Her passengers were transferred in small boats to the Stephens, which vessel, with her two thousand people crowded together with hardly standing-room, returned to Panama, whence the passengers for the East proceeded to their destination without further delay.

Luckily for Mrs.Sherman, Purser Goddard, an old Ohio friend of ours, was on the Stephens, and most kindly gave up his own room to her, and such lady friends as she included in her party.

The Golden Age was afterward partially repaired at Quicara, pumped out, and steamed to Panama, when, after further repairs, she resumed her place in the line.

I think she is still in existence, but Commodore Watkins afterward lost his life in China, by falling down a hatchway.
Mrs.Sherman returned in the latter part of November of the same year, when Mr.and Mrs.Bowman, who meantime had bought a lot next to us and erected a house thereon, removed to it, and we thus continued close neighbors and friends until we left the country for good in 1857.
During the summer of 1856, in San Francisco, occurred one of those unhappy events, too common to new countries, in which I became involved in spite of myself.
William Neely Johnson was Governor of California, and resided at Sacramento City; General John E.Wool commanded the Department of California, having succeeded General Hitchcock, and had his headquarters at Benicia; and a Mr.Van Ness was mayor of the city.
Politics had become a regular and profitable business, and politicians were more than suspected of being corrupt.

It was reported and currently believed that the sheriff (Scannell) had been required to pay the Democratic Central Committee a hundred thousand dollars for his nomination, which was equivalent to an election, for an office of the nominal salary of twelve thousand dollars a year for four years.