This long journey, and these days of perilous marching and nights of dancing, at length came to an end by their arrival at the enemy's frontier—the frontier of California, which, to their joy, they found unguarded; nor was there any found to dispute their passage or "to make them afraid;" for, had there been fifty resolute persons to oppose them, this valiant army would have absconded, and California would have remained an appanage of the crown of Spain. But Providence had ordered it otherwise; and this horde of vagabonds (leperos) came rushing on, with their wives and children, until they reached the cattle-yards (corrals), and then was displayed their valor and their capacity for beef, and in the name of "God and Liberty" they gratified their appetite for plunder. The priests, on their part, stood up manfully, and witnessed a good confession. They refused to accept this phantom of liberty which a party of vagabonds brought to them. The conquerors, however, could afford to be magnanimous in the midst of so much good eating, and no vengeance was inflicted upon unarmed men. But when the prefect of the missions was shipped off to Manilla, the war was at an end, for there was no means of defense, or, rather, it was changed from a war against priests to one against the cattle.
Thus was California conquered and annexed to the United States of Mexico in the year 1825, and the laws and constitution of that republic extended over it. But it is an abuse of words to say that any law existed from that time onward. The confusion produced by the irruption of this horde of vagabonds continued uninterrupted, and it involved, in one chaotic mass, law, order, and every public and private right. The history of the country is inexplicable, and its public archives are a mass of such gross irregularities, and show such a total disregard of all law, that they are little better than the Sibylline leaves.
AMERICAN CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA.
The party that raised the "bear flag" met with no opposition. The party that landed from the shipping, and took possession of Monterey and San Francisco, were alike successful. But when a small party of American soldiers, under General Kearney, entered the country from the west, the rancheros took the alarm, and rushed forth on their fleet horses to defend their private property from spoliation, for they had no idea of regular soldiers disconnected from robbery and cattle-stealing! The Californians fought bravely, and hemmed in the little army of Americans until they were in a suffering condition for provisions, and until the dreaded hunters and trappers, and draughts from the shipping, routed the herdsmen and released the beleaguered force. This is all there was that looked like war in the American acquisition of this most valuable territory.
Not only was there this similarity in respect to the inadequate means by which Mexico and California were acquired, but there is also a striking similarity in the fact of the immediate discovery of inexhaustible mines of precious metals, that gave importance to an otherwise comparatively insignificant conquest. Though so many centuries apart, each produced the same effect upon the political affairs of nations by suddenly furnishing the world with an abundant supply of the precious metals. The mines of Mexico, with some small supplies from South America, furnished the sinews of those religious wars that desolated Europe after the Reformation, and enabled Spain to maintain her vast armaments in the Spanish peninsula, and in her Italian kingdoms and principalities, and in her Belgian provinces. Spain was able to subsidize the armies of the Catholic League in France, and the forces of the Catholic Princes of Germany, and to turn back the tide of the Protestant Reformation after it had entered Italy, overrun Navarre, and reached her own frontier. The gold of California and Australia has furnished England the sinews by which she has set on foot armies, and subsidized nations in the present crusade against Russia.
At the time of the Reformation, all the precious metals were poured into the lap of a fanatical Catholic government; now they are in Protestant hands, and all, at last, find their resting-place, even those of Mexico, in the London market; while out of English Protestantism has our republic arisen, which is still united to her by a common language, a common religion, and commercial relations, so that the London market regulates the value of our stocks and the price of the food we eat. But our common Protestantism is not the Protestantism of the Reformation: that was the Protestantism of princes, and every where rested for support upon state patronage, the people, in that epoch, having no political existence. Protestantism was then a state institution, and soon lost its vitality in such an unnatural alliance. The Protestantism of our day is the Protestantism of dissent, which rejects state support, yet has shown itself more powerful than governments. It has restored peace to Ireland, and made its proselytes there by tens of thousands after the last British regiment was withdrawn. It has rent in twain the Church of Scotland, and is fast revolutionizing the Church of England, by driving to Rome those who prefer superstition to democracy, while it draws the remainder of the nation to itself. In the United States it is the ruling power, though it has here no political authority. It has penetrated the most obscure hamlets of France and Spain, and made thousands of converts in Italy itself. And where its preachers could not penetrate, there the written Word has found its way.
MEXICO TWO CENTURIES AGO.
The letters of Cortéz show that he, like his master, was above the superstitions of the Spanish race; yet both, skillful diplomatists, knew well how to avail themselves of the superstitions of others. The early Spanish adventurers to Mexico were a good illustration of the doctrine of total depravity, and the priests, that held them in leading-strings, were as depraved as themselves. "Like priests, like people." Our first settlers in California had learned self-government and self-control in the school of Protestantism; and when they took possession of that part of the country beyond the limit of Spanish settlements, where there were no laws and no written code, they were a law unto themselves, and the Spanish Americans that gathered about them found more perfect protection to life and property than they had ever before enjoyed. The Spanish adventurers at Mexico lavished the wealth which they had acquired by the forced labor of the Indians in the mines upon priests and monks, who amused them with lying miracles. They also gave money as an atonement for the criminal lives they led, and to shield themselves from the vengeance of the Inquisition, where they were suspected of being rich. The religion of the Californians was a simple veneration for the truths of Scripture. In some it amounted to devotion, but it was devotion sanctioned by reason and the understanding. They all alike despised superstition and abhorred despotism. In conclusion, I may add, that, had such a race of men as I saw in the mountains and villages of California at an early period of its settlement existed at the time of the conquest of Mexico, they would have revolutionized the world.
We have heard much of the immorality, excessive extravagance and luxury of the cities of California; but the following picture of the state of the city of Mexico in the heyday of its prosperity, five years before it was destroyed by an inundation, is from the black-letter volume of Thomas Gage, of which I have already availed myself.
"Almost all Mexico is now built with very fair and spacious houses, with gardens of recreation. The streets are very broad; in the narrowest of them three coaches may go, and in the broadest of them six may go in the breadth of them, which makes the city seem a great deal bigger than it is. In my time it was thought to be of between thirty and forty thousand inhabitants, Spaniards, who are so proud and rich, that half the city was judged to keep coaches; for it was a most credible report that in Mexico there were about 15,000 coaches.