sent from the John Adams to a stipulated landing place on Market street wharf, at midnight; that the Executive Committee should have Judge Terry escorted to the landing place at that hour; that the Adams should immediately sail for Mare Island; and that there he (Commodore Farragut) would exact a promise from Judge Terry, before he left the vessel, that he would go into the interior of the State, not visit San Francisco inside of six months, and meantime neither excite nor encourage any popular feeling against the Vigilance organization. To this James Dows responded on behalf of the Executive Committee: that the Committee had already submitted to them a proposition from Judge Terry himself, to the effect that he would resign his place upon the Supreme Bench, consent to have the Committee put him on board the next steamer for Panama, and not return to California within the succeeding six months. He added that, although this proposition had been before the Executive Committees twenty hours, no definite action had yet been agreed upon; the recovery or death of Hopkins was the paramount factor in the case, because of the intense feeling against Terry among the larger proportion of the Committee troops. At this juncture, J. D. Farwell, also one of the Executive Committee, spoke. He was voluble and vehement. He said that the Vigilance organization acknowledged no authority to be superior to itself. "We have," he continued in loud tone and gasconading temper, "proved ourselves the superiors of the City and County, government, and of the State government; and if the Federal government dares"—He got no further. Commodore Farragut sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing fire, as electric sparks in brilliancy; his face betokening his fierce indignation; his whole frame seeming a prodigy of the grandeur of human passion highest wrought—the incarnation of the noblest majesty and sublimest patriotism. "Stop, sir!" he thundered—Farwell had stopped and sunk into his seat. And then the heroic Commodore went on to declare what the duty of a citizen was; that which he should do, if occasion required; and closed his less than five minutes burst of withering rebuke and eloquent counsel with an impressive appeal to the other members of the Committee present. The folly and rashness of Farwell had thwarted the wise intentions of the parties who invited the conference. It ended with Commodore Farragut's thrilling words. In a week or more Hopkins was considered past danger from his wound, and Judge Terry was thereupon set free. The Committee had now accomplished about all that had been contemplated at its organization. It had put to death four men. Of these at least two were not guilty of murder, as the law defines that crime. As to the other two, the course of justice in the Courts at that time gave no warrant for the presumption or belief that a fair and just trial would not have, been given them; that their conviction and the death penalty would not have followed. It is not too much to assert that, so far as escape from the penalty of murder is involved, there has been, any time these ten years, and there is now, in San Francisco, stronger cause for a Vigilance Committee than there was in 1856. The administration of the law was better then in general criminal procedure than it is now. There were fewer heinous crimes then, in the ratio of population, then the record of any year for the past ten years will show. In the category of crimes, such as forgery, perjury, embezzlement, frauds by which large sums of money or valuable property is obtained, were then infrequent; now of daily occurrence. But in crimes of violence the record is enormously against this period in comparison with that; the infliction of penalties by the Courts was then more certain than it is now. And as to ballot-box stuffing and frauds in elections, surely the worst ever charged against the manipulators of that period, pales and sinks into insignificance when compared with the colossal fraud committed in San Francisco, in 1876, by which not only the will of the people of the State was overborne, but also the will of the people of the United States. Yet the perpetrators of the unparalleled fraud have never been called to account or punished; to the contrary they are recognized as gentlemen of respectability, even by those who, in 1856, forcibly and lawlessly, as Vigilance Committee members, banishement for stuffing ballot-boxes to secure merely a local advantage by the success of a ward ticket. Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel never had more conspicuous illustration. And the burning fact remains incredible that among the members of the Executive Committee were some who had themselves obtained office by bribery and corruption, by calling into play the stuffing of ballot-boxes, and by all the wicked and infamous means which were at that time practiced. Another member was, as I have stated before, a felon who had served his time in the Ohio State Prison; another, still living and a highly respectable church member who professes holy horror of fraud, had in early years colluded with his brother to get possession of valuable wharf property, of which the brother was agent and care-taker by appointment of the owner, who had returned to his home in the East, to be gone a year. The scheme of these brothers was a fraud of villainous conception, but it was clumsy and therefore failed. On his return the Courts restored the property to the rightful owner. I might go on and point out other members of the Executive Committee who had committed deeds which, had they been duly brought to answer in the Courts, would have put upon them the felon's brand and the convict's stripes, in some instances; in others, pilloried them as rogues and swindlers, unworthy of trust, unfit for respectable association.