Another letter dated St. Francisco, September 1st, contains the following:—
"A day or two ago the Flora, Captain Potter, of New London, anchored in Whaleman's Harbour, on the opposite side of the Bay. Yesterday the captain, fearing he would lose all his men, weighed anchor, intending to go to sea. After getting under weigh, the crew, finding the ship was heading out, refused to do duty, and the captain was forced to return and anchor here. Last night nine of the crew gagged the watch, lowered one of the boats, and rowed off. They have not been heard of since, and are now probably half way to the gold region. The Flora is twenty-six months out, with only 750 bbls. of oil. Every vessel that comes in here now is sure to lose her crew, and this state of things must continue until the squadron arrives, when, if the men-o'-war-men do not run off too, merchant-men may retain their crews.
"The whale-ship Euphrates, of New Bedford, left here a few weeks since, for the United States, to touch on the coast of Chili to recruit. The Minerva, Captain Perry, of New Bedford, has abandoned the whaling business, and is now on his way hence to Valparaiso for a cargo of merchandise. Although two large ships, four barks, and eight or ten brigs and schooners have arrived here since my return from the mineral country, about four weeks since, with large cargoes of merchandise, their entire invoices have been sold. Vessels are daily arriving from the islands and ports upon the coast, laden with goods and passengers, the latter destined for the gold-washings.
"Much sickness prevails among the gold-diggers; many have left the ground sick, and many more have discontinued their labours for the present, and gone into more healthy portions of the country, intending to return after the sickly season has passed. From the best information I can obtain, there are from two to three thousand persons at work at the gold-washings with the same success as heretofore."
THE DIGGINGS.—Extract of a letter from Monterey, Aug. 29.
"At present the people are running over the country and picking it out of the earth here and there, just as a thousand hogs, let loose in a forest, would root up ground-nuts. Some get eight or ten ounces a-day, and the least active one or two. They make the most who employ the wild Indians to hunt it for them. There is one man who has sixty Indians in his employ; his profits are a dollar a-minute. The wild Indians know nothing of its value, and wonder what the pale-faces want to do with it; they will give an ounce of it for the same weight of coined silver, or a thimbleful of glass beads, or a glass of grog. And white men themselves often give an ounce of it, which is worth at our mint 18 dollars, or more, for a bottle of brandy, a bottle of soda-powders, or a plug of tobacco.
"As to the quantity which the diggers get, take a few facts as evidence. I know seven men who worked seven weeks and two days, Sundays excepted, on Feather River; they employed on an average fifty Indians, and got out in these seven weeks and two days 275 pounds of pure gold. I know the men, and have seen the gold, and know what they state to be a fact—so stick a pin there. I know ten other men who worked ten days in company, employed no Indians, and averaged in these ten days 1500 dollars each; so stick another pin there. I know another man who got out of a basin in a rock, not larger than a wash-bowl, two pounds and a half of gold in fifteen minutes; so stick another pin there! Not one of these statements would I believe, did I not know the men personally, and know them to be plain matter-of-fact men—men who open a vein of gold just as coolly as you would a potato-hill."
ASSAY OF THE GOLD.—Lieutenant Loeser having arrived at Washington with specimens of the gold from the diggings, the following account of its quality appeared in the "Washington Union," the government organ:—