This has reduced the prices of provisions in the placers one and two hundred per cent. Some of the merchants who had large stocks of goods in the mines, and those who were engaged in transportation at the prices formerly paid, have suffered by the change, and it is natural that they should feel incensed against that class of foreigners who have contributed most to effect it.
But it is thought by others that the great majority of the laborers and consumers in the mining districts have been benefited by this change, and that it would be injurious to the prosperity of the country to restore things to their former state by the expulsion and prohibition of foreigners from the mines.
Americans, by their superior intelligence and shrewdness in business, generally contrive to turn to their own benefit the earnings of the Mexicans, Chilians, and Peruvians in this country, and any measure of exclusiveness which is calculated to diminish the productive labor of California would be of exceedingly doubtful policy.
When applied to by the different parties for my opinion on the question of expelling foreigners, I have uniformly told them that no persons, native Americans or foreigners, have any legal right to dig gold in the public lands; but that, until the government of the United States should act in the matter, they would not be molested in their pursuits; that I could not countenance any class of men in their attempts to monopolize the working of the mines, and that all questions touching the temporary right of individuals to work in particular localities, of which they were in actual possession, should be left to the decision of the local judicial authorities.
I cannot close my remarks on this subject without again calling the attention of government to the importance of establishing a mint in California at the earliest moment.
This measure is called for by every consideration of natural policy and of justice to the mercantile mining population of California.
General Kearny, during his administration of affairs in this country, appointed, by virtue of his authority as governor of California, two sub-Indian agents, who have ever since been continued in office, and their services found of great utility in preserving harmony among the wild tribes, and in regulating their intercourse with the whites.
They have been paid from the "civil fund" very moderate salaries, which will be continued until arrivals of agents regularly appointed by the general government. Notwithstanding every effort on the part of those agents and of the officers of the army here, it has not been possible at all times to prevent aggression on the part of the whites, or to restrain the Indians from avenging these injuries in their own way.
In the month of April last, the agent in the Sacramento valley reported that a body of Oregonians and mountaineers had committed most horrible barbarities on the defenceless Indians in that vicinity.
Those cruel and inhuman proceedings, added, perhaps, to the execution of a number of chiefs some year and a half since by a military force sent into the San Joaquin valley by my predecessor, (the facts of which were reported to Washington at the time,) have necessarily produced a hostile feeling on the part of the natives, and several small parties of whites, who, in their pursuit of gold, ventured too far into the Indian country, have been killed.