above two months at Lord John Russell's request; but at last, on the 25th of March, 1851, he took leave of the Court, replying with dignity and feeling to a well-merited expression of respect and regret offered him by Mr. Turner on behalf of the Bar. He did not survive a month-he had removed on the 10th of April to Tunbridge Wells, but was next day seized by paralysis. His brother, the surgeon of Liverpool, hastened to his assistance, but nothing could be done. He lay for a week in a state of consciousness, patient and resigned to a fate which he seemed to know was inevitable. 'On the morning of Friday, the 18th of April, the early rays of the sun streamed into the chamber of death. At eight o'clock Lord Langdale was no more. The following Thursday his remains were laid, according to his right as a Bencher, in the vault of the Temple Church.'-ii. 357. Mr. Hardy concludes all by saying— 'Here let no useless eulogium be passed on the dead. If in the tale of his life, simply told, his greatness of mind and his high character have not amply appeared, no set form of description or praise could avail.'-ii. 357. We heartily wish that Mr. Hardy had had the good taste, or indeed the common sense, to perform his task on the principle thus enounced. If he had contented himself with claiming for Lord Langdale his own merits, without attempting to heighten them by the depreciation of others-if he had praised the industry of his youth-admired the virtues and success of his middle age-and expatiated on the eminence of his later daysin a less exclusive, controversial, and arrogant style, he would have found no dissent certainly none from us. We were favourably impressed by all we had heard or seen of Lord Langdale's private and professional life, and we respected his political sincerity; and whatever there is in our foregoing remarks on him that may sound like disapprobation, will be found to have arisen entirely from Mr. Hardy's provocation. He has driven us to the alternative either of ratifying his misstatements by our contemporaneous acquiescence, or of repelling them with a severity that we wish might have fallen on Mr. Hardy alone. No one can doubt Mr. Hardy's personal respectability—no man can doubt his affectionate regard for his lamented master;' but the family of a distinguished person ought to reflect very maturely before they select an editor for his papers and a biographer for his career. ART. ART. VII.-1. Correspondence relative to the recent Discovery of Gold in Australia. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. 2. Twelfth General Report of the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners. 3. Address at the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, 1852. By Sir R. I. Murchison. 4. Lectures on Gold, delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology. 1852. 5. A Ride over the Rocky Mountains to Oregon and California. By the Hon. Henry J. Coke. 1852. 6. Four Months among the Gold Finders in Alta California. By J. T. Brooks, M.D. 1849. 7. Across the Rocky Mountains from New York to California. By William Kelly, Esq. 1852. 8. A Tramp to the Diggings in 1852. By John Shaw, M.D. 9. Australia, with latest Intelligence from the Diggings. By John Fairfax, Esq. 1852. 10. Tables showing the legally appointed Weight of British Gold and Silver Coin. By James H. Watherston, Goldsmith. 1847. 11. Letter to Thomas Baring, Esq., M.P., on the Gold Discoveries. By F. Scheer. 1852. 12. Remarks on Mr. Scheer's Letter. By Andrew Johnson, Bullion Office, Bank of England. 1852. 13. A few Words on the Gold Question. By E. H. Browne, Stock Exchange. 1852. A MONG the accidents which have influenced the fortune of the world will hereafter be ranked the erection of a sawmill on a branch of the Sacramento. An officer in the Swiss guards of Charles X.-' a good old Dutchman' according to Mr. Coke-who received an ugly wound while fighting against the barricaders of July, found France no place for him when the conspiracy of Messrs. Lafitte and Co. triumphed. He crossed the Atlantic and proffered his services to the Mexican government. He served well, we must suppose, for very speedily he was rewarded with a grant of land in Alta California, comprising some 700 or 800 square miles-the extent of a fair-sized English county! Three hundred years had elapsed since Cortes discovered the Californian peninsula. Some years later a Spanish navigator visited the coast further north, and took formal possession of it, but, strangely enough, the adventurers, in their eager search for gold, overlooked the richest prize of the New Continent. The valley of the Sacramento yields yearly a greater treasure than in the the first fifty years after the discovery of America could be wrested from the ancient kingdoms of Mexico and Peru. Some Jesuit missions were early established in Lower California, but, so far as any real use of the country was concerned, it might as well have remained unknown. The missionaries did their best to secure themselves from intrusion by representing the soil as barren, the climate pestilent, the people cruel and treacherous. Nothing but zeal for the glory of God could render life bearable in such a region. They established themselves in Alta California at about the same time that they were expelled from the chief kingdoms of Europe, and had they manifested any true capacity for government, they might have retrieved in the New World their losses in the Old. But their policy has very little corresponded with the idea entertained of their profound and subtle wisdom. Their aim has been always isolation-as if isolation could have any other consequence than to dwarf or deform the standard of man. The illustrious nobility of Spain, who pride themselves on their constant intermarriages, exhibit Grildrigs and mannikins as the descendants of the chivalry which rolled back the wave of Mahommedan conquest. Intellectual exclusiveness leads to yet more miserable results. All trace has long been lost in the Jesuit missions of the higher qualities ascribed to their founders. Enthusiasm was represented by bigotry-piety by juggling and benevolence by tyranny. The rule of Francia in Paraguay and of Rosas in Buenos Ayres sufficiently illustrates the tendency of Jesuit teaching. The travellers who at rare intervals visited the coast of California could do little to dispel the gloomy fictions of the missionaries, and when they spoke vaguely of rocks abounding in ores, or of the black soil appearing, when turned up freshly to the sun, intermingled with scales of gold, these things were set down among the strange sights which travellers are privileged to see. When the Jesuits fell in Spain, a commissioner was sent out to report on the real condition of this peninsula, but though his report was highly favourable, and distinctly mentioned gold mines, and though he himself at a subsequent date became minister of the Indies, no steps would seem to have been taken to test this reported richness of the soil. A glance at any of our best maps of a dozen years old will show how little was then known of that wide region which stretches from Cape San Lucas to the Oregon boundary, and from the Rio del Norte and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Basil Hall notices that before the arrival of the Conway at San Blas, no English manof-war had ever anchored in that port. The Santa Fé traders were among the first to perceive the commercial commercial importance of Alta California. Of all the heroes of commerce, we are inclined to rank as the most marvellous those merchant bands who set forth on a journey of two thousand miles through an unexplored country where not a vestige of civilized life existed-with broad and rapid rivers to ford-precipitous rocks to scale and descend-paths to force through mountain passes, and roads to form over swamp and morassdependent wholly on chance for supplies of water and foddercertain of the hostility of tribes of Indians whose hunting grounds they invaded-and, should they ever reach their point, likely to meet with a rough reception there. Many pens have been busied with the burning prairie-the stampede the awful storms which sweep over those oceanic solitudes the night attack of savages-the tortures of extreme thirst-the liability to destruction from the theft or death of cattle-the hopeless disappearance of individuals who ventured too far from the waggons -yet it is felt that descriptions can give but a faint idea of the realities. The way once opened was never suffered to be closed; and by and by companies of adventurers were formed for other purposes than trade. The easy acquisition of Texas was remembered, and the piratical expedition recorded by Kendall-though ending in defeat and cruel suffering-only stimulated further the more restless part of the States' population to seize a country which it was evident there would be no force to defend against a determined assault. And ere long their own feeble government found it necessary or expedient to yield to the fast-spreading movement of the popular mind. Faithful to the Mexican government, our veteran turned out with his people when the territory was invaded—although it seems most probable that he saw from the first the hopelessness of the contest. Of the few settlers in California hardly any knew their government save by its extortions. It vexatiously interfered with their concerns, but it did not protect them. Their interests were on the side of the invaders, and they very cheerfully concurred in the arrangement which enrolled their territory under the flag of stars and stripes. Captain Sutter returned uninjured to his estate, and had soon cause, in the increased prosperity of his clearing, to be well satisfied with the change. He was the first white man who had established himself in that district where the Americanos joins the Sacramento. Without the slightest idea of the treasures beneath his feet, he had by degrees brought two or three hundred acres into cultivation. The Indians troubled him at first, but he had taken the precaution to bring some guns with him, and on an attack he threw threw a shell into the midst of their force, which effectually dispersed them, and inspired a salutary dread of his power. Subsequently they became useful, though never very safe, neighbours, and assisted the Captain in building his fort and tilling his fields. He had been settled ten years before he contracted with a Mr. Marshall for the erection of a saw-mill on the Americanos, a few miles from his fort. The tail-race' being too narrow for the water to run off freely, the mill-wheel was taken out that the whole body of water in the dam might rush through, and widen the race to save the trouble of digging it out. A great body of loose earth was carried away by the torrent, and the next morning, while Mr. Marshall was surveying the work, he observed some shining yellow spangles on spots where the water had laid bare the bank. At first he would not take the trouble to stoop for them, but his eye being caught by a particle of superior magnitude, he picked it up, and found that it had all the appearance of pure gold. He then collected some twenty or thirty similar pieces, and imagining these might be the fragments of some treasure buried by the Indians, he examined the neighbouring soil, and found it to be more or less auriferous. In joyful excitement he hurried off to Captain Sutter. They commenced a search together, and soon satisfied themselves that the soil was teeming with gold-they picked up an ounce of the ore from the sand without trouble. The next morning they continued their exploration, and found gold in abundance up the South Fork. With his knife the Captain picked out a lump of an ounce and a half from the rock. They had prosecuted their search quite secretly, as they thought, but a Kentuckian, employed at the mill, had 'guessed' and 'calculated' on their unusual movements; he followed in their steps and imitated their actions. When the gentlemen returned to the mill they were met by their workmen, who showed a handful of the glittering dust. Whether the captain and his companion were learned in the mysteries of mica and pyrites we are not informed, but they did their best to convince the men that what they took for gold was some worthless mineral. While the colloquy was proceeding, an Indian, who had elsewhere seen enough of gold mines, decisively exclaimed, 'Oro, oro!' Concealment was no longer possible. The captain, that he might be first in the field, hired a gang of fifty Indians, and set them at work. The news spread; fresh hands poured in, and the results of their operations were soon beyond the dreams of the 'good old Dutchman.' The first announcement of the discovery was received with incredulity beyond the immediate neighbourhood. But pre sently, |