Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/351

322 sounded publicly in such newspapers as the London Times and London Chronicle. Notices regarding the danger of American encroachment — particularly by the method of emigration, a declaration of independence and early annexation — were received over and over again from the Mexican minister at Washington, the Mexican consul at New Orleans, Pakenham, the British minister, and Bankhead, who succeeded him. This peril was notorious, declared General Mora y Villamil near the close of 1845; and the government itself recognized the gravity of the situation. In March of that year the minister of war and the minister of relations admitted publicly that California had been grossly misgoverned and was liable to slip away. Yet the government did-nothing, and confessed that nothing could be done.

Virtually, we say again, it was abdication. Both morally and physically Mexico had thrown away and forever lost her control of the province. She had nothing left except the bare thread of legal proprietorship; and in certain cases legality is, according to enlightened modern ideas, nothing. It is our conviction that human welfare is the supreme test; and the welfare, not merely of California but of all the world, certainly required that so rich & portion of the earth should be developed and occupied. In our opinion a child, neglected and abused by drunken parents who are always fighting each other, has good grounds for leaving home, though not legally independent. We believe in the right of revolution, which means that when "a country misgoverns persistently a considerable part of the population, it forfeits all claims to domineer over them; and California, though her weakness led officials to practice a lip service that deceived nobody, had more than once rebelled, had made good her cause, and entertained no thought of accepting Mexican rule again.

She was, therefore, being in every way unable to establish herself as an independent nation and gain the recognition of the world as such, quite adrift. The province is now "at the mercy of whoever may choose to take possession of it," wrote the nearest British consul in 1845. Californians, Mexicans, Britons, French and Americans, who were qualified to judge, agreed on that. She was the homeless child, whom any kind, intelligent and well-to-do person may, and some kind,