DAWN AND THE DONS 16
of political complications in Europe, and impending war with Spain, Queen Elizabeth abandoned these plans, for a time, but this was not immediately known at Madrid,
and after much discussion and delay, Philip III, then King of Spain, issued in 1599 an imperative order that the coast of California should be explored, and a suitable point found for a settlement and colonization. Another consideration moving Spain was a desire for a harbor of refuge on the Californian coast for her Manila galleons. Once each year, a lone galleon made its way across the Pacific from Mexico to the Philippines, to return rich laden with the products of those tropical isles and the nearby lands of the Orient. Spain very much desired to foster and encourage this infant child of commerce as an aid in uniting and developing her distant possessions on the Pacific, or South Sea, as it was
then called. The better mentally to picture the situation, it must be remembered that in those days, aside from the lone, annual galleon, and at rare intervals, some ad-
