GOLD FEVER Part Three. Ken Salter

      I realized that with my responsibility to keep money flowing to pay off our mortgage on our restaurant, meet an ever expanding payroll and supervise and pay for the construction of our new school I’d have little or no time to devote to a detective business. I still had my contract with the French consulate to deliver French miners’ mail to the northern and southern placers, but Gino and I were having a hard time keeping up with the volume of mail arriving for the 20,000 or so French miners still toiling in the river placers. Many of the letters were addressed simply to an individual dans les mines d’or à San Francisco. There were many large express companies such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Adams & Co. that handled mail, parcels and gold to and from the mines as well as a number of smaller express companies serving remote areas. As I was toying with the idea of mounting my own express company to handle French and Chilean mail and gold, I made an appointment to see French Consul Patrice Dillon to see if he would support such a venture.

      Dillon’s wife was on good terms with Manon and the consul had brought clients and visiting dignitaries to dine at Chez Manon on several occasions. I was hopeful he would support my scheme as I would need his backing for it to succeed. With the recent arrival of several boatloads of French paupers and unemployed artisans and family farmers on ships sent by Emperor Louis Napoleon as a result of his manipulation of the Lottery of the Golden Ingots, the consulate was overworked, underfunded, and understaffed. I would need to persuade Consul Dillon that my proposal for a French express company would help solve his problems.

      Dillon kept me waiting 20 minutes but apologized for the delay and addressed me for the first time as Pierre. “We are swamped with work as a result of so many new French arrivals. Our government didn’t provide any of them with a stipend and expects us to provide for them in the dead of winter when there are no jobs and we can’t send them to the mines. I hope you’re not here to request more money for handling the mail, because we don’t have a penny to spare. The Foreign Ministry just ignores our pleas for more staff and money. We’re really strapped,” Dillon said in a strained voice. Despite his dapper appearance in a Paris-tailored three piece suit, his face was haggard with worry lines and a deep frown.

      “No, I’ve not come to request more funding; in fact, I’ve come to present a proposal that may help you with your problems settling the ‘Ingots.’” That’s what we called the nearly 5,000 immigrants who were sent to settle in California as a result of the Lottery of the Golden Ingots conducted the previous November in Paris. Dillon had to feed and house most of them until they could be given a grub stake and shipped to the mines or find jobs for them with French residing here. We had agreed to hire an apprentice food preparer to help our two chefs in our restaurant. Dillon relaxed visibly as I let the welcome news sink in. He retrieved a Havana cigar from the cedar humidor on his desk and gestured for me to help myself.

      After firing up our cigars, I continued. “I would like to establish a specialized express company to handle French and Chilean miners’ mail, parcels and gold shipments from the mines. Why should we let Wells Fargo, Adams and others have a monopoly on the shipment of French gold?” I paused to puff up the fire in my cigar and noted I had Dillon’s rapt attention and interest.

      “How would this benefit the consulate?” Dillon queried.

      “As we would be handling all the French and Chilean mail, we could charge a fee for the mail service as do all the express companies. This would relieve the consulate of paying for this service. But even more importantly, with your endorsement and active support, we would be able to charge a fee for assaying the gold shipped and its transportation to a French bank in Sacramento or San Francisco. You would negotiate with our French banks, all of which would want access to the gold, and we would require them to pay a fee based on the amount of gold they received. This fee would go to the consulate.” I paused again to let my words take effect.

      “What makes you think the banks would readily pay a fee based on the gold received?” Dillon said eagerly.

      “Access to miners’ gold is the way they make their money. As you know, there is a shortage of gold coins the merchants and gambling palaces need to conduct business. Accepting gold dust is messy, inconvenient, and open to fraud. Once the miner consigned his gold to our company it would be assayed and then made into a series of standard weight ingots from molds in our assay office. The bank would receive gold that is pure and in a form ready for shipment or sale.”

      “The plan is interesting, but how could you compete with such big express companies as Wells Fargo with their large stage coaches and well established routes and reputation for security?” Dillon asked skeptically.

      “We can’t compete with them and their predominately American and Anglo clients and banks, but our market is a niche market they’ve been given by default as there is no competition to process and ship French and Chilean gold. The American express companies don’t carry French or Chilean mail or supplies; we do. They carry our gold because there is no alternative for transport. The Americans don’t like our miners at all and would like us to return to France with our tails between our legs, but they’re happy to take our gold and make money with it. I can assure you French and Chilean miners would prefer to have us handle their gold and get an efficient mail service at the same time. In my trips to the northern and southern placers, the most persistent complaint I heard from our people was the lack of mail service and the exorbitant cost of paying for a letter if finally received; miners often had to pay as much as $2.50 for a letter a year old sent via a smaller American express company to miners in remote areas. I’ve heard miners working low grade claims say they’d go without eating for a day if necessary to get a letter from home. Most French miners don’t make on average more than $3.50 a day which is only enough to pay for food and lodging.” I paused in my spiel. I was laying it on thick, but Dillon had been nodding affirmatively to what I said. He surprised me when he left his comfortable chair, pulled out a bottle of cognac and two glasses and poured us each a healthy tot.

      “I like your proposal and see how the consulate could benefit. But I’m concerned about the scope of your proposal and your means to make it happen realistically. Won’t establishing a competitive express company require considerable capital? And you know we can’t put any money into your venture. We’ve heard about your plans to build a new school. How do you plan to finance such a venture?” Dillon asked soberly.

      I downed half of my tot of cognac and relit my cigar before replying. We were down to the nitty-gritty now. His concerns were very valid and I would have to bluff some parts of my response to convince him of the financial feasibility of my scheme. “I made reliable contacts with established French merchants in both the northern and southern diggings who indicated a willingness to assist and participate in the plan I’ve laid out. Some would be agents earning commissions and others direct partners.” I paused to finish my cognac and take a pull on my cigar. What I’d stated was only partially true. I was sure that the French hotel owner Ricard, in Marysville, would jump on my bandwagon as he had a French mail concession to deliver mail to French miners working the north and south forks of the Yuba River and had eagerly assisted me and would be happy to work with me on a commission basis.

      “The same is true for Sonora and the southern placers. They’ve no post office and no plans to build one with as many as 12,000 foreign miners working this area first settled by Mexicans. I would make my assistant, Gino, who has worked on our French mail concession with me, a partner and he would handle mail for the 8,000 French and 2,000 Chilean miners who work the rivers and tributaries north of Sonora where his office would be based. Our assay office would be there as well. With the recently established telegraph service between Stockton, Sacramento and San Francisco, we will be able to signal in code the arrival and departure of gold shipments. I’ve got the assurance of Justinian Caire, who sells assay equipment and has worked as an assayer, to staff and set up our assay office and smelter for the southern mines.” This was only partially true. Caire did fiddle with assaying and sold equipment under his trade name in his mining supply store in San Francisco, but I had yet to broach my scheme to him. I had to trust that Consul Dillon was too occupied with his own problems to want to seek out Caire and I believed Gino would jump