Military Reserve Near Port Townsend

March 10th/58

​

Dear Brother Lucius

​

I received yesterday your letter of Jan 1st and will at once answer it. I came here to work in July last and have had steady employ ever since a part of the time at four and a part of the time at five dollars per day. Since Nov I’ve done the foreman’s duties and the foreman’s wages is five dollars per day for two of the winter months however I only had four inasmuch as there was but very few men employed and the days were short and the weather sometimes stormy. I sold out in Victoria as I told you before at a considerable loss. I should be now worth a thousand dollars more than I am had I never owned any property there but saved my money. Had I been a Brittish subject I could have made money there easily and lived comfortably and had I been a Brittain born the property I owned would have been a good investment. But a Yankee has no business in an English settlement. This I learned to my sorrow but not till after it was too late to save myself from loss. There is a deep settled prejudice existing towards all Americans no matter how respectable, now matter how irreproachable his character, no matter how well he conducts himself. This prejudice extends to all classes, to all grades of society.

The Governor himself is imbued with it, and the meanest wretch as he rolls inebriated in the ditch will spit out his hate towards us as you drag him from the filth of the gutter. In your chance associations you will not discover this but when strong drink discloses the hidden secrets of the heart of when the interests of an American comes in competition with that of a Brittain bred and born then the cloven foot appears, plain unmistakable in all it’s hideousness of deformity. I made many friends in Victoria and I think no enemies but narrow mindedness of the race together with the many discouragements in every shape for an American to do any kind of business among them disgusted me and I left, selling my property to the best advantage I could at the time though a great loss as I said before. What I sold for I expect to get. At all events I’m free of the place and glad of it and it is not likely I shall reside there any more. You ask me what I propose to do in the future. I have no settled plan in view, absolutely nothing. If I was only rich I would return at once to the States, settle in somewhere in the south west I think, for I dread the snow, the frost and the bitter cold of your northern winters. I would settle down, marry and endeavour to make myself comfortable and happy. I think the climate of California would suit me admirably. I‘m yet however poor and therefore am waiting for chance or destiny or something else to mark me out a course to pursue. Could I collect in all that is due me and which I have the promise of soon, I could make a raise of a little over two thousand dollars. I hope to arrange satisfactory my affairs in a short time and I propose for the present to remain where I am so long as it is agreeable to all parties. When I’m done here and have settled up my business over the sound I may visit California or I may return to the States or I may go into Oregon or perchance I may go to the gold digging on the borders towards the head waters of those streams which flow into Frasers River and the Northern branches of the Columbia of which Mines stories are getting into circulation of fabulous richness. Even this country as it is I should not be in haste to leave had I friends here and society even though that society were ever so small though it were of the right kind. But as society is now, one goes to the rum Mill for his only amusement and if he can enjoy it he may gamble, roll Nine Pines, Play Billyards, dissipate and riot to his heart’s content so long as his money lasts and then return to his work again. Or if one is not inclined to labor he can take a claim by the salt water and go out of a morning or when the tyde is out and in half an hour dig from the mud his day’s provision and so live an indolent life as the savages live. There is no fear of starvation on Puget Sound. Times may be hard but provisions of some kind that will support life and which in some places are considered a luxury cannot be scarce nor hard to get. This country will grow in importance I think for years to come as it becomes better known and as its resources become more and more developed. It’s soil is good, it’s forest inexhaustible of most valuable timber, beds of coal to what extent is not known just out of the bluffs close by the beach and in the salt water there are fish and in the mountains there is gold. A beautiful and healthy climate too we have and in the winter one’s stock will not perish though one does nothing to feed them.

You speak of the hardness of the times in consequence of the tightness of the money market etc. and I wish it was in my power to relieve you which I might do to a considerable extent if you could get a draft or by any other means safely transmit you money. If any opportunity occurs I will assist you and at all events if you are likely to be hard pushed let me know a sufficient time before hand and if possible I will give you aid. Thinking perhaps it might be rather hard during the pressure of the times for Father to raise the hard dimes to pay his rent with other necessary outlays in the shape of family expenses I have determined to send from time to time as I write to different members of the family a few dollars at a time until I advance a sum sufficient to pay that item and I have enclosed five dollars.

Whit. Chase