Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/566

508 who sailed to the head of the Gulf, doubled the peninsula, and ascended along the western coast, to the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth degree of north latitude, but was never afterwards heard of.

Nothing daunted by his ill success, Cortés projected still another expedition; but his enterprise was now checked by the viceroy Mendoza, whose mind had been inflamed by the golden reports of an itinerant monk sent to convert the Indians of Sonora, and who had penetrated far into the interior of California. The viceroy claimed the right of discovery, and Cortés appealed to the Emperor. The premature death of Cortés, pending the appeal, put an end to all his ambitious hopes, and, in a considerable degree, to the discoveries which he and others had anticipated.

Various expeditions were subsequently undertaken, but with little or no success. The energetic spirit of the great adventurer and discoverer had died with him; the glittering realms, where gold and precious stones were said to abound in exhaustless profusion, were never reached; and the descendants of the Conquistadores were obliged to content themselves with the far less valuable silver mines of Mexico.

The pearl fisheries in the Gulf of California, however, were soon made available. and formal possession of the peninsula was taken by the Spanish authorities, in 1569. Not quite fifty years later, the Jesuits established themselves in the country, and gradually extended their missions to the north. They were, no doubt, aware of the existence of gold and silver in California; yet they dissuaded the Indians from digging after the minerals, — probably for the reason that they did not suppose there could be sufficient quantities found to render the search profitable, — and encouraged them to devote their time to herding cattle and other agricultural pursuits. In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from the possessions of Spain, and were succeeded, in California, by Franciscan and Dominican friars. Deprived of the fostering care, the energy and industry, of the followers of Ignatius Loyola, the mission establishments began rapidly to decline, and the discoveries which might ultimately have been made under their auspices, were reserved for a more enterprising people than the white inhabitants who now made their way to the Californias.

Adventurers from Mexico, from Spain and the United States, American and European seamen, emigrated thither, and founded settlements on the inner shore of the Gulf, and along the iron-bound coast of the Pacific, from Cape San Lúcas to the Bay of San Francisco.