of the precious metals forming the medium of international circulation, and yet duly restrained and over-issue prevented – were successively overlooked by the greatest and most enlightened nations of the world. Issued in unbounded profusion in France during the fervour of the Revolution and the terrors of European invasion, with no real basis of available property on which to rest, the assignats produced, simultaneously with the prodigious armaments which saved the country, an unheard-of confusion among the transactions and obligations of men, and destroyed in a few years the whole capital of that great country, the accumulated savings of centuries of industry. Contracted with equal rapidity from the influence of the opposite set of interests in Great Britain after the peace, the paper circulation of the British Empire was rendered the instrument of destruction of property as great, and misery as widespread and universal, among its inhabitants, as the assignats or confiscations of the Convention. Adopted with heedless eagerness, and without any adequate safeguards, at one time in America, and checked at another with precipitate and imprudent severity, four-fifths of the wealth of the United States were in a few years swept away by the fearful oscillation of prices consequent on these violent changes. And although wisdom and prudence could easily have devised a system of paper currency which, entirely based upon available property of some kind, and therefore perfectly secure, was yet capable of expansion in proportion to the increase of the numbers and transactions of men, and the temporary abstraction of the precious metals from a particular country by the mutations of commerce or the necessities of war, yet it was evident that no such wise and patriotic system was to be anticipated, till a vast amount of general suffering had enlightened the majority of men on the subject. Least of all could it be hoped for in Great Britain, where the increase and weight of the moneyed interests, and the consequent determination to enhance the value of money, without any regard to its effects on the remuneration of industry, had become such, that no other interest in the State, nor even all other interests allied, were able to make head against it.
The future destinies of mankind, and of this country in particular, seemed, therefore, to be involved in clouds and darkness; nor did any means appear to be within the bounds of possibility by which the difficulties which beset or awaited industry could be obviated. The greater the efforts made by industry, it was plain the greater would be the distress in which it would be involved; because an increase in the transactions of men required an augmentation in the circulating medium by which they were to be conducted; and an addition to the produce of labour, while the currency was fixed or declining, only rendered its remuneration less. The whole object of statesmen and legislators, both in Great Britain and America, had come to be to cheapen everything, and raise the value of money by contracting its amount – augmenting instead of relieving the general distress arising from the inadequacy of the existing circulating medium for the enlarged wants and numbers of men. The evil seemed to be beyond the reach of human remedy; for in the only country in which a remedy could be effectually applied, the moneyed interests had become so powerful, that Government was set chiefly on measures which, for the sake of private profit, most grievously aggravated it. But Providence is wiser than man: Nature is seldom awanting in the end to those who are suffering from the faults of others. A few bands of American squatters wandered into Texas – a war of aggression on the part of the United States succeeded to make good the settlement – a serious contest took place with Mexico – the Anglo-Saxon race asserted their wonted superiority over the Castilian – California was wrested from them – and by the ultimate effects of that conquest some of the greatest evils inflicted by human selfishness or folly were alleviated, and the destinies of the world were changed!
It is a striking proof how much the fortunes of men are in their own hands, and how vain are the choicest gifts of nature if not seconded by the vigour and industry of those for whom they are intended, that the rich auriferous veins, the discovery of which has been attended with such important effects, and is destined to avert so many evils arising from the absurd legislation or selfish desires of men in recent times, had been for three hundred years in the possession of the Spaniards, but they had never found them out! The gold was there, under their feet, in such quantities that its excavation, as will immediately appear, is adequate to double the annual supply of the precious metals for the use of man over the whole world; but they never took the trouble to turn it up! It was so near the surface, and so accessible, being mixed with the alluvial sand and gravel of the country, that it was first discovered in the cutting a common mill-course through a garden, and has since been obtained almost entirely by common labourers digging holes not deeper than ordinary graves through the level surface of the alluvial deposit of the mountains. They had never attempted agricultural operations, nor thought of an improvement which would have led to its detection. The Spaniards, as all the world knows, and as their history in every age has demonstrated, were passionately desirous of gold; and from the days of Columbus they had been familiar with a tradition or report among the native Indians, that there existed beyond the mountains in the far west a country in which gold was as plentiful as the sand on the seashore, and was to be had simply for the trouble of taking it. It was all true it was there, mixed in large quantities with the alluvial deposit of the mountains; yet during three hundred years that they held the country, they never found it out! A single ditch in any part of the flat region, which is above three hundred miles long and forty or fifty broad, would have revealed the treasure, but they never took the trouble to cut it. Before the Anglo-Saxons had been there three months, they had discovered the riches lying below their feet. Such is the difference of races! It is easy to see to which is destined the sceptre of the globe.
It is impossible as yet to say with positive certainty what is the amount of gold which may be obtained for a long period from this auriferous region; but it is already evident that it will be very great – much greater than was at first anticipated. The following extract, from the great and able Free-Trade organ, the Times, of Nov. 19, 1850, will show what amount has been realised and exported from San Francisco last year, and what may be anticipated in the next: —
"Some estimates have lately been formed of the shipments of gold received in Europe from California to the present time, which, we believe, may be regarded as tolerably accurate, and according to which the amount is about £3,300,000. On the other side, up to the end of September, the receipts at the two mints of the United States had been about 31,000,000 dols., or £6,200,000. Since that time we have had advices of farther arrivals at New York and New Orleans amounting to £500,000. An aggregate is consequently formed of exactly £10,000,000. To this must be added, in order to estimate the total production, not only the amounts which have found their way to China, Manilla, Australia, Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, the States of Spanish America, &c., but also the total which has been retained in California for the purposes of currency. The population in that country now ranges somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000, and although a considerable amount of silver dollars have been imported, the bulk of the circulation is believed still to be in the form of gold-dust or of gold tokens. If the 250,000 persons possess, on an average, £10 a-piece, we have a sum of £2,500,000; and, looking at the expense of a week's maintenance in the country, as well as the large quantities constantly in transit, as well as the reserves, which, as was shown by the last advices, the various deposit-houses are compelled to retain to meet sudden runs, it is probable that this is under the real total. Taking all points into consideration, it may, therefore, be assumed that the whole which has been raised is equal to at least £13,000,000 sterling. Of this production, according to recent official returns from the United States, nearly four-fifths have taken place during the present year. Of 25,966,817 dols. received in the United States Mint at Philadelphia, up to the end of September last, only 44,177 dols. had arrived in 1848, and 5,481,430 dols. in 1849, while the quantity in 1850 had been 20,441,210 dols. The same proportions would probably prevail with regard to the sums distributed to other places; and we are, therefore, led to the supposition that the export this year has already actually reached upwards of £10,000,000, although the results of two additional months have yet to be known. It will be observed, consequently, that the unexpected feature which has hitherto attended the progress of this new region – namely, that almost all the accounts from it, although deemed exaggerations at first, have proved ultimately to have been understatements – is still presented. At the commencement of 1850 the most sanguine expectations that were formed in any direction fixed its probable yield at £10,000,000; and not only has this been exceeded, but each quarter of the year has thus far shown an increase of nearly half upon the amount gathered in the preceding