mmittee in strong terms. The
merchants had generally approved and joined the Committee. That morning
every copy of the Herald was gathered, a pile of the papers made in
Front street, and burned. It was the significant rebuke which the
merchants made; but they did not stop at that--they erased their names
from the carriers' lists. Thousands of other citizens did the same. That
morning the Herald was a sheet of forty columns, with the largest
advertising patronage and largest circulation of any daily newspaper in
San Francisco. The next morning it appeared, a small sheet, not much
larger than a sheet of foolscap, of twenty-four columns. The Herald was
the favorite organ of the Democracy, of the anti-Broderick and Southern
wing of the party, particularly. The especial organ of that wing, the
Times and Transcript, had ceased publication a few months before, and
its patronage went mostly to the Herald. Nugent was opposed to Gwin, the
powerful leader of the anti-Broderick party, more than he was to
Broderick; but this was overlooked by many of Gwin's supporters. The
friends, of General McDougall were his warmest friends and backers, They
now rallied to his support and to the sustenance of the Herald. General
Volney E. Howard, J. Thompson Campbell, Judge R. Augustus Thompson, W.
T. Sherman, the manager of Lucas, Turner & Co.'s banking house here--now
General Sherman--Austin E. Smith, Sam. E. Brooks, Gouverneur
Morris, Hamilton Bowie, Major Richard Roman; and the solid old merchant,
Captain Archibald Ritchie, With hundreds others, stood steadfast by
Nugent, for Law and Order, and against the Committee. J. Neely Johnson
was Governor of the State, and controlled the militia. He was petitioned
by the Law and Order Organization to take action and issue a
proclamation requiring the Vigilance Committee to disband. Governor
Johnson came from Sacramento to San Francisco by steamboat on Friday
night, and was met at the wharf by a deputation of the Law and Order
body. Subsequently, up town, a committee from the Vigilance Committee,
accompanied by Col. Baillie Peyton, met him, and with them he held a
long conference.

Chapter III.

The particular subjects at issue, on each side, were the status of the
Committee, the authority of the Governor to command its disbandment. The
Committee had expressed the desire or the intention to have Casey
committed to their custody, alleging that his escape from the jail was
not unlikely for cert