and a half years he had paid all his debts including the exorbitant interest, and was in the full tide of a lucrative practice. One other incident depicts the times, as well as his own character. He was trying a case in a saloon before a jury involving title to a valuable mine, and charged at tempted bribery which had come to his knowledge. He says : " At this thrust there was great excitement and click, click, was heard all through the room which showed a general cocking of pistols, for every one went armed. I continued: 'There is no terror in your pistols, gentlemen; you will not win your case by shooting me; you can win it in only one way — by evidence show ing title to the property; you will never win it by bribery or threats of violence.'" He got a verdict, and within two weeks the owners of the claim had taken out over ninety thousand dollars in gold dust. As an advocate and adviser he had won wide confidence and success, and in 1857 was elected to the Supreme Court for six years, and in 1859 became chief justice. Soon after he married Miss Sue Virginia Swearingen of San Francisco, a charming and cultivated woman, who survives him at Washington, where she made his home a centre for all that is best and most attrac tive in its social life. When he left the bench of California in 1863, Judge Baldwin, one of his associates, said among other things, speaking of the time when Mr. Field came to California and of his influence: — "It is safe to say that, even in the ex perience of new countries, hastily settled by heterogeneous crowds of strangers from all countries, no such example of legal or ju dicial difficulties was ever before presented as has been illustrated in the history of California. There was no general or com mon source of jurisprudence. Law was to be administered almost without a standard. There was the civil law, as adulterated or modified by Mexican provincialisms, usages and habitudes, for a great part of the litiga
tion; and there was the common law for another part, but what that was, to be decided from the conflicting decisions of any number of courts in America and Eng land, and the various and diverse con siderations of policy arising from local and other facts. And then, contracts made else where, and some of them in semi-civilized countries, had to be interpreted here. Be sides all of which may be added that large and important interests peculiar to this State existed — mines, ditches, etc. — for which the courts were compelled to frame the law, and make a system out of what was little better than chaos. "When, in addition, it is considered that an unprecedented number of contracts, and an amount of business without parallel, had been made and done in hot haste, with the utmost carelessness; that legislation was ac complished in the same way, and presented the crudest and most incongruous materials for construction; that the whole scheme and organization of the government, and the relation of the departments to each other, had to be adjusted by judicial construction — it may be well conceived what a task even the ablest jurist would take upon himself when he assumed this office. It is no small compliment to say that Judge Field entered upon the duties of this great trust with his usual zeal and energy, that he leaves the office not only with greatly increased reputa tion, but that he has raised the character of the jurisprudence of the State. He has, more than any other man, given tone, con sistency, and system to our judicature, and laid broad and deep the foundation of our civil and criminal law. The land titles of the State — the most important and perma nent of the interests of a great Common wealth — have received from his hand their permanent protection, and this alone should entitle him to the lasting gratitude of the bar and the people." Judge Baldwin's tribute in no way over states Justice Field's service to the State and
