It devolved on the court at Monterey not only to determine the prize cases submitted, but to assume an onerous responsibility in the disposal of the property libelled and condemned. The cargo of one of these prizes consisted of a large amount of cotton, paper, and iron, destined to a Mexican market, and for which there was no adequate demand in California. The highest cash bid that could be procured at a sale duly notified, was $34,000. To this bid the property must be knocked down, or surrendered to a credit bid of $60,000, involving conditions for the benefit of the purchaser wholly inadmissible in law. In this perplexity I bid the ship and cargo in; placed a faithful, competent agent and crew on board, and sent the whole to Mazatlan, which had become a port of entry. The result was, that after discharging all claims existing against the property, I paid over to the Secretary of the Navy, as the net proceeds of the sales, the sum of $68,000, and stand credited with that amount on the books of the department. But this is rather a matter of personal service than a topic of public interest; it is, however, connected with official duty, and exhibits one of the many forms in which private responsibility may be tasked in saving from sacrifice property confided to its care. A failure in such cases often brings ruin; and even success may be obliged to seek its meagre remuneration through the slow forms of legislative relief. CONSTITUTION OF CALIFORNIA. The desires of the people of California for a civil government, suited to their new condition, at length found utterance at the ballot-box. The best informed and most sedate of her citizens were elected in their several districts, and commissioned to proceed to Monterey, for the purpose of drafting in concert the provisions of a constitution. Never were interests, habits, and associations more diverse than those represented in this body. Unanimity could be reached only through the largest concessions. It was the conquerors and the conquered, the conservatives and the progressives; they who owned the lands, and they who worked the mines, assembling to frame organic laws which should equally secure and bind the interests of all. No cloud ever cast its shadow on equal incongruities grouped in cliffs and chasms, pinnacles and precipices, without having it broken into a thousand fragments. But the honest and patriotic purpose which animated the convention, raised that body above all national prejudice and local interests, and poured its spirit in blending power over its measures. They had been commissioned to plan and perfect a constitution for California, and they were true to their trust. Day after day they labored at that eventful instrument; no passion, no prejudice disturbed their counsels: where opinions clashed, they were softened; where interests jarred, they were harmonized; where local feeling sought assertion, it was surrendered.