rate defence of his own policy, which was a very complete history of the whole affair, and has been fully utilized with other documents in the preceding pages. It was besides one of the earliest specimens of California printing — in fact, the second book printed in the territory.[1] As a defence, the production is somewhat too elaborate and earnest. The governor's action at the beginning in refusing to give up the command and the mission property, as later in banishing Apalátegui and Torres, were so manifestly just and proper as to require no justification. His acts in other phases of the controversy, not perhaps without a certain foundation of justice and policy, would show to better advantage without the declamatory arguments in their support with which the volume is largely filled. The author's very earnestness and violence at times betray the weakness of his cause. The charge of bribery against Híjar should have been made sooner or not at all. I have elsewhere expressed my belief that the revolutionary plots of Híjar and Padrés were largely imaginary.
Of the men exiled from California at this time, Híjar will re-appear in the history of a later period; but of the rest I know nothing. I have found no record bearing upon their reception and treatment in Mexico, nor any evidence that the directors ever published a reply to Figueroa's manifiesto, or took any other steps to vindicate their conduct in California. For them the colony and the Compañia Cosmopolitana were disastrous failures. Of Padrés I would gladly append a biographical sketch, as I have done of other promi-
- ↑ Figueroa, Manifiesto á la República Mejicana que hace el General de Brigada José Figueroa, Comandante General y Gefe Político de la Alta California, sobre su conducta y la de los Señores D. José María de Híjar, y D. José María Padrés, como Directores de Colonizacion en 1834 y 1835. Monterrey, 1835. Imprenta del C. Agustin V. Zamorano, 12mo. 184 p. This book was being printed when the author died, and contains some obituary matter to he noticed later. An English translation was printed in S. Francisco in 1855. Figueroa, The Manifiesto which the General of Brigade, etc., S. F. 1855, 8vo, 104 p., the title on the cover being Missions of California. As has been seen, the originals of most documents published in the Manifiesto are extant, either in my collection or in some of the archives.
