General Persifor F. Smith, who had been ordered to take command of the United States troops at San Francisco, was one of those who had to wait for a ship at Panama. Here he heard reports that a good deal of the new-found gold was being sent to foreign countries. Some said that the British Consul had forwarded fifteen thousand ounces of California gold to England, and that more than nine million francs' worth of the mineral had been received in the South American ports of Lima and Valparaiso. As a result hundreds of men from those ports were taking ship to California. General Smith did not like the idea of foreigners profiting by the discovery of gold in California, and issued an order that only citizens of the United States should be allowed to enter the public lands where the diggings were located. When the _California_, a steamship from New York, reached Panama in January, 1849, with seventy-five Peruvians on board, General Smith warned them that they would not be allowed to go to the mines, and sent word of this order to consuls along the Pacific coast of South America. In spite of his efforts, however, foreigners would go to Upper California, and the American prospectors were too busy with their own searches to prevent the strangers from taking what gold they could find. When the _California_ arrived at Panama she was already well filled with passengers, but there were so many men waiting for her that the captain had to give in to their demands, and crowd his vessel with several hundred more gold-seekers. Loaded with impatient voyagers, the steamship sailed up the coast, and reached San Francisco about the end of February. Immediately every one on board, except the captain, the mate, and the purser, deserted the ship, and dashed for the gold fields. The next steamer to reach Panama, the _Oregon_, found an even larger crowd waiting at that port. She took more passengers on board than she was intended to carry, but fortune favored the gold-seekers, and the _Oregon_, like the _California_, discharged her adventurous cargo in safety at San Francisco. Hundreds of others who could not board either of these steamers ventured on the Pacific in small sailing vessels, or any manner of ship that would put out from Panama bound north.