prisoners, and the Law and Order troops as prisoners of war, so to say,
the Vigilance forces marched back to their fortified quarters. The
arrest of Judge Terry wrought the excitement to its climax. What would
the Committee do with him? was the question asked by every one. His
residence was temporarily in Sacramento, but Stockton was his home place.
Governor Johnson was devoted to him; David S. Douglass, Secretary of
State, was a bosom friend. Hundreds in the capital city were prepared to
go to any length to rescue him. His thousands of friends in San Joaquin,
everywhere in the San Joaquin Valley, were aroused to the extremity of
desperation. All over the State the feeling for Judge Terry was very
strong. Harm to him would have precipitated a domestic row, which would
have caused immense sacrifice of life, and the destruction of San
Francisco. It would have extended into the interior, and raged there in
bloodshed and devastation. The peaceful way out of the difficulty was
thought the better course, if it could be accomplished. The occasion was
extraordinary, and never contemplated--the exigency beyond immediate
solution. As James Dows, one of the coolest in judgment and wisest in
counsel of the Executive Committee, pertinently described the situation
in the pithy remark, "We started in to hunt cayotes, but we've got a
grizzly bear on our hands, and we don't know what to do with him." The
Executive Committee were not themselves masters of the situation. Behind
them, subject to them and ready to obey their commands on ordinary
occasions, were the 5,000 members of the Committee who carried arms, and
felt themselves superior to even the Executive Committee, if occasion
should happen to test the matter. Of their number nearly one-third were
of foreign nationality, and of these a considerable proportion did not
very well speak English--they were of revolutionary, if not
insurrectionary temper--and had participated in uprisings in their
native land against the government. Many of the native born members were
of similar disposition. It had been resolved by this element of the
Committee, that if Hopkins should die, Terry must hang; and the only
alternative of the Executive Committee would be to order the execution
or spirit him away, at the peril of their own lives. To hang a Justice
of the highest judicial tribunal of the State, was a very serious matter
to contemplate--a most hazardous extremity in any event. If spared from
th