Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/178



170 REVEREND EZRA FISHER

profitable work in promoting the interests of Zion under the Captain of our salvation. I wish you to remember that the formation of our civil and religious character is at hand and vice in all its forms must reign, unless Zion's sons are awake. Just think of the advantageous position of San Francisco in relation to the whole Pacific trade. Where is there another such point to be occupied in all North America? Now hold the map before you. Think of the mountains of gold behind her, the influx of population from Upper and Lower Cali- fornia bordering the coast, the Pacific islands, and even China, swarming hither for gold, and then let me ask our dear brethren, Are we prepared to leave this point unoccu- pied for the want of a few hundred dollars? This picture is no fiction. Already the principal men of the Sandwich Is- lands are said to be in the mines digging gold, and I am in- formed that there are some from China, too. And how long will it be before almost every nation in Europe will be repre- sented there? All who go to the mines and return say the gold is inexhaustible and yields from one ounce of pure gold to six or eight pounds per day to a single laborer. What a point then is San Francisco for the men of God to take with Bibles and devotional books and tracts, sending them as upon the wings of the wind! Will your Board censure me then for pursuing the plan laid down in this sheet the coming summer, in the midst of this unsettled state of things in Oregon ?

I received yours of Jan. 22, 1848, giving the sum total of three boxes of goods shipped on board the Bark Undine, Thos. S. Baker, Master, on the 21st of January, 1848. The three boxes with cartage and insurance amounted to $122.74. The Undine is now in the Columbia. I understand that she suffered a partial wreck in passing Cape Horn and her goods were part thrown overboard and part sold as damaged goods somewhere on the Pacific coast south of this. Thus you see, dear brother, that God has been pleased, graciously no doubt, to deprive me and family of our dependence in clothing for