Near Loretto are large and extensive copper mines; lead and iron are found everywhere, and gold-washings have always been wrought in the country with considerable success. If this territory ever becomes settled by an energetic population, millions of wealth will be annually gathered in its borders, and it will stand side by side in point of riches with the countries that have already made themselves famous by the wealth lying in their bosoms.
As an agricultural country Lower California is rather deficient, although there are many watered valleys which produce in great profusion all the common culinary vegetables, and wherever the soil can be irrigated, it produces all the tropical fruits and the vegetables of the temperate zones in great luxuriance. Cotton of the finest staple grows wild upon the plains around La Paz, and cane, from which a very good article of sugar is made, grows all over the land. Wine is made from the grape of the country, which is of the most delicious kind.
When we went to Lower California, our orders were to assure the inhabitants that their country was to be retained as a portion of the territory of the United States. The message of President Polk and the proclamation of Commodore Shubrick supported this idea, and upon the representations thus made, the most influential inhabitants committed themselves to the American cause, and were exceedingly gratified with the expected result. In the month of November, we were attacked by a Mexican force of six hundred, under command of Don Manuel Pineda, a captain in the Mexican army, who published a long proclamation threatening death and destruction to the Californians who supported our cause. Notwithstanding this, during a severe and trying siege, which lasted six weeks, many of the rancheros from the interior came in and joined us, and for this whole time a company of native Californians, under the command of the former governor of the territory, Don Francisco Palacèo, fought bravely with us and rendered us essential service, with the expectation that at the close of the war they would be protected by us. But what was their consternation when, upon the reception of the news of the treaty of peace, it was found that they had been forgotten, and that after the promises which had been made, we were obliged to desert them and leave them to the voracity of their Mexican masters, by whom they are now of course viewed in the light of traitors to their country.
Never in the history of wars among civilized nations was there a greater piece of injustice committed, and the United States government deserves for it the imprecations of all who have a sense of justice remaining in them. The probability is, that some ignorant scribbler, who had cast his eyes upon the rugged rocks that girdle her sea-coast, had represented Lower California as a worthless country, and that, forgetting justice and good faith, our government left this compromised people to suffer at the hands of their own brethren. The result was that many of them were obliged to fly from their country and go to Upper California, their property was confiscated and they can never return to their homes but with the brand of traitors resting upon them.
It is the duty of our government to repair if possible the wrong thus done. Lower California must at some time inevitably be a territory of the United States. It is a peculiarity of the Yankee race that, like the western farmer, they only want to possess “all the land that joins them;” and this country, isolated as it is from Mexico, inhabited by a people who heartily hate the institutions of their mother country, neglected by her, and lying in such close contiguity to our possessions on the Pacific coast, must fall into our hands, and, instead of being a worthless territory, we should find it our greatest acquisition on the Pacific. The gulf of California is one of the finest sheets of water in the world, and the inner coast is indented with many safe and land-locked harbours. The bay of La Paz is safe and large, and the establishment of a naval depot at this point would keep in check the whole western coast of Mexico. Mexico does not desire this territory, and no people were ever more anxious for a separation from the mother country than are the inhabitants of Lower California. It would be an easy purchase, and if necessary an easy conquest, and unless it is done by the general government, a second Texas affair will occur there before many years pass. When Upper California becomes more thickly populated, and the progress westward is stopped by the surges of the Pacific, the northern territory of Oregon being already ours, the progress must inevitably be southward, and even now ideas are entertained of seizing the country.
In order to prevent the disastrous consequences which must ensue from a re-enaction of the Texas tragedies, and to render justice to a people whose confidence has been abused by our government, I would respectfully recommend to the home government the immediate commencement of negotiations for the purchase of this valuable and interesting territory. The appointment of commissioners to report upon its resources and its value in a naval point of view, would be speedily followed by its purchase, and thus would be prevented the piratical expeditions for the seizure of the country which otherwise will soon be undertaken.
THE END.