pleted ranks. Padres Jesus María Martinez and Francisco Cuculla, Dominicans from Baja California, seem however to have spent a considerable portion of the year in the territory.
Meanwhile in the Mexican congress Cárlos Carrillo was exerting all his influence and eloquence in opposition to any change. He was a partisan of the friars, and foresaw nothing but ruin in secularization. He expressed his views at considerable length in letters to Captain Guerra, which may be taken as copies for the most part of his private and public arguments at the capital.[1] A branch of the same subject, and one of more urgent importance at the time than secularization proper, was the disposition to be made of the pious fund, a topic under discussion in congress. The estates of the fund had been for twenty years neglected, and for the most part unproductive; the question was how to make them again productive, and how to apply the revenues. Hitherto the estates had been administered in one way or another by the government; the revenues over and above the expenses of administration had been constantly dwindling; and for a long time no aid had been given to the missions. Now it was proposed to dispose of the property, in perpetuity or for a long period, by emphyteutic sale, which of course would involve a great sacrifice of actual value, and would yield a very slight revenue, but which would put into the hands of the government a large amount of ready money. The friends of the missions favored a renting of the estates on the most advantageous terms possible for short periods, and were assisted by many who cared nothing for the missions, but were opposed to a wanton sacrifice of property.
Don Cárlos prepared an elaborate argument against the proposed sale, and intrusted it to a fellow-mem-
- ↑ Carrillo, Cartas del Diputado, MS., passim. Especially letter of April 25, 1831, p. 200-9. Oct. 19, 1831, the min. of justice and eccl. aff. replies to the síndico of Cal. missions that the mission property cannot be regarded as belonging to the public treasury. S. Luis Ob., Arch., MS., 11.
