That there is gold in California, no one doubts. Governor Mason’s standard of quantity is rather alarming—there is gold enough, says he, in the country, drained by the Sacramento and Joaquin rivers, and more than enough, “to pay the cost of the present war with Mexico, a hundred times over.” This is encouraging, and may lead us to look upon the prospect of another, with more complacency; though the whole of this treasure will not buy back a single slaughtered victim—not one husband to the widow—nor one parent to an orphan child—nor one stay and staff, the joy and the pride of her life, to the lone mother. N’importe—we have gold and glory! “The people,” says Mr. Mason, “before engaged in cultivating their small patches of ground, and guarding their herds of cattle and horses, have all gone to the mines. Laborers of every trade have left their work benches, and tradesmen their shops. Sailors desert their ships, as fast as they arrive on the coast.”
There is a marvellous fascination in all this, no doubt; and as fast and as far as the knowledge radiates, thousands upon thousands will be rushing to the spot. The shilling here, however, which procures a given amount of meat, fire and clothes, is equal to the sum, whatever it may be, which, there procures the same amount and quality. Loafers and the lovers of ease and indolence, who are tobacco chewers, to a man, are desirous of flying to this El Dorado. Let them have a care: an ounce of gold dust, valued at $12 there, though worth $18 here, is said to have been paid, for a plug of tobacco. A traveller in Caffraria, having paid five cowries, (shells, the money of the country) for some article, complained, that forty were demanded, for a like article, in a village, not far off; and inquired if the article was scarce; “no,” was the reply, “but cowries are very plenty.”
Our adventurers intend to remain, perhaps, only till they obtain a competency. Even that is not the work of a day; and will be longer, or shorter, in the ratio of the consumption of means, for daily support, during the operation. There will, doubtless, be some difference also, as to the meaning of the word competency. An intelligent merchant, of this city, once defined it to mean a little more, in every individual’s opinion, than he hath. Like the lock of hay, which Miss Edgeworth says is attached to the extremity of the pole, and which is ever just so far in advance of the hungry horses, in an Irish jaunting car, so competency seems to be forever leading us onward, yet is never fairly within our grasp.
John Graunt, of whom a good account may be found in Bayle, says, that, if the art of making gold were known, and put extensively in practice, it would raise the value of silver. Of course it would, and of everything else, so far as the quantity of gold, given in exchange for any article, is the representative of value. As gold becomes plenty, it will be employed for other uses, sauce-pans perhaps, as well as for the increase of the circulating medium. The amount of gold, which has passed through the British mint, from the accession of Elizabeth, 1558, to 1840, is, according to Professor Farraday, 3,353,561 pounds weight troy; and nearly one half of this was coined during the reign of George III.
Gold is a good thing, in charitable fingers; but it too frequently constructs for itself a chancel in our hearts. It then becomes the golden calf, and man an idolater. How dearly we get to love the chink and the glitter of our gold! How much like death it does seem, to go off ’change, before the last watch!
Three score years and ten, devoted to the turning of pennies! How many of us, after we have had our three warnings, still hobble up and down, day after day, infinitely more anxious about pennies, than we were, fifty years ago, about pounds! An angel, the spirit, for example, of Michael de Montaigne, perched upon the City Hall—the eastern end of the ridge pole—must be tempted to laugh heartily. Without any angelic pretensions, I have done so myself, when, upon certain emergencies, the kegs, boxes, and bags of gold and silver, hand-carted and hand borne, have gone from bank to bank, backward and forward, often, in a morning, like the slipper, in the jeu de pantoufle! What an interest is upon the faces of the crowd, who gaze upon the very kegs and boxes; feasting upon the bald idea—the unprofitable consciousness—that gold and silver are within; and reminding one of old George Herbert’s lines,—
“Wise men with pity do behold
Fools worship mules, that carry gold.”
“Verily,” saith an ancient writer, “traffickers and the getters of gain, upon the mart, are like unto pismires, each struggling to bear off the largest mouthful.”
I am glad to see that the moderns are collecting the remains of good old George Herbert, and giving them an elegant surtout. His address to money is a jewel, and none the worse for its antique setting:
“Money! Thou bane of bliss, and source of wo!
Whence com’st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine?
I know thy parentage is base and low;
Man found thee, poor and dirty, in a mine.
“Surely thou didst so little contribute
To this great kingdom, which thou now hast got,
That he was fain, when thou wert destitute,
To dig thee out of thy dark cave and grot.
“Then, forcing thee by fire, he made thee bright;
Nay, thou hast got the face of man, for we
Have, with our stamp and seal, transferred our right;
Thou art the man, and we but dross to thee!
“Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich,
And, while he digs out thee, falls in the ditch.”