INCENDIARISM. 
53 
them. It was resolved, in consideration of the insecurity of 
the jail, to transfer the prisoners to the man-of-war, “General 
Warren.” This was carried into immediate effect, the citizens 
forming a double file from the jail to the shore. 
This demonstration secured but five of the numerous horde 
that infested the city, and it was not to be expected that the 
arrests of these would prove a salutary check, nor did it. The 
desperados stood in greater fear of this self-constituted police 
than of the regular authorities. This organization was undoubt¬ 
edly the germ from which the “Vigilance Committee”, event¬ 
ually grew. It is well known that, upon the breaking out of 
the gold excitement, the cities of the world sent forth their 
vilest scum, consisting of gamblers, pickpockets, murderers, and 
thieves, and California was the receptacle. They immediately 
fraternized, and were at once the most adroit, wily and expe¬ 
rienced embodiment of villainy with which the prospects of a 
city were ever blighted. They were not men broken down in 
their profession at home, but the very aristocracy of crime. Too 
well-skilled to be detected, they had escaped the meshes of the 
law in their own country, and resorted to California for its supe¬ 
rior business prospects. As if to have the organization complete, 
the convict islands of Great Britain vomited forth a herd that 
seemed almost festering with crime. This sealed the doom of 
San Francisco. She was infested by an organization, the very 
incarnation of infamy. They would fire the city for plunder, 
and commit murder to screen themselves from detection. 
The city had grown to the stature of a giant; all were reaping 
the reward of their enterprise, when on the 5th December fol¬ 
lowing, the torch of the incendiary was applied, and within a 
few short hours San Francisco was in ashes. Citizens who had 
assumed their pillows in wealth awoke in penury. Many, 
after a year of toil and anxiety, were preparing to, return to their 
families in affluence, but in one brief moment their dreams of 
happiness were blighted, and their riches a heap of smouldering 
ruins. The city was immediately rebuilt, but citizens had 
barely entered their new habitations, when it was again devas¬ 
tated by fire. Again it rose, Phenix-like, from its own ashes, 
and again business was resumed, but for the third time it was 
in ruins. 
