372 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
the legislature would do any thing. A few troops were col- 
lected in San Francisco, but the vigilance committee took them 
prisoners and deprived them of their arms. The governor 
applied to the federal government for assistance, but the au- 
thorities at Washington decided that they would not interfere, 
except at the joint request of the governor and legislature. 
The governor was thus left powerless, and the committee 
maintained their fort and their military organization, and really 
had control of the city for eight months. No judicial pro- 
cess was of any service to release a man whom they had im- 
prisoned. They hanged a few scoundrels, drove others from 
the country, frightened still more, destroyed the influence of 
bad men, rendered life and property. secure, gave good men an 
influence in the city government, purified the elections, gave a 
better tone to society, commenced a new era of decent man- 
agement of the municipal finances, and gave respectability to 
the city. It is perhaps not more than proper that Ishould add 
here, that I personally was neither a member of the vigilance 
committee nor an advocate of its policy of setting the laws at 
defiance. This vigilance committee transacted all its business 
secretly, and no record of its transactions has yet been pub- 
lished. It is universally understood that the whole control 
of the committee was vested in a secret executive commit- 
tee of thirty-three, who had been chosen at one of the first 
meetings after the reorganization began, when there were 
but few members present. After the time when they were 
chosen, their names were never submitted for approval to 
the great majority of the vigilance committee, who joined sub- 
sequently, nor were their names ever announced to the citi- 
zens by authority, nor did they ever appear in such a manner 
that either the general public or the members of the vigilance 
committee could know the names of this executive committee, 
which was thus vested with an irresponsible and absolute 
power. The meetings of the executive committee were secret, 
and the greater part of their proceedings was never reported 
even to their constituents. When any military or other action 
