The task in 1851 had been mainly to rid the city of Australian convicts; in 1856 it was to correct the political abuses introduced by professional politicians from the East, especially from New York; and in each case the task was successfully accomplished, without unnecessary bloodshed, and even with mercy.
Nor was Casey’s end without pathos, and even dignity. On the scaffold he was thinking not of himself, but of the old mother whom he had left in New York. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I stand before you as a man about to come into the presence of God, and I declare before Him that I am no murderer! I have an aged mother whom I wish not to hear that I am guilty of murder. I am not. My early education taught me to repay an injury, and I have done nothing more. The ‘Alta California,’ ‘Chronicle,’ ‘Globe,’ and other papers in the city connect my name with murder and assassination. I am no murderer. Let no newspaper in its weekly or monthly editions dare publish to the world that I am one. Let it not get to the ears of my mother that I am. O God, I appeal for mercy for my past sins, which are many. O Lord Jesus, unto thee I resign my spirit. O mother, mother, mother!”
The sinking of the steamer, “Central America,” off the coast of Georgia, in 1857, is an event now almost forgotten, and yet it deserves to be remembered forever. The steamer was on her way from Aspinwall to New York, with passengers and gold from San Francisco, when she sprang a leak and began to sink. The women and children, fifty-three in all, were taken off to a small brig which happened to come in sight, leaving on board, without boats or rafts, five hundred men, all of whom went down, and of whom all but eighty were drowned. Though many were armed, and nearly all were rough in appearance, they were content that the women and children should be saved first; and if here and there a grumble was heard, it received little encouragement. Never did so many men face death near at hand more quietly or decorously.[45]
And yet the critic tells us about the “perverse romanticism” of Mr. Bret Harte’s California tales!
One incident more, and this brief record of California heroism, which might be extended indefinitely, shall close. Charles Fairfax, the tenth Baron of that name,[46] whose family have lived for many years in Virginia, was attacked without warning by a cowardly assassin, named Lee. This man stabbed Fairfax twice, and he was raising his arm for a third thrust when his victim covered him with a pistol. Lee, seeing the pistol, dropped his knife, stepped back, and threw up his hands, exclaiming, “I am unarmed!”
“Shoot the damned scoundrel!” cried a friend of Fairfax who stood by.
Fairfax, holding the pistol, with the blood streaming from his wounds, said: “You are an assassin! You have murdered me! Your life is in my hands!” And then, after a moment, gazing on him, he added, “But for the sake of your poor sick wife and of your children, I will spare you.” He then uncocked the pistol, and fell fainting in the arms of his friend.
All California rang with the nobility of the deed.