Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/355

Rh should be converted into parishes, under the management of the ordinary ecclesiastical authorities, and regulated some details of that management. Respecting the real difficulties of secularization, the disposition to be made of mission property, and the obstacles existing in California, it was silent. Supplementary regulations were apparently contemplated, though not mentioned; and such regulations, or what may in a certain sense be construed as such, will be noticed a little later in the instructions to José María Híjar. By the law of August 17th, the expense of putting curates and a vicar in charge of the missions, and also as it appears of supporting them in their new positions — that is, all the expense arising, from the execution of the law — was to be paid from the pious fund. By a later decree of November 26th, the government was authorized "to adopt all measures to insure the colonization, and make effective the secularization of the missions, of Alta and Baja California, using for that purpose in the most convenient manner the estates of the pious fund of those territories, in order to furnish resources to the commission and families now in this capital and intending to go there."

We have seen that ten new padres had come to California in 1833 to reënforce the missionary band; but two of the Fernandinos died this year, José Bernardo Sanchez, ex-president, and Luis Gil y Taboada;