States,
California might then have belonged ; or even Mexico herself might have awakened from her lethargy, and gathered from this new-bom El Dorado sufficient gold wherewith to satisfy her creditors. In such a case how different would have been the appearance, for better or worse, of the hills and valleys of the golden state.
Morever, without the gold of California to counter- balance that which England found in Australia, where would have been the commerce of the United States ? Where would have been our credit during the war for the union, when even with California gold, poured in- to New York at the rate of three or four millions a month, the federal promises to pay fell to one-third of their face ? The vital sustenance of that war was Cal- ifornia gold and Nevada silver, without which foreign occupation in the Pacific States was possible, and for- eign domination, with abolition of Monroe doctrines and the like, extremely probable.
In conclusion, it is hardly necessary for me to state that there is as yet no sufficient evidence of any knowl- edge by white men of the existence of gold in the Sierra foothills, prior to the discovery at the Coloma saw-mill on the 24th of January, 1848. Even were it not so ; if, for instance, as in the case of America and the Northmen, the existence of the continent had been once known, and the knowledge lost or forgotten, to Columbus, none the less, would belong the honor of dis- covery. So with Marshall. There may have been some who thought of gold, or talked of gold, or even handled gold before January 1848; but, none the less, to James Marshall belongs the honor of its discovery, if indeed, it can be called an honor. The difference in the merit of the two discoveries, not to mention their relative importance, as to which, of course, there can be no comparison, is that in the one case Columbus be- lieved in a new world and sought it, while Marshall stumbled on his discovery by the merest accident.
