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Thou still dost find me O my birthday! poor in Spirit. Still struggling up hill. looking with Anxious eye upon the favours of Fortune. Like the stalled waggon. I come yet imbedded in debts. Yet pulling against the setting tide. But brighter days begin to dawn. My loads are lessening, my strength increasing, my footholds treading firmer ground. The tide in the affairs of men, which taken in their flood lead on to glorious fortune: seems already beginning to buoy up my bark, as if to bear me to the long desired port. How long have I struggled against the "shafts and stings of outrageous Misfortune." how long wished to rise above the fevers and anxieties of penury. to feel myself in peace and mind independent and unshackled. I hope my wishes shall now be soon fulfilled. For this I have [unclear] must know I left my native shores. My business held in prospect only small gains. This land promised wealth and that quickly, Gold represented and scattered profusely on Mother Earth allured me. Fortune said it needed only courage and will and it was mine. I have come, and though exaggeration had filled the universal ear yet with moderate expectations I believe not yet in disappointment from this land of gold. Wish me success! For with the Helpings of Heaven I hope to greet this next year on the easy side of the Hill of Business.

Thou dost find me this year my friend!- with larger experience - more comprehensive view and with deeper insight in the character and ways of men than of old. Since thy last visit I have been steamed through the waters of the Atlantic have felt the sublimitive and the beauties of the ocean, have dwelt awhile on the Isthmus of Darien and seen the manners and customs of a people new and strange to me, have sailed on the bosom of the great Pacific, seen the wonders of the great deep, and the works of God as seen in the great waters. And have dwelled awhile among the gold hunters of California. Many are the joys and emotions which in this travel of have experienced from the phases and developments of Nature. Many are the new ideas I have acquired, the knowledge gained - Some also have been the discomforts and annoyances of the way. I have been in contact with men of every description. From the low, debased, vulgar - to the refined, high minded and intelligent. from the immoral and deceitful, to the religious, the conscientious and the honorable, If I have learned to be more suspicious it may have been at the expense of the delight of trustfulness - if believing that men have more motives and more selfishness