Note 4 — GOLD: ITS NATURAL AND CIVIL HISTORY.[1][2]

We leave our readers to form their own opinion of the following passage from Mr Theodore Johnson’s “Sights in the Gold Region:”—Speaking of the Padres of the old mission of San Francisco Dolores, he says, “That these priests were cognisant of the abundance of the precious metal at that period is now well known; but they were members of the extraordinary society of the Jesuits, which, jealous of its all-pervading influence, and dreading the effect of a large Protestant emigration to the western as well as to the eastern shores of America, applied its powerful injunctions of secresy to the members of the order; and their faithful obedience, during so long a period, is another proof both of the strength and the danger of their organisation.”—(Second Edition, p. 104.)