| 216,727 | Horned Cattle, |
| 32,100 | Horses, |
| 2,844 | Mules, |
| 177 | Asses, |
| 153,455 | Sheep, |
| 1,873 | Goats, |
| 839 | Swine. |
In addition to these there were vast numbers, roaming at large, which were not marked or branded, according to California laws, as belonging to any of the jurisdictions, missions, haciendas or towns. These were hunted and slain to prevent their interference with the pasturage of the more useful and appropriated cattle; yet from all this multitude but little profit was gained except for hides and tallow. Beef was not salted and prepared for foreign markets, the dairy was altogether neglected, and butter and cheese almost unknown. In the earlier days of the settlement, many thousand cattle were annually driven either to the city of Mexico or to the interior provinces from the large estates on the Pacific; but that traffic was gradually abandoned under the habitual sloth of the people, nor was it until many years after the trade of the ports was opened by the war of independence, that a comparatively brisk intercourse opened with the Sandwich Islands and our own people, who were willing to exchange their manufactures for the hides and tallow of the Californians.
Such was the condition of affairs in this primitive pastoral region when the war between Mexico and the United States broke out. For a long time the natives and settlers had been discontented with their national government that usurped the milder sway of the clergy; yet it is probable that most of the revolutionary movements were founded on personal ambition and avarice rather than patriotic impulses, nor is it likely that the territory would have secured its independence without the aid of a foreign power. British interests had undoubtedly counselled the acquisition of California; but the fate of war suddenly threw it into our hands, and probably at the very moment when English subjects and the Mexican government were combining to exclude us from the positions on the Pacific which were so necessary for our mercantile progress as well as political and maritime convenience.
As soon as the country was quieted by the arrangement which Colonel Frémont made with the Californian leaders at Couenga, the people who had been engaged in the brief local war returned to their peaceful avocations. Our forces were stationed in small detachments, from Sutter's fort to San Diego, while our national vessels were anchored in the different harbors throughout the whole coast. In the maritime towns the supreme authorities collected a revenue from imports under the Contribution tariff. Order was promptly restored every where; but the only recognized control was that of the military government, which had devolved upon Colonel Mason at the departure of General Kearney.
Meanwhile the emigration from the United States, which, amounted to about five hundred individuals during the summer and fall of 1845, had been considerably augmented by recruits and adventurers during the continuance of the war. These men, as soon as hostilities ceased, naturally turned their attention to the two most important subjects that engage an American's attention wherever fortune may cast his lot. Their future prospects of wealth, and the character of their government, demanded immediate care; yet while they relied upon Congress for the security of their political rights, they found, in spite of California's renown for agricultural riches, that they could only establish themselves successfully on the Pacific, or return with fortunes from its shores, by a steady and thrifty devotion to labor.
Such was the condition of California in the spring of 1848, when the accidental discovery of gold which might be rapidly and easily gathered in apparently inexhaustible quantities, changed not only the condition of the inhabitants, but affected the whole commerce of the world. "The towns were forthwith deserted by their male population, and a complete cessation of the whole industrial pursuits of the country was the consequence. Commerce, agriculture, mechanical pursuits, professions,—all were abandoned for the purpose of gathering the glittering treasures which lay buried in the ravines, gorges and rivers of the Sierra Nevada. The productive industry of the country was annihilated in a day. In some instances the moral perceptions were blunted, and men left their families unprovided, and soldiers deserted their posts."[80]
But the greediness of the adventurers soon taught them that they could not subsist on gold, and that after the first deposits were gathered in the most accessible regions, it was necessary for them to wander farther and farther from the coast settlements, until they were lost in the lonely and barren glens of the mountains. There, at the approach of winter, they found themselves without the means of comfort or support. In the meanwhile, however, the news of the discovered El Dorado crossed the continent, and although its marvels were regarded by many as fabulous, there were others who resolved at once either to abandon their homes for the wilderness or to despatch valuable cargoes whose enormous profits would absorb the miner's wealth.
Under these mingled temptations of trade and discovery, an immense immigration, chiefly of males, poured into California, not only from the United States but from Oregon, Mexico, Chili, Peru, China and the Sandwich Islands, all of whom soon saw the necessity of once more subdividing human labors into their ordinary channels as well as proportions; and thus, while commerce took the lead in the ports and warehouses, mechanical and professional pursuits equally assumed their relative importance, and partly restored the endangered balance of society.
Within a year after this wonderful discovery, the Californians felt that they were no longer outlying colonists of the American Union, requiring pecuniary support from the mother State and military protection against savages. Their lot was strangely reversed in the history of distant settlements, for wealth had been secured in advance of inhabitants and trade. Gold, a large population, and reconstructed social relations, brought with them the necessity for firm, fixed constitutional government. The fermenting elements of a motly society were effervescing, and the substratum of order and civilization was rapidly chrystallizing. The dollar dulled the bowie knife. Immense fleets, arriving from all parts of the world, poured large revenues into the national coffers. Intelligent and industrious men thronged the towns that sprang up, as if by enchantment, at every advantageous point. All the great mercantile interests were rapidly developed. Property in land and moveables become suddenly valuable beyond the hopes or dreams of the early settlers. Discussions arose as to titles and rights. Spanish laws, uncertain in their character or sanction, and American laws of doubtful application, were hastily enforced by judges whom the wants of time summoned to the bench from uncongenial pursuits to administer justice in courts which were quite us incongruously constructed.
In such a state of society, men were naturally anxious to know their relations to the Federal Government whose Congress adjourned two sessions after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo without legislating for the ceded territories. It might almost have been pardoned, had California, feeling her power, position and self-reliant resources, asserted her independence after so much neglect. Yet, in the midst of all these temptations, and in spite of our people's abhorrence of a military government, there never was a more beautiful demonstration of national loyalty and affinity than in the regular assemblage, in that remote quarter of the world, of citizens from all our States, and of all classes, characters, tempers, professions and avocations, to form a republican constitution which would ensure admission into our Union. Their military governor, it is true, had set the example of submission to the civil power, by directing the election of delegates; but the people asserted their inherent right, independently of the military authority; and, although they acted in harmony with their estimable ruler, the constitution was emphatically the result of popular impulse and judgment alone. The convention, thus assembled, met at Monterey on the 1st of September, 1849, and closed its work on the 13th of October by submitting an excellent constitution to the people for their adoption. The document was forthwith disseminated in Spanish and English, and no attempt was made to mislead or control public opinion in relation to it. The people gave it their sanction by an overwhelming majority, and the legislature which was elected under it, assembled at San José, the capital of the State, on the 15th of December, 1849. Peter H. Burnett, who had been chosen first governor of the Pacific Empire State, was duly inaugurated, and on the 20th of the same month, the military governor, General Riley, resigned his power into the hands of the civil agents of the organized State. After a warm and embittered discussion in Congress at Washington, California, with all her sovereign rights, was finally admitted into the North American Union, on the 9th day of September, 1850.