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450 the lion's share of the offices and other benefits of the new system. Before the avowed policy of the new administration was fully known, the most absurd rumors were current, but Los Angeles had much reason to believe that the change was at the least not favorable to its own possession of the capital, and this was ample cause for the opposition of that city. San Diego entertained similar hopes and fears, though in less marked degree, respecting the custom-house. But the opposition in the extreme south was due mainly to another cause, the influence of Juan Bandini. This gentleman saw in the movement at Monterey but one figure, that of his hated foe, Angel Ramirez.

Judge Castillo Negrete on his way to Mexico spent a few weeks in the south, where he attacked with argument, invective, and ridicule the revolutionary leaders, devoting all his energies to fanning the flame of popular discontent already kindled by local prejudice. The result was, that the most exaggerated ideas of Alvarado's policy were instilled into the public mind, so far as the people at large could be induced to think of the subject at all. The conditional element of the plan of independence was ignored altogether; Mexico had been defied, and California, defenceless, was exposed to the rapacity of foreign nations, if not indeed already virtually delivered to agents of the United States. All Mexicans had been or were to be banished, and their property confiscated, perhaps their very lives endangered. The south was to have no voice in the new administration. Even the catholic faith was dishonored, and protestant heresy was to be encouraged. Such were the fears which certain individuals deemed it for their interest to inculcate, and it is wonderful what unswerving loyalty and patriotism, what respect for the power of Mexico, what devotion to the true faith, and what ardent zeal to put themselves right on the record and avert the terrible consequences of Mexican wrath were all at once developed in the southern mind and