The gold hunters

by John David Borthwick

However that may be, there is no question that, as miners, the French were far excelled by the Americans and by the English—for they are inseparably mixed up together. There are thorough-going Americans who, only a year or two ago, were her Majesty’s most faithful subjects, and who still in their hearts cherish the recollection. The Frenchmen, perhaps, possessed industry and energy enough, if they had had a more practical genius to direct it; but in proportion to their numbers, they did not bear a sufficiently conspicuous part, either in mining operations, or in those branches of industry which have for their object the converting of the natural advantages of a country to the service of man. The direction of their energies was more towards the supplying of those wants which presuppose the existence of a sufficiently wealthy and luxurious class of consumers than towards seizing on such resources of the country as offered them the means of enriching themselves in a manner less immediately dependent on their neighbors.

Even as miners, they for the most part congregated round large camps, and were never engaged in the same daring undertakings as the Americans—such as lifting half a mile of a large river from its bed, or trenching for miles the sides of steep mountains, and building lofty viaducts supported on scaffolding which, from its height, looked like a spider’s web; while the only pursuits they engaged in, except mining, were the keeping of restaurants, estaminets, cafés chantants, billiard-rooms, and such places, ministering more to the pleasures than to the necessities of man; and not in any way adding to the wealth of the country by rendering its resources more available.

Comparing the men of different nations, the pursuit they were engaged in, and the ends they had accomplished, one could not help being impressed with the idea that if the mines had been peopled entirely by Frenchmen—if all the productive resources of the country had been in their hands—it would yet have been many years before they would have raised California to the rank and position of wealth and importance which she now holds.

And it is quite fair to draw a general conclusion regarding them, based upon such evidences of their capabilities as they afforded in California; for not only did they form a very considerable proportion of the population, but, as among people of other nations, there were also among them men of all classes.

In many respects they were a most valuable addition to the population of the country, especially in the cities, but as colonizers and subjugators of a new country, their inefficiency was very apparent. They appeared to want that daring and independent spirit of individual self-reliance which impels an American or Englishman to disregard all counsel and companionship, and to enter alone into the wildest enterprise, so long as he himself thinks it feasible; or, disengaging himself for the time being from all communication with his fellow-men, to plunge into the wilderness, and there to labor steadily, uncheered by any passing pleasure, and with nothing to sustain him in his determination but his own confidence in his ability ultimately to attain his object.

One scarcely ever met a Frenchman traveling alone in search of diggings; whereas the Americans and English whom one encountered were nearly always solitary individuals, “on their own hook,” going to some distant part where they had heard the diggings were good, but at the same time ready to stop anywhere, or to change their destination according to circumstances.

The Frenchmen were too gregarious; they were either found in large numbers, or not at all. They did not travel about much, and, when they did, were in parties of half-a-dozen. While Americans would travel hundreds of miles to reach a place which they believed to be rich, the great object of the Frenchmen, in their choice of a location, seemed to be, to be near where a number of their countrymen were already settled.

But though they were so fond of each other’s company, they did not seem to possess that cohesiveness and mutual confidence necessary for the successful prosecution of a joint undertaking. Many kinds of diggings could only be worked to advantage by companies of fifteen or twenty men, but Frenchmen were never seen attempting such a combination. Occasionally half-a-dozen or so worked together, but even then the chances were that they squabbled among themselves, and broke up before they had got their claim into working order, and so lost their labor from their inability to keep united in one plan of operation.

In this respect the Americans had a very great advantage, for, though strongly imbued with the spirit of individual independence, they are certainly of all people in the world the most prompt to organize and combine to carry out a common object. They are trained to it from their youth in their innumerable, and to a foreigner unintelligible, caucus-meetings, committees, conventions, and so forth, by means of which they bring about the election of every officer in the State, from the President down to the policeman; while the fact of every man belonging to a fire company, a militia company, or something of that sort, while it increases their idea of individual importance, and impresses upon them the force of combined action, accustoms them also to the duty of choosing their own leaders, and to the necessity of afterwards recognizing them as such by implicit obedience.

Certain it is that, though the companies of American miners were frequently composed of what seemed to be most incongruous materials—rough, uneducated men, and men of refinement and education—yet they worked together as harmoniously in carrying out difficult mining and engineering operations, under the directions of their “captain,” as if they had been a gang of day-laborers who had no right to interfere as to the way in which the work should be conducted.