Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/143

Rh information is usually accurate and valuable; but a curious item is the idea, drawn from the Californians, that the great rivers running into San Francisco bay were three in number — the Jesus María, passing at the back of Bodega in a southerly course from beyond Cape Mendocino; the Sacramento, trending to the south-west, and said to rise in the Rocky Mountains near the source of the Columbia; and the San Joachin, stretching from the south ward through the country of the Bolbones.

The vessels of 1827 numbered thirty-three, of which two or three arrivals depend on doubtful records. Fourteen were the same that had visited California the preceding year, some having wintered on the coast. Only four were whalers. The trading fleet proper was of about twenty craft. Of the whole number twelve were American, ten English, three Mexican, three Russian, two each French and Hawaiian, and one perhaps German. Revenue receipts from fragmentary records, which are virtually no records at all, foot up about $14,000 for the year. As the reader will remember, it was in this year that Herrera resigned, and the revenue branches were, if possible, in worse confusion than ever.

An attempt was made to remove some of the restrictions on the importation of foreign goods, deemed disadvantageous to Californian interests. The reforms desired were the free entry of foreign vessels into all the ports and embarcaderos, the subdivision