The fact that he had money and social influence did not protect him from the hardships common to all travellers who visited the gold mines of California at that early period. Many nights he slept in the open air, having his single blanket and the cold earth for a bed. Often he made his couch on a table or the floor in some rude and dirty cabin. Sometimes he was lost in the woods or among the mountains, and frequently suffered long for food and water. He was determined to see the land and its freight of human life in its most practical form, although by so doing he often risked the loss of comfort, of property, and occasionally of his life.
One of the most interesting chapters of history to be found in any work connected with life in the United States, is to be found in his simple but graphic account of the first election in California. The rough, disintegrated, and shifting communities of that new land had for a year and a half depended for law and order upon the innate respect for the rights of others to be found in the hearts of a majority of civilized men. Beyond this there were organized in some of the mining towns a vigilance committee, and in a few others a judge with almost supreme power was elected by a vote of the people. These officials administered justice by common consent, having no commission or authority from the National Government. The enormous crowds of immigrants which filled towns and cities in a single month made the necessity for some form of State or Territorial government apparent to the least thoughtful. So a few of the more enterprising individuals, advised and assisted by the military authorities, undertook to bring order out of chaos by calling upon the people to elect delegates to a Constitutional Convention. The readiness and systematic manner in which the people of that whole region responded to the call, was one of the most remarkable as well as one of the most instructive popular movements to be found in the annals of freedom. The meeting of that Constitutional Convention at Monterey; the rude accommodations, the ability of the body, the harmony of their deliberations, and the wisdom of their regulations and provisions, was the subject of many most enthusiastic epistles from the pen of Mr. Taylor. In his celebrated book, now so much prized by the people of California, and by students of American history, he gives many little details and incidents which are left out of other books and so often overlooked by authors and correspondents, but which are of inestimable importance in gaining an accurate knowledge of the inside social and political beginnings of that powerful State. He described the appearance of the building in which the Convention met, gives sketches of the prominent actors in the assembly, and, as if foreseeing how posterity would like to preserve the memory of that great day, he gives the complexion, color of the hair, stature, and dress of the noted men who held seats. It is as exciting as one of Scott’s novels to read of the emotion, the tears, among those legislators when the new State was born, and when the “thirty-first” gun was fired from the fort to announce the completion of the great event. Thus, from the consent of the governed in its most literal sense, the officers of the State of California derived their just powers. And without discord, rebellious or seditious conspiracies, a new government took its place among the empires of the world. The description of that event in his simple, straightforward way was one of Mr. Taylor’s best deeds.
Yet every incident and scene had its poetic side to him, and, while that phase of his nature did not lead him to exaggeration in prose, it often led him to break into independent poetic effusions. He appears to have long looked upon the Pacific coast as a field of poetry and song, for, before he had any idea of visiting the country, he wrote several poems, and located them there. “The Fight of Paso del Mar” was one of those early poems, and the scene was the cliff at the entrance to the harbor at Santa Barbara.
“Gusty and raw was the morning,
A fog hung over the seas,
And its gray skirts, rolling inland,
Were torn by the mountain trees;
No sound was heard but the dashing
Of waves on the sandy bar,
When Pablo of San Diego