne, had left Boston for the Mediterranean.
We have scarcely any intelligence from Mexico.
Paredes was still at large, but the Government had
sent expresses to Tampico for his arrest. The account
of another pronunciamento at Mazatlan was contra-
dicted. In Coahuila the Indians were committing
terrible devastations. There were no troops available
to be employed against them. Congress had passed
a decree that the standing army of Mexico should
never exceed 10,000 men. This does not include mi-
litary colonists to be established along the line of the
frontier. Dates from Tampico report that BCO troops
of the National Government were still in the vicinity
of the city, but the possession of the town remained
with the National Guards. Advices from the capital
announce the termination Gf the session of Congress.
There is no end to the published accounts of the
California gold mines. The papers devote columns
of every publication to glory on the accounts conti-
nually received. The most interesting and authentic
description of these mines is detailed in a dispatch
from Colonel Mason, the officer in command at
Monterey. He says—
" We reached San Francisco on the 20th, and found
that all, or nearly all, its male inhabitants had gone to
the mines. The town, which a few months before was
se busy and thriving, was then almost deserted. On
the evening of the 24th the horses of the escort were
crossed to Sousoleto in a launch, and on the following clay
we resumed the journey by way of Bodega and Sonoma
to Sutter's Fort, where we arrived on the morning of the
2d of July. Along the whole route mills were lying
idle, fields of wheat were open to cattle and horses,
houses vacant, and farms going to waste. At Sutter's
there was more life and business. Launches were dis-
charging their cargoes at the river, and carts were haul-
war.. le
several stores, a hotel, &c. t aio Aiptn buttefiaap til d
two mechanics is his employ—a waggon-maker and a
—hoe. be was then paying 10 dolls. a day.
Merchants pay him a monthly rent of 100 dolls. per
room, and whilst I was there a two-story house in the
fort was rented as a hotel for 500 dolls. a month.
" On the sth resumed the journey, and proceeded 25
miles up the American fork to a point on it now known
as the Lower Mines, or Mormon Diggings. The hill
sides were thickly strewn with canvass tents and bush
arbours; a store was erected, and several boarding
shanties in operation. The day was intensely hot, yet
about two hundred men were at work in the full glare of
the sun, washing for gold—some with tin pans, some with
close woven Indian baskets, but the greater part had a
rude machine, known as the cradle. This is on rockers
six or eight feet long, open at the foot, and at its
head has a coarse grate, or sieve ; the bottom is
rounded with small cleeta nailed across. Four men are
required to work this machine; one digs the ground in
the bank close by the stream, another carries it to the
cradle, and empties it on the grate; a third gives a violent
rocking motion to the machine, whilst a fourth dashes
on water from the stream itself. The sieve keeps the
coarse stones from entering the cradle, the current of
water washes off the earthy matter, and the gravel is
gradually carried out at the foot of the machine, leaving
the gold mixed with a heavy fine black sand above the
first cleats. The sand and gold mixed together are then
drawn off through augur holes into a pan below; are
dried in the sun, and afterwards separated by blowing off
the sand. A party of four men, thus employed at the
lower mines, averaged 100 dollars a-day. The Indians,
and those who have nothing but pans or willow baskets,
gradually wash out the earth and separate the gravel by
haud, le:.ving nothing but the gold mixed with sand,
which is separated in the manner before described. The
gold in the lower mines is in fine bright scales, of which
I sand several specimens.
" Remarkable success attended the labours of the first
explorers, and in a few weeks hundreds of men were
drawn thither. At the time of my visit, but little more
than three months after its first discovery, it was esti-
mated that upwards of four thousand people were em-
ployed. At the the mill there is a fine deposit or bank
of gravel, which the people respect as the property of
Captain Sutter, although he pretends to no right of it,
and would be perfectly satisfied with the simple pro-
mise of a pre-emption on account of the mill which he
has built there at considerable cost. Mr. Marshall was
living near the mill, and informed me that many per-
sons were employed above and below him ; that they
used the same machines as at the lower washings ; and
that their success was about the same—ranging
from one to three ounces of gold per man daily. This
gold, too, is in scales a little coarser than those of
the lower mines. From the mill Mr. Marshall guided
me up the mountain on the opposite or north bank of
the south fork, where, in the bed of small streams
or ravines, now dry, a great deal of coarse gold has
been found. I there saw several parties at work, all of
whom were doing very well; a great many specimens
were shown me, some as heavy as four or five ounces in
weight, and I send three pieces, labelled No. 5, presented
by a Mr. Spence. You will perceive that some of the
specimens accompanying this hold mechanically pieces
of quartz, that the surface is rough, and evidently
moulded in the crevice of a rock. This gold cannot
have been carried far by water, but must have remained
near where it was first deposited from the rock that
once bound it. I inquired of many if they bad encoun-
tered the metal in its matrix, but in every instance
they said they had not, but that the gold was inva-
riably mixed with washed gravel, or lodged in the
crevices of other rocks. All bore testimony that they
had found gold in greater or less quantities in the nu-
merous small gulleys or ravines that occur in that
mountainous region. On the 7th of July I left the mill,
and crossed to a small stream emptying into the Ame-
rican fork, three or four miles below the saw-mill.
I struck the stream (now known as Weber's Creek)
at the washings of Sunol and Co. They had about
thirty Indians employed, whom they pay in merchandise.
They were getting gold of a character similar to that
found in the main fork, and doubtless in sufficient quan-
tities to satisfy them. I send you a small specimen pre-
sented by this company of their gold. From this point
welproceeded up the stream about eight miles, where we
found a great many people and Indians, some engaged in
the bed of the stream and others in the small side valleys
that put into it. These latter are exceedingly rich, and
two ounces were considered an ordinary yield for a day's
work. A small gutter, not more than 100 yards long,
by four feet wide, and two or three feet deep, was
pointed out to me as the one where two men—William
Daly and Perry 141‘Coon—had, a short time before, ob-
tained 17,000 dolls. worth of gold. Captain Weber in-
formed me that he knew that these two men had em-
ployed four white men and about 100 Indians, and that
at the end of one week's work they paid off their party,
and had left 10,000 dolls. worth of this gold. Another
small ravine was shown me, from which had been taken
upwards of 12,00) dolls. worth of gold. Hundreds of
similar ravines, to all appearance, are as yet untouched.
I could not have credited these reports had I not
seen, in the abundance of the precious metal, evidence of
their truth. Mr. Neligh, an agent of Commodore Stock-
ton, had been at work about three weeks in the neigh-
bourhood, and showed me in bags and bottles over 2,000
dolls. worth of gold; and Mr. Lyman, a gentleman of

i~~

,p__-

[P!ttcit op.

education, and worthy of every credit, said he had been
engaged with four others with a machine, on the Ame-
rican fork, just below Sutter's mill; that they worked
eight days, and that his share was at the rate of 50 dolls.
a day ; but hearing that others were doing better at
Weber's place, they had removed there, and were then
on the point of resuming operations. I might tell of
hundreds of similar instances; but to illustrate how plen-
tiful the gold was in the pockets of common labourers, I
will mention a similar occurrence which took place in my
presence when I was at Weber's store. This store was
nothing but an arbour of bushes, under which
he had exposed for sale goods and groceries
suited to his customers. A man came in, picked
up a h.,x of Seidlitz powders, and asked its
pi ice. Captain Weber told him it was not for sale. The
man offered an ounce of gold, but Captain Weber told
him it only cost 50 cents, anti he did not wish to sell it.
The man then offered an ounce and a half, when Captain
Weber had to take it. The prices of all things are high,
and yet ludians, who before hardly knew what a breach
cloth was, can now afford to buy the most gaudy dresses.
" The country on either side of Weber's Creek is
much broken up by hills, and is intersected in every
direction by small streams or ravines, which contain
more or less gold. Those that have been worked are
barely scratched, and although thousands of ounces have
been carried away, I do not consider that a serious
impression has been made upon the whole. Every day
was developing new and richer deposits ; and the only
impression seemed to be that the metal would be found
in such, abundance as seriously to depreciate in value.
"On the 18th of July I returned to Monterey. Be-
fore leaving Sutter's, I satisfied myself that gold existed
in the bed of the Feather River, in the Yubah and Bear,
and in many of the small streams that lie between the
latter and the American fork; also, that it had been
found in the Consummes to the south of the American
fork. In each of these streams the gold is found in small
scales, whereas in the intervening mountains it occurs
in coarser lumps. Mr. Sinclair, whose rancho is three
miles above Sutter's on the north side of the American,
employs fifty Indians on the north fork, not far from its
junction with the main stream. He had been engaged
about five weeks when I saw him, and up to that time
his Indians had used simply closely-vtoven willow bas-
kets. His net proceeds (which I saw) were about 16,000
dolls. worth of gold. He showed me the proceeds of
his last week's work-14 pounds avoirdupois of clean-
washed gold. The principal store at Sutter's fort, that
of Brannan and Co., had received in payment for goods
36,000 dolls. worth of this gold from the Ist of May to
the 10th of July. Other merchants had also made ex-
tensive sales. Large quantities of goods were daily sent
forward to the mines, as the Indians, heretofore so poor
and degraded, have suddenly become consumers of the
luxuries of life. I before mentioned that the greater
part of the farmers and rancheros had abandoned their
fields to go to the mines. This is not the case with
Captain Sutter, who was carefully gathering his wheat,
estimated at 40,000 bushels. Flour is already worth at
Sutter's 36 dolls. a barrel, and soon will be 50. Unless
large quantities of breadstuff reach the country much
suffering will occur; but as each man is now able to pay
a large price, it is believed the merchants will bring
from Chili and Oregon a plentiful supply for the coming
winter.

" The most moderate estimate I could obtain from men
acquainted with the subject was, that upwards of 4,000
men were working in the gold district, of whom more
than one-half were Indians, and that from 30,000 to
50,000 dolls. worth of gold, if not more, was daily ob-
tained. The entire gold district, with very few excep-
tions of grants made some years ago by the Mexican
authorities, is on land belonging to the United States.
It was a matter of serious reflection with me how I
could secure to the Government certain rents or fees for
the privilege of procuring this gold; but upon consider-
ing the large extent of country, the character of the
people engaged, and the small scattered force at my
command, I resolved not to interfere, but to permit all
to work freely, unless broils and crime should call for
interference. I was surprised to learn that crime of any
kind was very unfrequent, and that no thefts or robbe-
ries had bean committed in the gold district. All live
in tents, in bu'h arbours, or in the open air; and men
have frequently about their persons thousands of
dollars' worth of this gold, and it was to me a mat-
ter of surprise that so peaceful and quiet a state of
things should continue to exist. Conflicting claims to
particular spots of ground may cause collisions, but they
will be rare, as the extent of country is so great, and the
gold so abundant, that for the present there is room and
enough for all. Still the Government is entitled to rents
for this land, and immediate steps should be devised to
collect them, for the longer it is delayed the more diffi-
cult it will become. One plan I would suggest is, to
send out from the United States surveyors with high sa-
laries, bound to serve specific periods; a superintendent
to be appointed at Sutter's Fort, with power to grant li-
censes to work a spot of ground, say 100 yards square, for
one year, at a rent of from 100 dolls. to 1,000 dolls., at
his discretion; the surveyors to measure the ground and
place the renter in possession. A better plan, however,
will be to have the district surveyed and sold at public
auction to the highest bidder, in small parcels—say from
20 to 40 acres. In either ease there will be many in-
.iiict-km.ssanee for years it will be almost imnosaihin, to
"The discoVery_actfEarviiirdecPosiliiiriad-has en-
tirely changed the erecter of 'Upper California. Its
people, before engaged in cultivating their small patches
of ground, and guarding their herds of cattle and horses,
have all gone to the mines, or are on their way there.
Labourers of every trade have left their work benches,
and tradesmen their shops. Sailors desert their ships as
fast as they arrive on the coast, and several vessels have
gone to sea with hardly enough hands to spread a sail.
Two or three are now at anchor in San Francisco with
no crew on board. Many desertions, too, have taken
place from the garrisons within .the influence of these
mines; 26 soldiers have deserted trona- the post of So-
nora, 24 from that of San FrancisCo, 'and 24 from Mon-
terey. For a few days the evil appeared $o threatening
that great danger existed that the garrisons would leave
in a body; and I refer you to my order of the 25th of
July, to show the steps adopted to meet this:contingency.
I shall spare no exertions to apprehend and punish
deserters, but I believe no time in the history of our
country has presented such temptations to desert as now
exist in California. The danger of apprehension is
small, and the prospect of high wages certain; pay and
bounties are trifles, as labouring men at the mines can
now earn in one day more than double a soldier's pay
and allowances for a month; and even the pay of a
Lieutenant or a Captain cannot hire a servant. A car-
penter or mechanic would not listen to an offer of less
than 15 dolls. or 20 dolls. a day. Could any combina-
tion of affairs try a mau's fidelity more than this? Aud
I really think some extraordinary mark of favour should
be given to those soldiers who remain faithful to
their flag throughout this tempting crisis. No officer
can now live in California on his pay, money has so
little value; the prices of necessary articles of clothing
and subsistence aro so exorbitant, and labour so high,
that to hire a cook or servant has become an impossi-
bility, save to those who are earning from 30 dolls. to
40 dulls. a day. This state of things cannot last for
ever. Yet, from the geographical position of California,
and the new character it has assumed as a mining coun-
try, prices of labour will always be high, and will hold
out temptations to desert. I therefore have to report, if
the Government wish to prevent desertions here on the
part of men, and to secure seal on the part of officers,
their pay must be increased very materially. Soldiers,
both of the volunteer and regular service, discharged in
this country, should be permitted at once to locate their
land warrants in the gold district. Many private letters
have gone to the United States giving accounts of the
vast quantity of gold recently . discovered, and
it may be a matter of surprise why I have
made no report on this subject at an earlier date.
The reason is, that I could not bring myself to believe
the reports that I heard'of the wealth of the gold dis-
trict until I visited it myself. I have no hesitation now
in saying that there is more gold in the country drained
by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers than will pay
the cost of the present war with Mexico a
hundred times over. No capital is required to obtain
this gold, as the labouring man wants nothing but his
pick and shovel and tin pan, with which to dig and wash
the gravel; and many frequently pink gold out of the
crevices of rocks with their butcher-knives, in pieces of
from one to six ounces.
" Mr. Dye, a gentleman residing in Monterey, and
worthy of every credit, has just returned from Feather
River. He tells me that the company to which he be-
longed worked seven weeks and two days, with an
average of fifty Indians (washers), and that their gross
product was 2731 b. of gold. His share (one-seventh),
after paying all expenses, is about 371 b., which he
brought with him, and exhibited in Monterey. I see no
labouring man from the mines who does not show his
21b., 31b., er 41b. of gold. A soldier of the Artillery
Company returned here a few days ago from the mines,
having been absent on furlough 20 days. He made, by
trading and working during that time, 1,500 dolls.
During those 20 days he was travelling 10 or 11 days,
leaving but a week, in which he made a sum- of
money greater than he receives in pay, clothes, and ra-
tions, during a whole enlistment of five years. These
statements appear incredible, but they are true:—' Gold
is also believed to exist on the eastern slope of the Sierra
Nevada; and, when at the mines, I was informed by an
intelligent Mormon that it had been found near the
Great Salt Lake by some of his fraternity. Nearly all
the Mormons are leaving California to go to the Salt
Lake; and this they surely would not do, unless they
were sure of finding gold there in the same abundance as
they now do on the Sacramento.' The gold placer,'
near the mission of San Fernando, has long been known,
but has been little wrought for want of water. This is
in a spur that juts off from the Sierra Nevada (see Fre-
mont's map), the same in which the present mines occur.
There is, therefore, every reason to believe, that in
the intervening spaces of 500 miles (entirely unex-
plored) there must be many hidden and rich deposits.
The placer' gold is now substituted as the cur-
rency of this country ; in trade it passes freely
at 10 dolls. per ounce ; as an article of commerce
its value is not yet fixed. The only purchase I made
was the specimen No. 7, which I got of Mr. Neligh at
12 dollars the ounce. That is about the present cash
value in the country, although it has been sold for less.
The great demand for goods and provisions made by
this sudden development of wealth has increased the
amount of commerce at San Francisco very much, and
it will continue to increase."