Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/444

370, who might wander over the plains and mountains in search of their flocks, was peculiarly suited to a population emerging from the nomadic state; and accordingly we find that the region was well stocked, whilst the missions and their dependencies flourished. In 1831, Mr. Forbes tells us, that there were in this province,—

In addition to these there were vast numbers, roaming at large, which were not marked or branded, according to California laws, as belonging to any of the jurisdictions, missions, haciendas or towns. These were hunted and slain to prevent their interference with the pasturage of the more useful and appropriated cattle; yet from all this multitude but little profit was gained except for hides and tallow. Beef was not salted and prepared for foreign markets, the dairy was altogether neglected, and butter and cheese almost unknown. In the earlier days of the settlement, many thousand cattle were annually driven either to the city of Mexico or to the interior provinces from the large estates on the Pacific; but that traffic was gradually abandoned under the habitual sloth of the people, nor was it until many years after the trade of the ports was opened by the war of independence, that a comparatively brisk intercourse opened with the Sandwich Islands and our own people, who were willing to exchange their manufactures for the hides and tallow of the Californians.

Such was the condition of affairs in this primitive pastoral region when the war between Mexico and the United States broke out. For a long time the natives and settlers had been discontented with their national government that usurped the milder sway of the clergy; yet it is probable that most of the revolutionary movements were founded on personal ambition and avarice rather than patriotic impulses, nor is it likely that the territory would have secured its independence without the aid of a foreign power. British interests had undoubtedly counselled the acquisition of California; but the fate of war suddenly threw it into our hands, and probably at the very moment when English subjects and the Mexican government were combining to exclude us from the positions on the Pacific