Lot 216E email save

CALIFORNIA. SQUIER. ALS. San Francisco Vigilance

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San Francisco: 21 July 1856. 4 pp, folded sheet (250 x 200 mm). Blue paper, closely written. fantastic contemporary account of the vigilance committee of 1856. In part: ".I think [I] sent you a line some 2 months since just after our beloved James King was killed by that scoundrel Casey. Things of great import have happened here since that time. Soon after our foolish Governor took it into his head to issue a still more foolish proclamation calling upon all good men & true between the ages of 18 & 45 to enroll themselves & be in readiness at any time to shoot down the high minded honorable honest people. This silly piece of paper was to take affect about one half of all the counties in the state . A few miserable scoundrels flocked around the standard of the warlike Gov. who told them he would pay them to cut the throats of the better portion of the community at the sale of 10 dollars per month with an addition of 10 per cent. In this manner some 500 to one thousand broken down politicians criminal lawyers gamblers thieves convicts & many others who formed the action of the dread Committee of Vigilance to gather with a few deluded honorable men made up the sum total of rank & file of the Grand Army of our valiant Governor J. Neely Johnson . On the 21st the C[ommittee of] V[igilance] sent Mr. Hopkins as member of their police to arrest the notorious Mullony [i.e. Maloney]. H found M in the office of Dr. Ash[e] a prominent Law & Murder man who told H he could not arrest M in his office, upon which H retired to obtain more help. This he got and returned. In the meantime Dr Ash & party containing M, Judge Terry & an number of others had armed themselves with double barreled rifles, revolvers, knives & to resist . H was unarmed himself, he proceeded on towards M to make the arrest when Judge Terry (who was in the rear of M) placed himself in front of H with his rifle to stop his progress, upon this H caught hold of the rifle to push it on one side or to disarm him (it is hardly known which) at this stage of affairs the cowardly Judge (who by the is a large powerful man who will weight 200 & H about 150 lbs) as quick as thought drew from his bosom a large bowie knife & with a back hand stroke of awful power plunged to the hilt into the throat of his victim."

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