apart, were carried forward in the light of day.
The governor of California had appealed to the missions for gold to pay the soldiers, many of whom, stationed at the presidios, were in hardship, their wives and children in necessitous want. This appeal, out of gratitude for past protection and assistance, was gladly met. It was so generously and promptly met, in truth, that the governor and the military men were surprised. They had found the key to the treasure-boxes of the missions, upon which they had fixed their covetous eyes so long.
From the first respectful, doubtful appeal it was only a step to another, this time with growing boldness in the security of their situation. It became, in modern expression, a graft, this preying on the mission treasure. Little of the gold thus easily secured reached the soldiers in the ranks. The governor, the officers, the favored citizens of influence in the settlements around the missions, profited in easy security by the gold drawn from the padres' generosity on the plea that the soldiers had protected them in the days of their weakness and should now be remembered in the hour of their own distress. The unworthy ones smiled, and put the gold in their own pockets, growing rich on the generosity of gratitude, as many other grafters have done in this moral world, before and since.
It had been a tremendous drain on the missions' treasury, the requirements of the beneficiaries growing as their respect gave way to insolence,
