is the only honest judge in the Supreme Court. I was
his friend when he was in need of friends, for which I am sorry. Had
the vigilance committee disposed of him as they did of others, they
would have done a righteous act."

{257}

He alluded to Terry's arrest by the Vigilantes in August, 1856, charged
with cutting a man named Sterling A. Hopkins, in the attempt to free
from arrest one Reuben Maloney. Had Hopkins died, Terry would probably
have been hung. As it was, it took the strongest influence--Masonic,
press and other--to save him from banishment.

Terry, after some acrimonious correspondence, challenged Broderick. A
meeting on the 12th of September was stopped by the Chief of Police of
San Francisco. The police magistrate before whom the duellists were
arraigned, discharged them on the ground that there had been no actual
misdemeanor.

Next day the principals and the seconds met again at the foot of Lake
Merced, about twelve miles from San Francisco. About eighty
spectators, friends of the participants, were present. The distance
was the usual ten paces. Both pistols had hair triggers, but
Broderick's was more delicately set than Terry's, so much so that a jar
might discharge it. Broderick's seconds were inexperienced men, and no
one realized the importance of this difference.

At the word both raised their weapons. Broderick's was discharged
before he had elevated it sufficiently, and his bullet struck the
ground about six feet in front of Terry. Terry was surer and shot his
antagonist through the lung. Terry, who acted throughout with
cold-blooded indifference, watched his antagonist fall and remarked
that the wound was not mortal, as he had struck two inches to the
right. He then left the field.

When Broderick fell, one of the bystanders, named Davis, shouted out:

"That is murder, by God!"

{258}

Drawing his own weapon, he started for Terry, exclaiming: "I am
Broderick's friend. I'm not going to see him killed in that way. If
you are men you will join me in avenging his death!"

Some cool heads in the multitude restrained him, pointing out that if
he attacked Terry there would be a general _melee_, from which few on
the ground would escape, and they finally succeeded in getting him away.

Broderick lingered for three days.

"They have killed me," he said, "because I was opposed to slavery and a
corrupt administration."

Colonel Edward D. Baker, who was killed at Ball's Bluff