DAWN AND THE DONS 26
opportunity on his part to refuse. He was drafted, but he proved to be a willing, able and zealous leader of his spiritual band.
To Croix, Galvez and mar; Me LE, era! Serra, California owes a debt of everlasting grati- tude. It is not too much to say that these three Facsimile Signature men saved California to Marquis de Croix Spain and Mexico and made possible her later entry into our great union of states. In his “California Under Spain and Mexico,” Irving Berdine Richman says:
“But it was the expedition to Monterey—his own conception—that claimed the heart of Galvez. It claimed also the heart of Croix; and straightway it was known, the heart of Junipero Serra. An unusual group, one unusual even in Spain, were the three men, Jose de Galvez, Visitador; Francisco Serra, President de Croix, Viceroy, of the California and Junipero Missions: Galvez, honest, masterful and bluff; Croix, honest, discerning and diplomatic; Serra, a seraphic spirit, a later Salvitierra, a New World Francis of Assissi; post-medizval, yet not belated for his task; beholder of visions, believer in miracles, merciless wielder of the penitential scourge; yet through simple purity of heart, possessed of courage not unequal to labor the most arduous, and of a wisdom not unequal to situations the most perplexing. When, therefore, two from the group—Galvez and Serra—met
