Should the Southern States succeed in withdrawing from the Union and setting up a Southern Confederacy without war, then with a continuous line of slave territory from Texas to the Pacific, the Pacific coast should combine with the South; but if war ensued between the North and South, then the coast should be captured, and the Venetian Republic be inaugurated separately, and slaves imported from the Isles of the Sea. Bancroft, the historian, asserts that but for the strong restraining advice of Jesse Applegate and the overwhelming sentiment against him on his return, there is no doubt but what General Lane would have embarked in the enterprise, and that the boxes of arms and ammunition which accompanied his return were intended for that purpose. In 1862 it became known all through the Pacific coast that an oath bound secret organization of confederate sympathizers were holding almost nightly meetings at many places; and self-appointed Union detectives, from points of vantage could hear the tread of martial feet and the hoarse notes of command. High authority has asserted that Gwin of California, Lane of Oregon, and a man named Tilden of Washington, were the instigators and advisors of this second movement to steal the Pacific coast from the Federal Union and hold it for the forces of disunion and secession. They chose for a title the quaint and striking name of "Knights of the Golden Circle." One of the best posted historical authorities on the Pacific coast told me a few days ago that he had in his possession cipher documents of that strange disloyal order, which some day experts should decipher and give to the world, but as yet it was too early for history to record anything but the things that were notorious. The same authority told me of how one night in San Francisco, eight hundred Knights of the Golden Circle, armed to the teeth, had met to make the initial outbreak, capture the Benicia Arsenal and arm all rebel sympathizers of San Francisco therefrom and carry out the long cherished plan of seizing the Pacific coast for disunion. At the last moment realizing the awful, momentous responsibility of their projected attack they clamored for a leader whom they could follow as one man. In a moment one name was on every lip, an old hero of the Vigilante days--in haste he was sent for (he was not a member of their order) and their plan revealed to one whom they thought disloyal like themselves, but they had reckoned without their man--he was as loyal as the sturdy patriots who fell at Bunker Hill, fighting the earlier battle of freedom with bare hands and clubbed muskets.