nominal sum on steamer-days, which were the 1st and 15th of
each month, and then would increase till the next steamer-day, so
that we could not make use of any reasonable part of this balance
for loans beyond the next steamer-day; or, in other words, we had
an expensive bank, with expensive clerks, and all the machinery for
taking care of other people's money for their benefit, without
corresponding profit. I also saw that loans were attended with
risk commensurate with the rate; nevertheless, I could not attempt
to reform the rules and customs established by others before me,
and had to drift along with the rest toward that Niagara that none
foresaw at the time.

Shortly after arriving out in 1853, we looked around for a site for
the new bank, and the only place then available on Montgomery
Street, the Wall Street of San Francisco, was a lot at the corner
of Jackson Street, facing Montgomery, with an alley on the north,
belonging to James Lick. The ground was sixty by sixty-two feet,
and I had to pay for it thirty-two thousand dollars. I then made a
contract with the builders, Keyser, & Brown, to erect a three-story
brick building, with finished basement, for about fifty thousand
dollars. This made eighty-two thousand instead of fifty thousand
dollars, but I thought Mr. Lucas could stand it and would approve,
which he did, though it resulted in loss to him. After the civil
war, he told me he had sold the building for forty thousand
dollars, about half its cost, but luckily gold was then at 250, so
that he could use the forty thousand dollars gold as the equivalent
of one hundred thousand dollars currency. The building was
erected; I gave it my personal supervision, and it was strongly and
thoroughly built, for I saw it two years ago, when several
earthquakes had made no impression on it; still, the choice of site
was unfortunate, for the city drifted in the opposite direction,
viz., toward Market Street. I then thought that all the heavy
business would remain toward the foot of Broadway and Jackson
Street, because there were the deepest water and best wharves, but
in this I made a mistake. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1854, the
new bank was finished, and we removed to it, paying rents
thereafter to our Mr. Lucas instead of to Adams & Co. A man named
Wright, during the same season, built a still finer building just
across the street from us; Pioche, Bayerque & Co. were already
established on another corner