11 November 1864 • San Francisco, Calif. (MS: CU-MARK, 00091)
I have been trying to borrow that money, but I do not think—in fact I am pretty certain—that I cannot do it. They all say the same thing: that you have no specific contract law, & they will not send money where there is no protection for it.1explanatory note Steve’s brother-in-law, money-lender,2explanatory note & Geo. Davis, & Henriques the prominent real estate & money broker,3explanatory note all say the same thing. Therefore, do not expect anything from my efforts.
Sandy Baldwin is already in Carson—cannot you borrow the money from him on your scrip?
Dawson says Daggett will & Fitch will be likely to euchre you out of the nomination.4explanatory note He will if lying & swindling can do it. I know Daggett & Fitch both, & I swear a solemn oath that I believe that they would blast the characters of their own mothers & sisters to gain any great advantage in life. I know both dogs well. Look out for them. They are two-faced.
I am watching the H & N. in the hope that it may go up a little & sell for enough to set you up in your new home free from debt—if it will do that, it is all I want.5explanatory note Cook says the mine was looking better some days ago, & he would not be surprised if it turned out well, yet.6explanatory note
By an act passed on 27 April 1863, California had established that “in an action on a contract or obligation in writing, for the direct payment of money, made payable in a specified kind of money or currency, judgment for the plaintiff, whether the same be by default or after verdict, may follow the contract or obligation, and made payable in the kind of money or currency specified therein” (Statutes, 687). This act protected those who loaned money in gold from being repaid in less valuable greenbacks. As Clemens notes, Nevada did not have similar legislation (Mack 1936, 283–85).
Emeline Russ, supposedly Steve Gillis’s fiancée, had five brothers, none of whom has been identified as a “money-lender” (Swasey, 233–41).
David Henriques was a member of the San Francisco stock exchange (Langley 1864, lxix). George Davis has not been identified.
Thomas Fitch (see February 1864click to open letter to Fitch, n. 1).
The daily reports of the San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board, published in the Alta California, show that from a low of $200 per share in late August 1864, the bid price of Hale and Norcross stock had boomed to $1,000 per share the day before Clemens wrote the present letter. On 11 November the price dropped to $940 and then suffered a predominantly downward fluctuation, sagging to $310 by 1 December and averaging slightly less than that for the rest of the year. Clemens evidently was short of funds in November, but by early December, when he went to Jackass Hill, California, he had a substantial amount of cash in hand, perhaps from a sale of some or all of the four shares of Hale and Norcross stock he had put in Orion’s name. Unfortunately, a conjecture that Clemens sold stock at that time, however reasonable, does not help reconcile his conflicting accounts of his Hale and Norcross transactions (see 26 May 64 to OC, n. 4click to open letter). His investment in the company apparently terminated ignominiously in mid-1865 when, according to chapter 62 of Roughing It, his income in San Francisco was at low ebb. On 8 May of that year his name was listed in a Hale and Norcross assessment delinquency notice as the owner of two shares (stock certificate 664). On 19 May those two shares were offered for sale by a San Francisco auction firm in order to pay off a total assessment of $50 (“Hale and Norcross Silver Mining Company,” San Francisco Alta California: 8 May 65, 2; 19 May 65, 3). The bid price for the stock was then $460 per share.
Clemens’s informant may have been John Cook, a Virginia City miner (Kelly 1863, 184).
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L1 , 318–322.
probably Moffett Collection; see p. 462.