profound silence. Several other meetings came to a like conclusion.
Such occurrences, and they were frequent, greatly strengthened the
hands, and encouraged the hearts of the Executive Committee. Their
labors were various and unremitting. They issued notice to quit to
numbers of persons whom it was neither for the interest nor credit of
the community longer to retain. By their Police they were daily and
nightly arresting disturbers of the public peace, thieves and desperate
criminals, whom they quietly deposited in their strong rooms to be dealt
with according to their deserts. To be prepared for any emergency their
Head Quarters were made an armed camp. Barriers six feet in height, made
of sand bags, with cannon planted in the embrasures, extended along the
whole front of the building. Sentinels paced the roof day and night.
Companies were drilling at all hours at Head Quarters or in their
Armories. These defenses were strengthened from time to time; and others
ingeniously contrived were placed in the interior; so that, at length,
in the opinion of an officer of large experience, a very large force of
regular troops would have been required to carry it by storm.

In the afternoon of Saturday, June 21st, the perfect quiet of the
early part of the day was broken up by a tempest of excitement of rare
occurrence anywhere. Between three and four o'clock, a Police Officer
of the Vigilance Committee named Hopkins, being ordered with a party of
men, to arrest a man named Maloney, having ascertained that he was then
in the office of Dr. Ashe, Navy Agent, on Washington Street, entered
the office alone, leaving the other officers in the street. A number of
persons were in the room beside Maloney, amongst them Judge Terry, one
of the three Judges of the Supreme Court of California. Hopkins was
unable to make the arrest; and retiring from the room, collected
his men, and kept watch in the street. The party in the room armed
themselves and scattered into the street to make their way to the Armory
of the San Francisco Blues. While passing up Jackson Street, Hopkins
attempted to arrest Maloney. Terry opposed him with a double-barreled
gun, which Hopkins attempted to or did, wrest from him, when Terry
immediately struck him on the neck with a bowie knife, inflicting a
terrible wound. Terry and his whole party then ran and placed themselves
for safety in the Blues Armory. Hopkins was immediately taken into the
Pennsylvania Engine House.