The order brought out, however, from the padres of San Juan Capistrano, a defence of the Indian title to the lands in California running back to the time when, according to Ezra the prophet, the Jews wandered across Bering Strait to people America.[1]
In a communication of 1833 Echeandía, after alluding to his instructions, by which, as we have seen, much was left to his own judgment, explained his acts in these years as follows: "Intrusted with the task of arranging the system of both Californias, supplying as best I could in indispensable cases the lack of administration of justice, busied in regulating the treasury branches since the comisario abused his trust, lacking the necessary supplies for the troops, at the end of my resources for other expenses, struggling to put in good order the necessarily tolerated traffic with foreign vessels, anxious to establish regular and secure communication with Sonora via the Colorado, combating the general addiction to the Spanish government and the despotic system, encountering the abuses introduced in all branches by the revolution and enormously propagated by the total neglect of the viceregal government during the war of independence — occupied, I say, with so many cares, without aid in the civil or military administration, and finally having no Mexican priests to take the place of the malecontent Spaniards in divine worship, if they should abandon it as happened at Santa Bárbara and San Buenaventura, or should be expelled as insufferable royalists, as some of them are, and as was he of San Luis Obispo, who favored the Solis revolt for Spain — which, though I had the good fortune to suppress it, interfered with the progress of good government — some of the missionaries mismanaging the property of their subjects, and others refusing to remain under the federal gov-
- ↑ Zalvidea and Barona, Peticion al Gefe Político á favor de los Indios, 1827, MS.
letter to Barron, 1828, says the missions have seized upon nearly all the land in the territory, so as to exclude private persons. Bandini, Doc., MS., 8.
