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Nevada City California June 15th 1851

Dear Uncle & Aunt, I reced your kind letter of the 16th March some two weeks ago & should have answered it sooner, but have not had time untill the present. It found us all enjoying most excellent health, which has been our good fortune as a general thing ever since we came to the country. We returned to this place nearly 3 months ago but have not thus far been near so fortunate as we were on the Yuba River & in fact we have been sinking money more or less ever since we came down here the last time. We have shares now in a water & mining company which will soon be in operation, we completed our part of the work yesterday we take the water from this place, in a ditch or canal, to the next mining town below, a distance of nearly 7 miles. If the Diggins there are as rich as it is supposed they are it will be as profitable an investment as we could have made, on the same amount of capital for besides getting water for our own mining operations, each shareholder will have more or less water to sell to other miners. We expect to move down as soon as the water gets there; so that we can go to mining. We have spent a good deal of time in prospecting for Quartz veins & the company discovered one some weeks ago, that is supposed

[written along left margin] of any proffits accruing, & in such case whatever it might be I told mother & sister to receive it & appropriate it to their use & seeing the advertisement, I casually mentioned the matter in a letter home for I thought it even more likely that they would also see the advertisement than that I should & I know that if they did unless they knew something about, the cause they might be uneasy & think strange after what had passed on the subject

[written along top margin] I am sorry that the matter has been so misconstrued and am still more surprised to think you should think that I did it out of any ill will towards you for nothing was farther from my mind. I cant see that I have done any thing in the matter that is not compatible with strict principles of honor. I remarked that I supposed it was your choice for the land to be sold in that way, from the fact that I supposed it had probably depreciated in value & never intimated that it was in consequence of any pecuniary embarrassment or any thing of the kind, and as to doing it with the intention of making public your business matters, as you supposed, I never dreamed of any such thing For I suppose they know as much as they do from anything I may have told? them