the
inaccessibility of the Island to all but a few adventurous or wealthy
immigrants; allowing also full force to the new attraction of a land
whose people enjoyed the privilege of self-government; I think the
most sanguine in that day could not have expected such a result as we
see to-day in a less period than centuries to come. To us who know
what brought it to pass; to us who know that the real efficient cause
of the marvelous effect was the strongest passion and incentive to
adventure that ever actuated the mind of man, it all seems natural
and easy; but to the six hundred in 1856 it would have seemed a
dream. At the same time it must, I think, be admitted that such a
sudden inrush must have endangered, if not the independence, at least
the peace and order of the community on which it fell. For what, we
may ask, might have been the consequence if the cry of gold for the
picking up had been raised earlier, in the time, say, of the dual
government, when, as is well known, the people were discontented with
a government which, excellent as it confessedly was for the times,
had its own profit first of all to be considered, instead of
coming, as it did, to a people which, rejoicing in its newly-found
freedom, was not to be reckoned on for favoring any schemes of
wildness or riot? I do not suggest any danger of invasion or
overthrow of the government when hundreds of thousands of
gold-seekers from the neighboring country filled the streets of our
little city; England's far-reaching arm sufficed to cope with that;
but I do suggest danger to law and order afterwards. For this the
presence of warships in Esquimalt harbor could afford but slight
remedy. The remedy must be in the people themselves and in the
administration of law. A little leaven leavens a great lump, but in
this case the leaven of discontent being removed, the lump remained
uncontaminated. That this was how order was restored will appear from
what followed after the suppression of the disorder which broke out
among the miners at the beginning.

Mr. Augustus F. Pemberton, commissioner of police, was staying at my
house when, after he had gone to bed, a message came from the Chief
of Police that the town was in an uproar, and that the miners were
threatening to take the city. Mr. Pemberton immediately repaired to
the Governor's and reported. His Excellency's first impulse was to
fix on his sword; but he changed his mind and sent a messenger
express to order a