Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/647

 CHAPTER XXII. LOCAL ANNALS OF LOS ANGELES DISTRICT.

1831-1840.

DURING this decade Los Angeles was a centre of political agitation and of military achievement. From the expulsion of Governor Victoria in 1831, after a battle fought not far from town, there was hardly a month in which the Angelinos did not feel themselves to be responsible in a peculiar manner for the salvation of California, either from the arbitrary encroachments of Mexican despots or from the mad folly of Monterey patriots, whose methods of resisting despotism did not merit the approval of abajefio office-seekers, and who were blind to the claims of the angelic city as capital of the province. Especially in the struggle against Alvarado and in favor of Cárlos Carrillo as governor did the zeal of Los Angeles manifest itself, though it was strongly reënforced by eloquence from San Diego. But in this struggle the south was destined to defeat, for Santa Barbara when not hostile was lukewarm, San Diego if eloquent was not warlike, and the arribeno leaders, (629)