They had wonderful ideas of freedom.

In their own land the stern laws and numerous constabulary had not been able to keep them from crime.

A colony of criminals did not improve in moral tone, and when the most reckless and daring of all these were turned loose in a country like California, where the machinery of laws and officers to execute them was not yet in order, these lawless "Sidney Ducks," as they were called, felt free to rob and murder, and human life or blood was not allowed to stand between them and their desires.

Others of the same general stripe came from Mexico and Chili, and Texas and Western Missouri furnished another class almost as bad.
The Vigilance Committee of San Francisco was composed of the best men in the world.

They endured all that was heaped upon them by these lawless men, and the law of self protection forced them to organize for the swift apprehension and punishment of crime, and the preservation of their property and lives.