cial protest against the plan of secularization that was being prepared. This was partly because they believed that protests and arguments addressed to the territorial authorities would be without effect, partly because they still thought that secularization could not be effected for want of curates; but largely also, I suppose, because they had hopes of benefits to be derived from the struggle going on in Mexico. Bustamante's revolution against Guerrero was understood to be in the interest of a more conservative church and mission policy. There is no proof that the California padres were at the beginning in direct understanding with the promoters of the movement, but such is not unlikely to have been the case;[1] and there certainly was such an understanding directly after Bustamante's accession. At any rate, their hopes of aid from the new executive proved to be well founded, as we shall see. Meanwhile the national authorities were even more dilatory and inactive than those of the territory. Nothing whatever was done in the matter. The famous junta de fomento seems to have made some kind of a report on secularization before it ceased to exist. Congress took it up in 1830, but decided to leave the missions alone at least until the
- ↑ In the famous Fitch trial, Fitch, Causa Criminal, MS., etc., 339-40, President Sanchez, urged to arrest Echeandía for trial before an ecclesiastical court, declined to do so on account of the tumult it would cause, the prospect of an early change of governors, and the recommendations of Bustamante in his 'most esteemed private letter of April 1lth,' which is quoted as follows: 'Your zeal should not rest a moment in a matter of so great interest; you will understand at once the rectitude of my intentions. Therefore I promise myself that you will not only aid by your influence and by every means in your power the success of my plans, but also take the greatest pains to reëstablish public tranquillity, which to my great sorrow is disturbed, and to bring about perfect peace and harmony among the people. This is my business, which I recommend very particularly to the prudence of your paternity, on whose aid I count for the accomplishment of my desires.' The president also uses, respecting the new governor, the following play upon words: 'Habiendo logrado ya esta desgraciada provincia su Victoria, seguramente se debe esperar que esta jurisdiccion eclesiástica usurpada, y oprimida, tambien conseguirá su victoria.' Vallejo, Hist. Cal., Ms., ii. 109-10, says that the padres learned of Bustamante's pronunciamiento just after the action of the diputacion, and that they immediately signed a petition to the govt against Echeandía, though pretending to the latter at the same time to be anxious to give up the mission temporalities.
