Historic Towns of the Western States

by Unknown

The relief the Viceroy sent to Monterey in response to Junípero's plea came none too soon. For thirty-seven days the latter's boyhood friend and lifelong collaborator, Palou, and his comrades at Carmel had gone without a tortilla or a crumb of bread, subsisting patiently on a little meal ground from peas. But now began the years of mission prosperity and peace, and thereafter in Monterey was presented in miniature the story of the glory and decline of Spain.

For half a century it was the brilliant capital of Spain's new empire. It was a thriving metropolis and the gay seat of the Spanish Court fifty years before the settlement at San Francisco became more than a straggling pueblo, struggling to survive against wind and sand. In fact, for two generations after the founding of Monterey San Francisco's chief claim to distinction was that the first craft to pass through the pillared channel that leads to its incomparable harbor was a launch hewn from a redwood felled by Ayala on the banks of the Carmel.

Year after year in Monterey were great fêtes, the laughter of beautifully gowned women, the melody of troubadours, the click of castanets, the trampling of horsemen in gay attire, the triumphs of governors and captains, and the booming of guns in the walled presidio. Here at this capital titled officials sat at the receipt of customs; here galleons from Manila put in for repairs and departed with cargoes of furs, and hither came fragatas and paquebotes from the Mexican coast and imposing craft from the four corners of the earth. Over picturesque adobe consulates in Monterey floated the flags of foreign nations when the only standard reared in San Francisco was a desolate wooden cross in the Mission Dolores. And the road through the mountain pines to Junípero's spiritual capital, his cabecera, three miles away, over which governors followed by glittering retinues marched to solemnize their oaths of office and whither they were borne for sepulture, was worn to its primal rocks long before the path from the San Francisco Mission to the bay became more than a shifting trail.

San Francisco now can stand these invidious comparisons, for when glory finally sailed through the Golden Gate, fame departed from Monterey.

The genius of Junípero gave to Monterey an impetus that long survived his death. As unconscious trustee, Spain, centring power at Monterey, was holding the coast for the larger destiny to follow.

The shadow of new events crept toward Portala's cross. In a winter month in the third decade of the nineteenth century an unprecedented happening awakened the fears of the Franciscans at Carmel,—the holy water in the baptismal font in the San Carlos Mission was found to be frozen. This unparalleled thing in that bland clime could not, they believed, but portend some unhappy fate. In confirmation of their worst fears came the news that the Viceroy had repudiated allegiance to the King. The eagle of Mexico had soared above the lion of Castile, and a rebel had supplanted the King in the litany of prayers. The conerstone of the mission system had been broken; the crumbling process was at hand.

Then came Fernandez, the Canónigo, the most exalted ecclesiastical dignitary that had ever set foot in Monterey. Junípero was a Puritan of humble and contrite virtue. The Canónigo was a swaggering roysterer, pledging the revenues of the Church in games of chance. On the occasions of Junípero's journeyings from his capital, the tears of his neophytes, the sound of mission bells, and the prayers of his comrades attested the reverence he had won. Races, revels, and bull-fights in Monterey celebrated the convivial departure of Fernandez.

A new era was at hand. Under the unstable Mexican régime, chaos followed confusion. In the twenty-four years that intervened before the Stars and Stripes, hoisted over Monterey, proclaimed the advent of the golden age in the West, that city saw thirteen governors come and go. Communication with Mexico was difficult. A governor at Monterey when he rose in the morning did not know whether to salute the flag of a liberator, an emperor, a rebel, a president, or a king. Monterey, too, had turmoils and revolutions of her own. Ambitious intrigue placarded her adobe walls with flaming ultimatos. The alcalde and regidores of one day were prisoners in irons the next. Anarchy to-day sat gravely in the Ayuntamiento to-morrow, and governors turned fugitive as usurpers assumed control.

Yet these Monterey revolutions were anæmic, attended with less shedding of blood than the bull-fights that celebrated the triumphs of her voluble warriors. It was the opera-bouffe warfare of little statesmen making their clamoring exit from the stage of history.

The spectacular caballero in his jacket laced with gold was passing away with the phantoms he had chased. The Mission bells grew silent. New horsemen thronged over the mountain roads. New sailors cast anchor in the harbor. A new flag floated over the presidio, a flag that was not to be pulled down. The American Republic had reached the western sea.