Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/216

198, and they leave no doubt as to what manner of man he was. Personally brave, honest, energetic, straightforward, and devoted to what he deemed the best interests of the territory, he was yet more a comandante general than a gefe político. His idea of his duty was to preserve order and administer justice by military methods, removing without regard to constitutional technicalities such obstacles as might stand in the way of success in carrying out his good intentions. All the Californians in their narratives credit him with personal courage, but with no other good quality, save that a few admit he paid better attention to the comfort as well as the discipline of his soldiers than had his predecessors. Nearly all, after mentioning more or less accurately some of the acts which I have chronicled, express the opinion that Victoria was a cruel, blood-thirsty monster, at whose hands the lives of all honest citizens were in danger, some adding that he was dishonest and avaricious as well, and others asserting that he was a full-blooded negro. So strong is popular prejudice, fostered by a few influential men. There is a notable lack of missionary correspondence in the records of 1831, and I find only one contemporary expression of the padres' opinion respecting Victoria's acts, except that of course they approved his abrogation of the secularization decree. Padre Duran, in the epilogue of his comments upon that measure,