Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-05-05
COL. FREMONT

The subloined article from the s.. Y ork Herald,
narrates how the debt was contracted for which
Col. Fremont was recently arrested in London, by
aposse OF Bow street officers and put in durance
vile." ltappears that a bill appropriating $780,
600 to liquidate these claims once passed the
Senate, but failed i'll the lower House, and has
been postponed from one session to another down
to the present time. If the facts are stated by
the Herald, a bill for Fremonts relief will of
course be passed at an early day.
In the winter of 1856, Col. Fremont, then
on one of his splendid typographical surveys of
the Pacific slope of this continent, had dropped
down from the deep SHOWS OF the Sierra Nevada,
to recruit little in the valleys Of California
His men and mules had been securing the deserts
of the Great Basin through and hrough-he had
laid all that vast, dark region including the Great
Salt Lake and its fresh water tributaries, open to
the light of day--he had threaded the mysterious
banks of Humboldt's river for hundreds of miles
through bowling wilderness, till it suddenly
sank in the desert sands, disappearing forever-he
had traversed that beautiful chain of lakes which
flank the eastern rim of the Snowy Mountains,
and had crossed directly over from the desolation
of the interior deserts down into the paradise of
the Sacramento; and, from the head waters of
the Missouri to the bay of San Francisco, and
from the great ioalC Lake down TO "tne three
Parks" of the Rocky Mountains; he had reduced
his observations and discoveries to maps and charts
for the common use of the immense swarms of
white that were shortly to follow in his
tracks across the continent. He had done all this
under the authority and pay of the United States
government; and in the winter of '45'46 as q
scientific officer, with his corps, he had gone down
into California to rest little from his labors, and
recruit his strength.
All that country belonged then to Mexico. FIRE.
rnonts scientific explorations, fer several years,
over region of some eight hundred thousand
square miles in extent, had been mainly upon Mex
lean soil. The Mexican officials in California
finally suspected him, and ordered him out of the
country in the winter of 1915. He left, quietly
moving towards Oregon, as the nearest United
States territory, but in his retreat he was pursued
and compelled to fight. He did fight, whipped
the MexHans and rouseda revolution among the
Americans and the native Californans. He mus
tered five hundred mounted volunteers into the
cause, and was pushing on the war, when they
first heard in California of our open rupture with
Mexico. Fremont then enlarged his operations,
and incurred heavy debts in the purchase of cattle
andsuppies. to feed his army. All these were
procured upon his individual bonds, relying him
self upon the faith of the government for indem-
nifty. He conquered the country, and became its
first governor under the conquest. Subsequently,
it was again overrun by Fremont Stockton, and
Gen. kearney, with the combined land and naval
forces and horsemarines of the United States; but
Fremont had substantially done the business be-
fore, on his own responsibility, at his own risk,
and upon his own bonds and securities, in behalf
of the United States.