6 



PERSONAL ACCOUNT. 



soldiers' rations from 20 cents to |1 50 per day. Our people had not been paid for some timg, 

 and we were without a dollar. This seemed more than poor human nature could bear, and 

 one hj one our force dropped off, until but four or five of the civil emi^loyes remained, and 

 among them three persons in subordinate positions, whose fidelity, I think, deserves to be 

 remembered — Francis Holley, Frank Stone, and my servant Eobert, a slave. 



I find no fault with any gentleman in civil life who left the commission at this time. 



Had I not been an officer of the army in command of troops, and in charge of an important 

 work co-operating with a foreign commission, I should have undoubtedly exercised the privilege 



h its obligations to pay the civil officers 

 with the necessary subsistence. On the 



of withdrawing. 



employes their salaries, and even to sunnly them 



other hand, the field of gold was spread before them, and almost within their reach. I cannot 

 say that any of the commission would have yielded to the temptation had those in authority 

 been supplied with the means to pay them, or had they been invited to remain. As it was, I 



am not prepared to f-ay that one left the commission 



gle member 



emba 



ever deserted the commission. I was at this time in 

 It was a critical period in the progress of the work. All 

 the preliminary steps had been taken ; the observations nearly completed at one end of the line, 

 and the party designed for the mouth of J;he Gila ready to start ; the commissioner absent ; with- 

 out a dollar in my pocket ; the commission dishonored at home, and without credit in the field. 

 In this dilemma I did not hesitate to take the responsibility of using the military power in my 

 hands to keep the work from being abandoned. 



I directed the quartermaster and commissary of the army attached to the escort to furnish 

 supplies and transportation, and I engaged to give each soldier, with the assent of his captain. 



mi 



This arrangement, which was cordially approved by the commissioner, and subsequently, on 

 a change of administration, by the government, worked well in more ways than one. 



me with the manual 



alarmin 



from the escort, which, in other branches of the army in Cal 



carry on the work, it prevented 



Throusrhout the whole 



tj 



comman 



imented m orders from the commanding general of California for the 



manner 



which the troops had been held together. 



The outrage inflicted on the commission by withholding funds, and attempting to place at its 

 head persons under influences avowedly hostile, so far from shaking my interest in the great 

 scientific work which I had commenced, only increased my determination to complete it. At 



I felt it my duty to resent the indignity, by tendering my resignation, to take 

 effect on the completion of the line I had commenced, which was the only one indeed in the 

 boundary, as then agreed upon, involving any very great degree of scientific skill. I accord- 



time 



State the following 



Camp Riley, September 15, 1849. 

 SiE : ********** 



It is questionable in my mind whether the Department of State has followed up its intention, 

 conveyed in the preliminary instructions of February 15. But if it has done so, and I am con- 

 sidered as occupying the position of chief astronomer and topograi)hical engineer (of the boundary 



