the only civil organization in the south, recognized him, and declared it would not recognize any other, and it never did recognize any other; though by approving Zamorano's plan it virtually assented to the doctrine of a vacancy. The 16th of February Echeandía offered to surrender the office to avoid the use of force; but his offer was not accepted. The compact of May 8th-9th contained not a word against his claims to the office, even according to Zamorano's version of that compact; and Echeandía did not relinquish his claims, but on the contrary asserted them, and performed some few and slight acts, in the matter of elections and secularization, in his capacity of gefe político.[1] There was never any decision of the question by the Mexican authorities, nor in fact any necessity for such decision. If I give a chronological list of rulers elsewhere in this work, I must either use Echeandía's name for 1832 or leave the place blank. Meanwhile the reader may decide for himself.
Now Californian affairs in Mexico demand attention. Cárlos Carrillo, the congressman, was bitterly disappointed when he heard of the revolution against Victoria. The news seemed to weaken his eloquent eulogies of the Californians as a law-abiding people. He had flattered himself on having reached the brink of success in obtaining several advantageous measures for his constituents. Probably he had made less progress than he supposed, but the late events afforded the president and ministers a convenient excuse for refusing to carry out certain partial promises. All hope for a separation of the military and civil commands, for an organic law, for courts, for a proper
- ↑ July 19th, Z. in a proclamation to the people refers to E.'s rejection of certain articles of the compact and to his claim to be gefe político as subjects respecting which discussion had been voluntarily discontinued on account of the expected arrival of a new gefe at an early date. Vallejo, Doc., MS., i. 314. Castillo Negrete in 1835 alludes to Echeandía as 'el intruso gefe político.' Dept. St. Pap., Ben. Mil., MS., lxxviii. 53.
