Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/162

144 Many witnesses were examined, both at San Gabriel and San Diego. On the 28th of December the vicar rendered his decision, Christi nomine invocato, that the fiscal had not substantiated his accusations; that the marriage at Valparaiso, though not legitimate, was not null, but valid; that the parties be set at liberty, the wife being given up to the husband; and that they be velados the next Sunday, receiving the sacraments that ought to have preceded the marriage ceremony. "Yet, considering the great scandal which Don Enrique has caused in this province, I condemn him to give as a penance and reparation a bell of at least fifty pounds in weight for the church at Los Angeles, which barely has a borrowed one." Moreover, the couple must present themselves in church with lighted candles in their hands to hear high mass for three dias festivos, and recite together for thirty days one third of the rosary of the holy virgin. Let us hope that these acts of penance were devoutly performed. The vicar did not fail to order an investigation of the charges against Padre Menendez, who had acted irregularly in advising the parties to leave the country; but nothing is recorded of the result.

Only seventeen vessels are named in the records of 1830, besides four that rest on doubtful authority; so that commercial industry would seem to slow diminished prosperity; yet the records of this final year of the decade are less complete than before. A Mexican report makes the revenue receipts at San Diego for