Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/114

96 the padres, with notes on the circumstances of each, and a defence of his action, or failure to act, on the ground that all the padres except three were Spaniards, and it would have been absurdly impossible to expel them with nobody to take their place. He also urged that many of them be allowed to remain permanently in the territory. Only a few days later there came the law of March 20th, much more strict than the other, and it was circulated on the 6th of July. The announcement was that to all padres who had refused to take the oath passports would be given forth with, while all the rest must show within a month the physical impediments preventing their departure as required by the law. As before, no friar was expelled, and Echeandía had no idea of granting passports, though several, including Peyri, Sanchez, and Boscana, now demanded them, and though the governor really desired to get rid of certain unmanageable ones as soon as he could obtain others to take their places. Not only did he send to Mexico a defence of his policy of inaction, showing the impossibility of the expulsion so far as California was concerned; but