south, to have accepted the new system as the least unfavorable that could be hoped for; and to have devoted themselves in good faith to the performance of their new duties. Their cause was lost; but they had made a long fight, and were personally glad to be relieved of onerous duties; and their prospects were not unfavorable for passing their last years in comfort. It was unfortunate for the country that the system was to be disturbed, and the old controversies were to be to some extent revived.
The disturbance was to come from Mexico, where radical changes in the form of government were effected in 1835, centralism as interpreted by the ambitious dictator, Santa Anna, gaining a victory over federalism. This change, requiring but mere mention for my present purpose, was in its general aspects favorable to the church and to the friars; and one of its immediate results was the passage by the congreso constituyente on November 7th, of the following decree: "Until the curates mentioned in article 2 of the law of August 17, 1833, shall have taken possession, the government will suspend the execution of the other articles, and will maintain things in the state in which they were before the said law was made."[1] This decree, practically repealing the secularization law, and sure if enforced to create greater confusion in the management of the missions than had ever existed before, was not known in California until after the end of 1835, and therefore a presentation of its effects belongs to the next half-decade of mission annals.
Regular mission statistics cease almost entirely with the secularization in 1834, even for the establishments that were not secularized until some years later. Nothing but occasional, special, and fragmentary reports are extant for the period from 1835 to 1846, all ob-
- ↑ Decree of Nov. 7, 1835, in Arrillaga, Recop. 1835, p. 583-4; Halleck's Report, 154; Jones' Report, 63; Hayes' Mission Book, i. 232-3.
