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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA.

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CHAPTER I.

A TERRITORY OF THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC.

1825.

Ratification of the Federal Constitution—Junta de Californias in Mexico—Compañía Asiático-Mexicana—Sessions of the Diputation-Echeandía Appointed Governor-Transfer of the Office at San Diego-Biography of Don Luis Argüello—Ecneandía's Companions—Pacheco, Zamorano, and Ramirez—Herrera as Comisario de Hacienda—The Missions—The Padres Refuse Allegiance to the Republic—The Diputacion on Secularization—Padre Duran as President—Mission Supplies and Finance—Vessels on the Coast—Surrender of the 'Asia' and 'Constante'—Morrell's Visit and Book—Commerce—Foreign Residents—A Rainy Season.

In the preceding volume I have completed the annals of California as a province of Spain and of the Mexican empire to the year 1824. In the present volume I continue its history as a territory and department of the Mexican republic to 1840. But while 1825-40 are the chronological limits assigned, it has been found inconvenient, as already explained, to make the subdivisions of time and topics agree exactly. Local annals have been continued in an earlier volume to 1830; herein they are completed for another decade, and the regular thread of political history is followed to 1840; but the institutional history for 1836–40, including some important phases of foreign relations, is necessarily left for the first six chapters of volume iv. The leading features here presented are the develop-