Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/349

320 as "an indirect offer of sale," and by an explicit suggestion that Prussia occupy it. Mexico had substantially abdicated.

In such a state of things the country could not advance. Indeed it was going backwards. The only source of revenue was the duties collected at Monterey, and this — amounting to $80,000 or $100,000 a year, and signifying the virtual confiscation of about one third of all the property in California — mostly disappeared in official pockets. No military force able to cope with the savages was maintained. In consequence of their incursions farms were being abandoned, and they even raided within the settlements. The laws were openly disregarded. There were practically no courts and no police, and each man had to defend his own person and property. No sort of regular postal facilities existed, and even communication with Mexico was rare and mostly by chance. The only carriage in the country had been one belonging to Micheltorena. There were no real schools, not a single newspaper, and of course hardly any books except in a very few hands.

With gold in sight and actually seen, people did not look for it. In a region where the wild clover grew several feet high and a single grapevine would yield a barrel of juice, the government did nothing, and the citizens could do little, to promote the cultivation of the soil. With all the boundless coast of the Pacific waiting for horses, beef and lumber, droves of unbroken colts tossed their manes in a wilderness, beeves were slaughtered for their hides, and huge trees crashed to the ground amidst the stillness of an untenanted forest. Six-cent muslins cost fifty cents, and the coarsest of straw hats paid a duty of three dollars. If a man wanted a kettle mended, he looked for some one trained abroad; and even a child's torn skirt could not be patched without first getting a hank of thread from Boston.

Naturally the people felt dissatisfied, and their complaints reached far beyond the misbehaving soldiers. Every official professed intense loyalty in public, but that signified nothing. The people were determined to shake off Mexican authority. California will soon declare its independence, wrote the British minister at Mexico in 1841, while his French colleague, who was in close touch with the situation, believed it would merely be a question between England and the United States.