Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/348

Rh scale ran down to a very low point. Little work and less law was the motto of not a few. Some of the lowest were out-andout for blood and plunder; some of the best had practically the same thought—regarding California as a new Canaan, out of which they were appointed by Providence to drive the new Hittites, Hivites and Jebusites; and probably almost all agreed in despising the inefficiency of the native, his passion for dress and dancing, his guitar, his bland smile and his dainty politeness.

With such and so meagre a population, scattered from San Diego to Sacramento, an air-line distance of about four hundred and fifty miles, the outlook for progress appeared uncertain enough; and California was also hampered by a state of chronic misgovernment and rebellion. In 1836 the people, aided by a few Americans and other foreigners, took up the same battle-cry as Texas, and raised the same blue flag illumined with a single star. The Mexican troops were expelled; and J. B. Alvarado, M. G. Vallejo and José Castro, all of them natives, assumed the control of the province. Two years later Bustamante recognized their government; but in 1843 Santa Anna sent up General Micheltorena, with soldiers that were mostly convicts and officers that were mostly debauchees, to restore the national supremacy. Countenanced and protected by their commander these men, instead of repressing the savages, harassed the people with insults, outrages and murders. At length, in November, 1844, Alvarado and Castro took up the sword; and the following February, after some almost bloodless fighting, the Mexicans were driven out.

Once more the government abjectly accepted a revolutionary situation, recognizing as governor the senior member of the provincial assembly, Pio Pico, and as comandante general José Castro, who had appointed himself to that position; and meantime her destroying the missions and selling their property (1835-44) seemed to emphasize these hints that California was virtually to be thrown away. It has practically been abandoned, wrote the German traveller, Löwenstern, in 1848; and this fact was rendered still clearer by the proposal of May, 1846, that England should take military possession of the province, which Bankhead, the British minister, described