NO. 5 GALLERY OPENS ON OAK BAY AVENUE NEAR RICHMOND: ‘Metal Maidens’ Lynn Laughren + Kathy Cameron exhibit ’til July 30

GALLERY TAKES ITS UNUSUAL NAME FROM LAST NAME OF OWNERS

A first class new art gallery has just opened in a stand-alone house at 1814 Oak Bay Avenue near Richmond in Victoria, site of a former China-wear collectors’ shop.  The No. 5 Gallery is named after the last name in Chinese of the gallery owners, Mr. and Mrs. Ng.  I had a very informative chat with Mr. Ng, who drew my attention to the work of their two featured artists this month, Lynn Laughren and Kathy Cameron, who together are billed as the ‘Metal Maidens.’

Lynn Laughren works in metal sculpture and it is hard not to be impressed by her skillful and surrealistic command of the medium.  A huge fierce dragon dominates the middle of the gallery, and smaller reptilian creatures are placed on pedestals or shelves around the brightly designed space.

The other ‘Metal Maiden,’ Kathy Cameron, works in ‘gold leaf rendering,’ burning the real gold leaf to achieve swirly psychedelic patterns between the neatly drawn forms.  Somewhat reminiscent of cloisonne, the technique is unusual and doesn’t come cheap.  One impressive piece that particularly caught my eye was called ‘Tree of Life’ on the back wall.

The gallery is very nicely appointed, with proper gallery lighting to highlight the work on display and ample space for viewers to browse comfortably.  They are open to inspecting the portfolios of other artists who may be looking for a gallery to represent them.  The quality of the work would presumably have to be commensurate with what is currently on display.  They also offer giclee prints, fine art reproduction, ‘online fulfillment’ and cards by local artists.

Next show at the No. 5 Gallery starts on July 31st between 6:00 p. m. and 9:00 p.m. with the ‘innovative and talented artists’ Don Osborne and Glenn T. Patterson.  ’Complimentary Food and Beverage’ are advertised on the opening night advertising card.

Congratulations are in order for the courage of the No. 5 Gallery’s owners Mr. Ng, his wife Jeanne Marie Ng, and Gallery Director Mahshed Hooshmand.  Let’s all wish them the best in these challenging economic times.

- ‘Goyo de la Rosa’

 

NO. 5 GALLERY

1814 OAK BAY AVENUE

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA,

CANADA, V8R 1B9

TELEPHONE: 250 590 63 23

WEBSITE: www.no5gallery.com

EMAIL addresses:

Jeanne Marie Ng: jeanne@no5gallery.com

Mahshed Hooshmand: mahshed@no5gallery.com

 

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL ARTS PROPAGANDA 2009

Don Guillermo Hartnell’s cousin Dr. Robert Wyllie informed him that their ‘old friend McCulloch died’ leaving ‘his and your claim on the Mexican government’

Wyllie’s letter ends with distressing news of Mr. Brotherston, the family friend and kind employer of Hartnell’s youth: “Brotherston became a Bankrupt, and is now serving as a Clerk to a Bank in Newport, Wales.”  And Hartnell’s former partner, “our old friend McCulloch died in February, 1842 near Liverpool, of disease of the Heart.  He left his and your claim on the Mexican government.”

From Mexico City, Wyllie writes again to Hartnell on November 5.  It is almost a duplicate of his August communication from Tepic, which he fears may have miscarried.  But he refers, in addition, to efforts of the late English envoy to Mexico, Mr. Pakenham, to settle several private claims, among them the ancient bill of McCulloch, Hartnell and Company for $7,800 to the Mexican government.  McCulloch’s heirs in England now wish to renew attempts at collection.  To his earlier arguments for acquiring land in California in order to settle the huge Mexican debt to the Spanish-American bondholders, Dr. Wyllie adds:

‘The British bondholders prefer lands on the Atlantic coast but as without doubt both the United States and France grasp at California and as Mexico cannot defend it, it is evidently more for the interest of this country to strengthen that remote Department, by throwing the Colonists there – California would thus soon become capable of defending itself and its connection with Mexico would be secured.’

Of course there is a personal stake in this huge transaction.  As a silent partner in the firm of Barron and Forbes, which he admits to be “a shrewd establishment with a vigilant eye to the main chance,” Wyllie stands to profit handsomely by the commissions and other benefits the firm would receive for handling the cession.

 

[Pages 262 - 263 of Susanna Bryant Dakin's 1949 history of Upper California, The Lives of William Hartnell]

PEACEMAKER: William Hartnell’s ‘correspondence with Robert Wyllie flourished during the forties as never before’

Shortly after de Mofras’ visit, A. M. Barrier was named French consul to California.  Circumstances prevented his arrival, however; and Louis Gasquet, making the long and dangerous journey in his place, did not appear until 1845, only a few months before the Mexican War.  The appointment of James Forbes as British vice-consul spurred Washington to action.  Thomas Larkin was informed that henceforth he must act as United States consul, retaining his residence in Monterey.  As in Hartnell’s case, he long had performed the duties of the office without receiving recognition or remuneration from his mother country.

Deprived of diplomatic duties by Forbes’s appointment and of many customhouse chores by the war scare which was driving trade away from Monterey, William Hartnell had unaccustomed leisure for letter writing.  He made good use of it.  His correspondence with Robert Wyllie flourished during the forties as never before; and it was concerned, for the most part, with an ambitious scheme for British colonization of California.

Alexander Forbes a few years back had been first to promote the idea that Mexico should discharge a portion of her huge debt to Great Britain by the cession of land in California and Texas.  This seemed displeasing to the British foreign office, whose policy was retention of the status quo and more intensive settlement of established British colonies, particularly Canada.

In 1839 conservative Richard Hartnell, representing the foreign office, had come from London to visit his long-lost cousin William, living in the capital of California.  Following the Atlantic voyage, he traveled overland to the west coast.  On the way he found much to displease him in Texas, now hopelessly Americanized, and the same tendancies seemed to be sprouting riotously in California.  Returning to London after a brief visit in Monterey, he wrote a series of letters to the London Times, comparing British and American colonization in North America.

With dignified asperity, Richard Hartnell decried such publications as Forbes’s California as “tending to induce ignorant and weakminded farmers, without further inquiry, to embark themselves and families to a country still subject to war, rapine, and disorder.”  Canada and other colonies established by Great Britain in the traditional way seemed to Cousin Richard the suitable goal for English emigrants.  In conclusion he maintained that Texans and Californians always will “sympathize more with their republican slave-holding mama than with their monarchical antislave-holding grandmama.”

Robert Wyllie had been visited by Richard Hartnell in Texas.  In correspondence with William, Robert discussed and disclaimed the prejudices which so violently colored their London cousin’s point of view.  But family feeling prompted his offer to defend Richard when a libel suit was threatened by angered Texans, claiming he had mentioned them by name in a superior, insulting manner.  Fortunately, wrote Wyllie, “it came to nothing.”

From Tepic on August 10, 1843, came a description of the most intelligent and ambitious British plan to colonize California, from Dr. Wyllie to William Hartnell, who were each to play a prominent part.  How Richard Hartnell would have ranted on reading such a letter from one outlandish cousin to another, in direct opposition to foreign office policy!

‘I have for years been a member of the Committee in London of the Spanish-American Bondholders, and have taken an active part in all their transactions.

‘By an arrangement with the Bondholders in 1837, the Mexican Debt was divided into about 5,000,000 pounds deferred, bearing no interest till the first of October, 1847, but up to that date, at the option of the Holder exchangeable for land at the rate of 5 shillings per acre, in payment of which the bonds were to be received at par with 5 percent interest from the first of October, 1837, to date payable in so much more land, at the same price.  In guaranty of this arrangement, so advantageous to Mexico, its Government hypothecates 100 millions of aces of vacant lands in Texas, Chihuahua, New Mexico, Sonora and California; and the Bondholders stiplutated for and obtained a further amount of 25 millions of acres of land in the Departments nearest to the Atlantic.

‘As yet, not one acre of land has been taken up under this arrangement, for the British bondholders want their money, not lands in Mexico.  But the first of October, 1847, will soon come round, and as the whole Deferred Bonds, unless previously redeemed by land, become active, that is entitled to 5 per cent interest, the debt of this description will swell up to nearly 11,000,000 pounds requiring 55,000 pounds or $2,750,000 for the yearly interest.  There is no chance that Mexico in 1847 will be able to pay this interest, or more than 5 per cent interest upon the half (which would be 2 1/2 per cent upon the whole) which we yet weren’t bound and striving to do.  Consequently it becomes of the utmost importance both to Mexico and all of her creditors to extinguish as much as possible of the Debt by converting the Bonds into land, in some of the Departments named.

‘The feeling of the Committee – I may say of the Bondholders generally, is that if lands be taken at all, they should be near the Atlantic Coast, where Immigrants could the more easily live and whence they could the more cheaply shop their produce.  Yet the climate there is unfavorable to the health of Europeans, and I myself have always thought that Upper California is the best site for the English bondholders and the Mexican Government.  I have always contended for this in the committee, but I want correct data wherewith to argue down the objections proposed to colonization  in a quarter so remote.  Can you furnish me confidentially with detailed answers to the following questions – and any other information you may possess?’

Wyllie asks twenty-four questions which show real penetration of intellect and scope of understanding, as for instance, when he queries:

‘Are the inhabitants generally so orderly and contented under the Mexican Government, that European Farmers could establish themselves there with a reasonable security of being able to live quietly under the Mexican government and of that government being able to protect them?  (This is of great importance for the British government will give no protection whatever to British subjects settling in California as citizens of Mexico, nor do they wish to see it in any other hands but those of Mexico.  I know this to be the fact and that Commodore Jones’ apprehension was a perfect bugbear) . . . . . 

‘Be pleased to add any other information you may think useful, and unless you have reasons to the contrary, let me add your name. . . . . You must perceive that it would tend greatly to improve your condition and that of every other Californian, to preserve California to the Mexican government as a valuable dependency for the example of Texas is detested in Great Britain . . . . . If you wish your information to appear in a pamphlet, under your own name, I will have it published at my own expense.’

[Pages 259 - 262 of Susanna Bryant Dakin's history of Alta California: The Lives of William Hartnell] 

PEACEMAKER: Count de Mofras advocated that France acquire ‘the entire harbor of San Francisco, the key to the Pacific Ocean’

Dona Teresa’s opinion of Count de Mofras is the lowest on record.  Others range from the mild opprobrium of vecino Alvarado to enthusiastic French reviews of his Travels on the West Coast.  Senor Alvarado said:

‘He is a youth of good literary reputation, of an impetuous character and generous instincts; but unfortunately he arrived among us imbued with false ideas about our character.  He believes that the inhabitants of this country are brutal Indians whose duty it is to prostrate themselves before him.’

The Count’s own words bear out Alvarado’s opinion and show a contempt not only for the Californians but for their brothers living in an adjacent land:

‘I have recently visited a large part of Mexican territory and found the moral and political conditions deplorable; the people possess all the worst qualities of the Spaniards and few of their virtues.  On all sides disorder, decay and corruption to exceed anything known in Europe prevail.  The North Americans, the English, and the Russians do not conceal their designs on upper California . . . . Obviously France never has been in a more propitious position than she is now to replace the deplorable loss of Canada and Louisiana.  Already mistress of the Marquesas and Tahiti, she could materially enhance her power by assuring herself of one of the Sandwich Islands, by purchasing the settlement at Port Bodega [Ross] which would be a preliminary step toward acquiring the entire harbor of San Francisco, the key to the Pacific Ocean; by grouping around this the French-Spanish Catholics of the country, by opening to our countrymen who are constantly going out to settle in the United States, Buenos Ayres, and Chile, a vast field for national colonization and by establishing on a continent over which our flag has long floated, a new French America!’  

 

[Pages 258 - 259 of Susanna Bryant Dakin's 1949 history of Alta California: The Lives of William Hartnell]

DONA TERESA DE LA GUERRA HARTNELL found French Count Duflot de Mofras ‘dead drunk’ on her husband Don Guillermo Hartnell’s library floor

It is not surprising that the hearing was long-drawn-out and unsuccessful, for Jones had not endeared himself to the Californians any more than had his fellow countryman Graham.  Even the good will that many bore toward Hartnell did not alter an underlying, hostile attitude toward Americans.  Not a hand had been lifted, not a gun fired, by the surprised Californians when their capital was captured.  It was only when Commodore Jones appeared peacefully in court that he encountered resistance, always cloaked with courtesy.  In spite of Hartnell’s explanation of Jones’s recent act, and his eloquent appeal for justice in the earlier incident, no American citizen involved in the Graham affair received recompense of any kind, in contrast to the considerable reparation secured by the British Captain Jones.

The continuing presence of American naval officers, during this rehash of the Graham affiar, tightened the tension in Monterey, as did the arrival of General Micheltorena with an army of felons released from Mexican prisons.  Other military men and diplomats from other countries continued to appear in the capital of California, until an atmosphere could be sensed as of buzzards gathering for a feast, while the victim still lived and shivered with fear.

“From war deliver us, Lord!” prayed Hugo Reid from his beautiful home at Rancho Santa Anita.  But the idyl was ended, and the realization transformed the most fortunate into the most pessimistic.  The rancheros had so much to lose, with any kind of change.  William Hartnell saw and understood that deep pessimism was combining with lotus-land lethargy to induce a strange paralysis of brain power and manly courage, even among his best friends and closest relatives.  Hartnell saw them as helpless under an evil spell.  In their hearts they were living in another time.  They needed someone to awaken them, to inspire them to defense of their own way of life before it vanished entirely and forever.  But no such person appeared, either among the hijos del pais or in the constant stream of visitors to the California coast.

Near the beginning of that eventful year, 1842, a strange visitor had come riding north along El Camino Real.  He turned aside near Alisal, rode past the two-storey adobe that was Alvarado’s summer home, and knocked at the Hartnell door.  He was a French diplomat carrying a letter from his king to the man who so often had acted as host to French travellers.  This personage arrived in the absence of Don Guillermo, and made an undying impression on Dona Teresa.  She later told a fantastic tale of the well-known writer and world traveler, Count Duflot de Mofras:

‘While my husband . . . . was in San Diego attending to official affairs there appeared at my ranch house at Alisal a stranger who, on finding the door of the library unlocked, entered within its walls and immediately began to search every nook and corner; one of my Indian servants, who had noticed the newly arrived guest and had kept a watch on his doings, came to me in a great hurry and notified me that there was a stranger in the house.  I ordered him to return to the library and ask the intruder what business he wished to transact with me; but the only answer he obtained was a peremptory order to take care of his horse.  I hastened to the library and perceiving there a stranger inquired of him what right he had to search the private papers of my husband.  He replied that he was called Duflot de Mofras, that he was a member of the French Legation in Mexico; that he travelled through Upper California by order of his King and that having met Mr. Hartnell in San Luis Rey had from  him obtained permission to stop in Alisal as long as he pleased; that acting on that invitation he had made bold to intrude upon my premise.

‘I wondered that Mr. Hartnell should have given so unlimited an invitation to a stranger; I also wondered that I had not been notified of his arrival in San Luis Rey, but knowing that my husband was proverbially hospitable, I did not hesitate to oder a room for Mr. Mofras and extended him an invitation to dinner.  While at my table he found fault with every one of our dishes, however, he did full justice to the wine.  At night he listened to our playing on the piano and then retired to rest.  Unfortunately in his sleeping room I had deposited a barrel of the choicest wine which my father had sent me from Santa Barbara to be given to the priests, who used it while saying mass in our private chapel.  The wine was of superior quality and much sought after by every foreigner who visited this country.  Next morning at breakfast my guest, not making an appearance, I detailed a servant to call him; but Mr. Mofras not giving any answer to his repeated calls I ordered the door to be broken; and there stretched upon the floor my Frenchman lay dead drunk, bedding in a filthy state and many gallons of the wine missing from the barrel.  A spell of sickness overtook the drunkard; during days I watched  over him with the care of a mother; at last he got stronger, took daily rides on horeseback and often returned home drunk.  For my husband’s sake I never complained.

‘One day, however, he suddenly left taking along with him a new suit of black clothes belonging to Mr. Hartnell.  I did not miss the property until the return of my husband; who, when informed of the behavior of De Mofras, felt very indignant and assured me that he had never seen the man and much less given him authority to stop at his house.  Later in the day, having found his trunk broken open and rifled of its contents, I set about taking  the required steps toward obtaining a clue to the robber and shortly after made the discovery that my late guest was the thief.’

 

[Serialization of Susanna Bryant Dakin's 1949 book,

The Lives of William Hartnell, pages 255 - 258]

PEACEMAKER: Pages 245 – 255 of Susanna Bryant Dakin’s history ‘The Lives of William Hartnell’

Father Short, writing from Valparaiso in February 1840, asks friend Hartnell: “Is Mr. Forbes of San Jose the author of the new History of California?”  He likes certain extracts he has seen and is confused, like many others, by the fact that the man who wrote such a knowledgeable book never once visited the territory.  The long-time resident, James Alexander Forbes, was a well-educated Scot who seemed a more logical historian than the  Tepic trader.  So the question is natural.

Following Patrick Short’s note up the coast came one from the author written to Hartnell on April 27, 1840:

‘I do not know if the book I took into my head to write about California has ever reached you – for this reason I take the opportunity by the French Man of War to send one.  Captain Rosamel has kindly promised to take charge of it.  You who know of course much more than I can possibly do of the country you live in, will doubtless find many things incorrect – many things overrated, and in short scores of blunders, and perhaps false notions of the capabilities of California.  All I can say is, that what I have stated has been from conviction of its truth and taken from the best authorities I could procure, both oral and written.  The book has been much noticed in all the periodical publications in England.  But if you will plainly let me know your opinion it will be of more value with me than any other, as few can know so much on the subject as yourself.  I also send a book of steam from friend Wyllie.’

The concluding portion of Forbes’s book is on the subject of steam and the wonderful possiblities of trade in the Pacific when there shall be a railroad, or perhaps a canal, across the Isthmus of Panama; also a line of steamers operating regularly along the western coast of the Americas and out to the Sandwich Isles, Manila and Canton.  Only then will California fulfill her destiny.

Protestant Forbes gives credit to the mission fathers for good character and industrious habits.  However, in the end he condemns their system and decries its results.  His fellow countrymen, downtrodden and overcrowded at home, can take hope when he says:

‘I do not despair that the time will come when prudent men will be sent among the heathens, carrying with them Bibles and tracts certainly, but also agricultural and manufacturing implements and useful mechanical inventions, with instructions to reclaim the savages by the fascination of a more comfortable, worldly existence.’

Father Patrick’s favorable opinion of the book, derived from extracts, must have changed with perusal of the whole.  The aims of padre and trader were diametrically opposed, and would forever be.  Herbert Priestly, writing the foreward to a reprint of Forbes’s book one hundred years after first publication, calls it “a monument to the struggle of British imperialists to turn the tide of history into their own channels, against the reluctance of their own Foreign Office, the onrush of the swarming Yankees, and the hopes of the no less covetous French.”

William Hartnell reeceived a first edition of this explosive volume from the hands of a French naval officer.  On June 11, 1840, Captain Rosamel, commanding the sloop of war Danaide, entered the Bay of Monterey with open ports, ready to fire.

In the south a wild rumor had reached him of an insurrection of Californians against all foreigners.  Two Frenchmen, he heard , had been killed, and others severely wounded.  The Captain was rushing in to avenge his country’s honor, to demand satisfaction.  With representatives of Great Britain and the United States he would be drawn into the aftermath of the notorious Graham affair.  This had started as a local fracas no more important than a number which had occurred in California during the revolutionary thirties.  But it attained international importance because of its moment in time.

Isaac Graham was the crude backwoodsman who had assisted Alvarado into the governor’s seat in 1836.  For a time Alvarado kept his campaign promises, showing gratitude to Graham and his following of lawless trappers and deserters from various coastal vessels.  But this group, to which Belcher alluded as “a bandit gang,” presumed upon the connection in a way that gave offense to the Governor.  Even the New Englander, Alfred Robinson, was sympathetic when Alvarado complained to him:

‘I was insulted at every turn by the drunken followers of Graham.  When walking in the garden, they would come to the wall and call to me with excessive familiarity: “Ho! Bautista,, come here, I want to speak to you.”  Bautista here, Bautista there, and Bautista everywhere!’

A multiplication of annoying incidents strained Alvarado’s patience to the breaking point.  Also he commenced to fear the double influx, from over the mountains and across the seas, of more of Graham’s kind, few of Robinson’s, from the United States.  He feared that California might become another Texas, where the uprising against Mexican government (in 1836) and subsequent state of independence had been attended with much lawlessness and the introduction of Negro slavery.

Early in April 1840, Padre del Real of San Carlos warned the Governor of an intended uprising of American residents in the vicinity of Monterey.  The plot had been revealed to him in confessional by a foreigner on the point of death.  At an emergency meeting of the junta, called on April 4, further evidence was introduced.  Though mostly circumstantial, it sufficed to arouse the legislative body.  The Governor was cheered when he cried that the presumption of the foreigners called for punishment.  Following the meeting, by Alvarado’s orders, General Vallejo started a roundup of suspicious characters who had entered and were living unlawfully in California.  The worst offenders, equal numbers of Americans and British subjects, were carried away on the Guipuzcoana to trial in Tepic.  And peace settled over the country, for a few weeks.

From this incident grew the most fantastic stories of abuse and torture to person and despoliation to property of all foreigners in California, and so on, and so on.  It was overlooked that respected British and American subjects like Robinson, Hartnell, Cooper, Spence, and Larkin continued to go about their business and remained friendly and sympathetic with Governor Alvarado.  The few troublemakers who remembered these men attacked them vituperatively in memoirs and newspaper articles.

Thomas Jefferson Farnham became a prime offender in falsifying and magnifying the Graham affair.  He was a grandilloquent lawyer from Maine who happened to arrive in Monterey in the midst of the excitement.  Unfortunately, when calling by custom at the Hartnell home, he found Don Guillermo out of town, thus losing the opportunity of calm discussion with a fair-minded man.  To Hartnell he penned his disappointment in not meeting so rare a creature as “an enlightened gentleman on these distant seas.”  He continued:

‘I had anticipated, among other advantages to be derived from an interview with you, Sir, the obtainment of a true history of the California history . . . . . I am convinced your intimate knowledge, high attainments and unprejudiced judgment would have enabled you to give me my desire to obtain this knowledge.’

Thwarted in his ambition to pick Hartnell’s brains, Farnham turned to other sources for his writings, or his ravings, on the California scene.  His description of Graham shows the sort of influence under which Farnham fell.  It was well known that the trapper had been deported from Tennessee for crimes committed there, and in California his reputation among old-timers was of the worst.  Really a drunk, a bully, possibly an assasin, Graham received an accolade from Farnham, his fellow countryman:

‘A bold, open-handed man, nver concealing for an instant either his love or hatred, but with the frankness and generosity of those great souls, rough-hewn but majestically honest, who belong to the valley states.  He told the governor his sins from time to time, and demanded in the authoritative tone of an elder brother, that he should redeem his pledges.  The good old man did not remember that a Spaniard would have lost his nationality had he done so.  A Spaniard tell the truth!  A Spaniard ever grateful for services rendered him!’

Unfortunately Farnham’s account of the Graham affair was widely read in the States, and it encouraged racial prejudice, heaping kindling on the conflagration already started in California.

In contrast to Farnham’s incendiarisms are the peacemaking efforts of another American, Thomas Oliver Larkin, resident in California since 1832.  He had come from Massachusetts to join his half brother, Captain Cooper, in coastal trade.  His home became an American outpost after his marriage to the Widow Holmes, first woman from the States to live in California, and first to bear a yanqui child.  Mr. Larkin cherished his citizenship.  He never became a Mexican by naturalization, but remained the ideal American, well disposed to all nationalities.  With great industry and good nature he attended to the needs of fellow countrymen involved in the Graham affair, aiding the naval captain, French Forrest, in gathering dispositions, feeding from his own kitchen all Americans being held for questioning in Monterey, offering to stand bail for several; and finally, from Alvarado’s account, welcoming those who returned exonerated from trial in Mexico.  He even kept a few in his own home for months on end, which infuriated the fire-eating Californians of his acquaintance.

Larking received calumny from both sides for his humane, impartial attitude.  Americans, influenced by the Farnham type of propaganda, resented Larkin’s continuing friendship with “dastardly Spaniards,” while the native Californians felt he was going too far in offering the hospitality of his home to such uncouth creatures as they believed Americans to be (excepting the Larkin family, Alfred Robinson, and a very few others).

The French Captain Rosamel was not allowed to remain long in error about the Graham affair.  Calling to deliver Forbes’s book, he found Hartnell at home.  Straightway he learned the true circumstances, and was reassured that no French lives had been lost, indeed that the few Frenchmen called up for questioning had quickly been released.  The gentlemanly Rosamel apologized for his warlike entry into Monterey Bay and, with other officers of the Danaide, started on the round of gaiety offered to every visiting Frenchman from the time of La Perouse to Petit-Thouars and Pierre Laplace in recent years.

The American Captain Phelps of the Alert, in harbor at the same time as the Danaide, looked  on the love feast with a jaundiced eye.  He later announced in Fore and Aft that “the Frenchman was much disappointed not to fire on the town.”  Incidentally, he confessed that French naval officers won all the ladies away from the Americans, paying such ardent court, even in church, that the padre protested.

Some time in November, a British man-o-war called the Curacao (Captain Jones) arrived in Monterey to effect a settlement of British claims.  It was rumored that total conpensation amounted to $24,000.  But skeptical old Bancroft says: “If they received one half of the sum the exile had proved a brilliant speculation for the Englishman!”  Those of Graham’s men, British and American, who could get their papers in order below the border trickled back into Alta California.  Only a few incorrigibles were forbidden the country, and interest in the whole affair died a natural death as more significant events occurred in quick succession.

In August 1840, Thomas Larkin received a warning from his friend Francis Johnson, supercargo on the Don Quixote, writing from Honolulu.  The great and powerful Hudson’s Bay Company was hatching a plan, said Johnson, to monopolize the trade in all the north Pacific, and even then was loading a specially built vessel in England with a multitude of goods to be sold at very low prices, the intention being to undercut free-lancing traders like himself, Larkin, Cooper, and Spence, on the west coast and among the Sandwich Islands.

Larkin did not pay much attention to Johnson’s letter, other than to pass it around without comment.  He still was occupied with the settlement of American claims in connection with the Graham affair.  But all his friends became highly excited on New Year’s Day, 1841, when the Columbia of the Hudson’s Bay Company sailed grandly into Monterey harbor.  She carried a large, assorted cargo  Larkin’s vecinos  felt themselves forewarned of a dastardly scheme, and this is the explanation of an introductory remark in the journal kept by the chief factor of that company.

Sir James Douglas requested the services of David Spence, to act as his interpreter in conferences with Governor Alvarado.  To his diary he confessed: “There was something wrong, some lurking suspicion of fancied encroachments or mediated deception” which caused Spence “to receive us with a sort of reserved courtesy that made us feel rather uncomfortable.”

Since Douglas’ aims seemed modest, he soon allayed suspicion.  During an audience with the Governor, he declared that company personnel engaged in trade on the California coast would at all times observe the Mexican law, even beccome Mexican citizens, and sail under Mexican colors, if in that way certain commercial restrictions could be avoided.  He asked to bring to California a party not exceeding thirty persons, to hunt beaver, and requested some land in or near San Francisco for Hudson’s Bay Company needs.

Governor Alvarado called on William Hartnell to help in composition of his reply.  After a polite preamble, all the company’s requests were approved with one reservation; the thirty British beaver hunters must be reduced to half that number, “the Company to fill in the balance with native ones, so they might learn this trade.”  Only in case ineptitude be shown by los hijos del pais could more Britishers be brought in.

And so after years of friendly but not intimate relations with California, the Hudson’s Bay Company established a foothold.  Sir James Douglas spent three weeks in Monterey, attending bailes and meriendas with Spence and Hartnell.  He kept a journal, never published or even completed, which contains a vivid, accurate account of California’s social and commercial life in the early ’40s.

Accompanying Sir James as passengers on the Columbia were thirty-six men.  Some professed to be trappers, and others planned to drive a herd of California cattle overland to the Hudson’s Bay Company establishment on the Columbia River.  Douglas confided to his diary: “We have also other objects of a political nature in view, which may or may not succeed.”

With a dozen of his party, the chief factor made the trip overland from Monterey to San Francisco where land had been granted to the company according to his request.  He mentions being sumptuously entertained on the way by Senor Hartnell at his Rancho del Alisal on El Camino Real.  Douglas introduced his host to a convivial fellow, “a gentleman of high confidence in the Hudson’s Bay Company Service.”  This was William Glen Rae, who became a real friend to William Hartnell.  Following conferences among the three Britishers, an annoucement came from Alisal that Rae would remain in California as ranking company officials.  As his aide he chose another Scot named James Alexander Forbes (the man often confused with the author of a history of California).

The speech of Rae and Forbes smacked of the old country, and induced nostalgia in their host  Rae was not long away from home, and Forbes, after many years in Spanish-speaking countries, retained a broad Scottish burr.  Since 1836 he had acted as agent for the Hudson’s Bay Company with headquarters at San Jose, where he also engaged in general trade and ranching.  Rae was young for his responsible position, only twenty-six, but with the aid of his more experienced compatriots, Forbes and Hartnell, he established and maintained excellent relationships with the Mexican officials.

There was one man with whose authority he many times collided, and finally he called upon Governor Alvarado to settle his dispute with “Captain” John Augustus Sutter. This German-Swiss adventurer, soon to become world-famous when gold was discovered upon his property, even now was extending his “empire” out from the Sacramento Valley to include the Russian settlement at Ross.  He resented the intrusion of the Hudson’s Bay Company trappers within the confines of his New Helvetia and ran them off wherever he found them.  To Alvarado, Rae complained on November 1, 1841 (translation form the Spanish):

‘Captain Sutter is determined to opposed the permission your Excellency was pleased to grant the Coy. to send a party to trap in California.  In the full confidence that your Excellency’s authority to J. F. Douglas would not be disputed – the Hudson’s Bay Coy. have sent a party at a very heavy expense to trap in California who I expect to arrive every hour  . . . . I take the liberty to request that your Excellency will forward me an order to Capt. Sutter not to interfere with the Hudson Bay Company’s trappers.

Officials of the company received a shock when Sutter bought outright the Russian properties at Ross.  Several years back, these had been offered to the British concern but turned down because the status quo seemed so satisfactory.  As the Russians continued to lose money and interest in theri California colony, the Hudson’s Bay Company trappers roved at will in the overgrown wilderness which once had been an extension of the czar’s vast empire.  It seemed unnecessary to assume a heavy financial burden in order to acquire hunting privileges they already enjoyed.

Sutter’s landholding in the wilderness went unnoticed for a while, until he actually ordered the company trappers off “his” property.  This was too much, thought Rae.  But he found Alvarado uninterested in what was happening so far away, and the sale could not be disputed.  Sutter was acting within his rights.

William Hartnell had known for several years that Russia planned to relinquish her hold on California.  Early in 1837 Khlebnikov had written to tell him of von Wrangell’s return to St. Petersburg and subsequent appointment to His Majesty’s navy as a rear admiral.  The baron himself had come to Monterey in December 1835, in a final attempt to secure trade and hunting privileges for the Russians along the California coast.  He had been bitterly disappointed to find Figueroa dead and California in a state of near anarchy which dashed his hopes of prosperous interchange for years to come.  From Doctor Kouprianov, von Wrangell’s successor as governor of Russian America and manager of the Russian-American Fur Company, Hartnell heard in time that “His Majesty, the Emperor of all the Russias, has decided to abandon the settlement of Ross.”  The Czar’s Monterey representative was offered first choice to buy “some of the stores belonging to the Company.”  Not being in a position to do this himself, Don Guillermo referred the opportunity to Captain Cooper, who long had engaged in trade with his Russian neighbours.

Presently the site of Fort Ross and adjacent ranchos were offered for sale to the Hudson’s Bay Company.  Finally, on December 19, 1841, Governor Alvarado received a letter in Spanish from the Russian governor saying:

‘On my last visit to Monterey [from Ross, where the governor had stopped on a final inspection tour] I had the honor to inform you that my intentions were to sell Ross, with its goods and chattels, to some private individuals in California.  Your answer was that there were no objections on your part.  I take pleasure now in advising you that Ross has been sold to Capt. J. Sutter, naturalized Mexican citizen.  [And though] the Russian-American Company is absolutely confident of the payment by Mr. Sutter . . . his settlement on the Sacramento River, called New Helvetia, set up y permit from the Government of California and legalized by proper documents, remains as security, with all its goods and chattels.  Also, all the settlements on Bodega and the Ranchos Khlebnikov and Tschernikh, which Mr. Sutter wishes to keep intact in his possession, will serve as further security.’

Though the sale was valid, the Captain could not police the wilderness that composed the greater part of his “empire.”  Sutter’s men and Hudson’s Bay Company trappers continued for years on their separate paths, sniping at each other from time to time.  No serious consequences attended such guerilla warfare.

In 1842 the Hudson’s Bay Company agent, James Alexander Forbes, received an appointment from Mexico City to act as British vice-consul in Monterey.  This was the identical office which William Hartnell had filled for so many years, without official sanction.  No acknowledgment was made at this time, or any other time, of Hartnell’s unselfish service.  That the slight was intentional is indicated by Cousin Robert Wyllie:

‘I much regret that any misrepresentation should have prevented you from obtaining the appointment of H. M. Vice Consul for California, for which I consider you were so well qualified.  Of Mr. Forbes I know nothing, but I presume he also is a capable man.’

It could further be presumed that, because of Forbes recognized affiliation with the Hudson’s Bay Company, power politics dictated the decision.  At any rate, says Wyllie to comfort his disappointed cousin, “Your present situation of Vista to the Customhouse may be more profitable, if not more honourable to your, that the Vice Consulship, for which I do not suppose that more than 200 pounds, or at most 300 pounds a year, will be allowed.”

Since Hartnell often served as interpreter to important people entering Monterey harbor, he was first to interview Commodore Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, commanding the United States fleet in the Pacific.  Don Guillermo asked the American what he meant by firing on the town and lowering the Mexican flag to the dust (on October 19, 1842).  Jones explained his conviction, from secret orders and circumstantial evidence, that a state of war already existed between the United States and Mexico, and that California soon would be ceded to England.  It was to save the Californians from such a fate that he “captured” their capital.

Without a struggle, capital officials signed articles of capitulation, and the Stars and Stripes waved languidly over Monterey during the queer, rudderless interlude before Jones discovered and acknowledged his mistake.  Alvarado retired to his country place at Alisal, leaving Don Manuel Jimeno as acting governor to await the arrival of Don Manuel Micheltorena, even now on his way up the coast to relieve Alvarado of the supreme command.  Mexico City never had approved Don Juan’s seizure of power in 1837, or his subsequent contests with his own uncles, Carillo and Vallejo.  Senora Jimeno says, in her Ocurrencias: 

‘When Micheltorena first came to California Alvarado showed no inclination to give up the Government; he did not definitely say so but you could see he did not want to.  However, after Jones took over Monterey, he became willing – even happy to shed the responsibility.’

Hartnell did not join the Alvarados and his own family at Alisal but remained in town with the Jimenos.  He continued his task of interpretation, even helping the Commodore to compose a formal apology and dispatch it by courier to General Micheltorena lingering in Los Angeles.  The next month, after a fiesta had been given by Micheltorena as a sign of forgiveness to the impulsive American, Hartnell accpeted a paid position from Jones, at $5 a day, to act as his interpreter in court.  The Commodore had as his original purpose in coming to Monterey the order to settle peacefully all claims of American citizens dating back to the Graham affair.

[Transcription of Susanna Bryant Dakin's 1949 history of Alta California,

The Lives of William Hartnell, pages 245 - 255]

PEACEMAKER: ‘After his return to [Rancho] Alisal, the ex-visitador ['Don Guillermo Arnel' (William Petty Hartnell)] became ill from overwork and worry’

CHAPTER 7

CONTEST FOR CALIFORNIA

 

THE GOVERNOR made no attempt to appoint another visitador de misiones.  The position became extinct with the resignation of Don Guillermo.  And little importance ever was attached, by anyone, to Alvarado’s reforms of 1839 and 1840 as carried out by Hartnell.  They came too late.  Certain abuses could be checked, but the outlook continued bleak.

After his return to Alisal, the ex-visitador became ill from overwork and worry.  No salary ever materialized out of the Pious Fund, as planned by the padre presidente and Governor Alvarado.  Writing Eustace Barron of Tepic, at the end of 1840, Hartnell referred to “my unfortunate debt to you [Barron, Forbes and Company] ….. The truth is that I can hardly find words to express my feelings of regret and shame at not having been able, long since, to pay it.”  In excuse, he says: “Last year I was chosen Visitador of the mission with a salary of 2000 pesos, increased this year to 3000 pesos all of which still is owing me.”  He asks Barron and Forbes for an extension of time purely out of friendship, for he can offer no security save “my houses and the cattle at the rancho and you know very well that these are not easily converted into cash.”

In conclusion, Don Guillermo explains that he no longer holds the position of visitador, because “circumstances have occurred which do not allow me to discharge my duties with honor, and without honor I neither seek nor wish riches.”

Writing to his father-in-law at this ebb tide of his life, when he not even has the satisfaction of a job well done, Don Guillermo reveals an intensification of his religious faith, and makes a vow that he will continue to live by conviction, whatever the cost in health and wealth.  The understanding old man encourages him: “Keep firm in your resolution, entreating the help of our Merciful Father.  This also I shall do, unworthy as I am, in my humble prayers to our Crucified King.”

Fortunately, de la Guerra does more than pray for his dearly loved yerno.  He sends his son Pablo on a “grand tour” of Europe, which act vacates a lucrative job in the Monterey customhouse.  He advises his son-in-law to apply for it at first opportunity.  In doing so, Hartnell must state his qualifications.  He asks Eustace Barron to sponsor him, saying (translation):

‘I have been almost nineteen years in California and am married to a native daughter by whom I have had thirteen children.  In the year 1827 I loaned to this [the Mexican] government 7,800 pesos in cash and goods to meet the needs of the [Monterey] garrison, and nothing has been paid back to me.  I have sound knowledge of all the languages needed to serve as interpreter in the customhouse; and sometime ago I undertook the administration of customs to the entire satisfaction of the government.  For a year and a half I was visitador de misiones, also to the satisfaction of the government and all the reverend fathers.’

When Hartnell became chief customs official, his health returned to him along with peace of mind.  As Father Short once said, such a position suited his talents; and from it he earned a fair living, in addition to finding time for necessary ranch work.  Once again he could divide his days between Alisal and the capital.

For the past two years he had been preoccupied with the gloomy subject of mission decay.  He had acquired a hopeless outlook of unhappy resignation.  But this soon was altered by the scope of his new position.  Hartnell found it an exciting time to be directing affairs of the aduana.  The world came and went, and ambition charged the atmosphere.

California’s internal weaknesses under Mexican rule slowly had become known outside her own boundaries.  For many years sea captains and travelers had carried tales, and books had been published in many languages, about this land so fabulously endowed by nature, yet so badly governed as to cry out for intervention and exploitation.  Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Americans all had gone on record as advising a California protectorate to be established by Russia, France, Great Britain, or the United States, as the case might be.  But the world’s interest did not actively manifest itself until the 1840’s.

In the first half of that exciting decade, ideas of empire which had been brewing for a long time suddenly began to bubble, to boil, and to spill over the top of the diplomatic teapot.

The hour was Hartnell’s.  Many times in the past his ventures had been ill timed, but now he occupied a key position in the capital, and presided over a home which was Monterey’s unofficial embassy for every nation.  Contemporary records show that scarcely a foreigner of importance failed to call upon Monterey’s most distinguished resident and his unfailingly gracious wife.  Often, in the absence of any hotel, callers became house guests for varying lengths of time.  The Hartnell position became comparable, in the capital, to that of the de la Guerras in Santa Barbara.  A stranger often carried an introductory note from Don Jose, or from one of Don Guillermo’s acquaintances in South or Central America, Europe, Sitka or Sandwich.

Even in hard times, Hartnell hospitality had been unfailingly warm and gay.  And now, as always, pretty little daughters of the house would hasten to bring refreshments, whatever the larder afforded.  The mother, increasingly plump with the years, would settle herself in a comfortable chair, smoke a cigarette with the company, and serve in a queenly way whatever her daughters produced.  Music usually followed refreshments.  At Alisal there was a piano brought round the Horn by a sea captain of the father’s acquaintance. A guitar stood in the corner there, as in the town house.  Always a member of the family or a friend could be prevailed upon to play and sing, sometimes with real knowledge and haunting beauty.  Dona Teresa seldom stirred from her chair, presiding benignly like an Oriental deity, but the young ones and young-spirited Don Guillermo soon would be dancing with each other and guests who risked the inticacies of California dance steps.

How quickly such an atmosphere relaxed the reserve and lightened the loneliness of a sea-weary, homesick soul!  Don Guillermo excelled at the art of conversation; his gift of tongues and knowledge of world affairs always astonished visitors.  With ease he could induce the confidential mood, even in a Russian, and listen as skillfully as he could converse.  Guests usually revealed more than they intended of themselves, and their host added the kernel of each conversation to his store of knowledge.

From the time of Beechey’s first visit, in 1826, Hartnell had corresponded with the British captain on a world of subjects.  It was with mounting excitement that, ten years later, he awaited the appearance of Beechey’s new command, H.M.S. Sulphur.  She left England for California, as scheduled, but on the outward passage her captain became violently ill.  Beechey was relieved at Panama by Sir Edward Belcher, who had served as a lieutenant on the Blossom the previous decade.  With his superior officer, Belcher had visited the Hartnell family when its prospects were brightest, and had shared with them the easy and happy life of that pastoral interlude in California’s history.  He returned to find sad changes, unmistakable evidence of deterioriation and decay.  Sir Edward spoke with the tone of prophecy as early as 1836:

‘Another fate attends this country.  Their hour is fast approaching.  Harassed on all sides by Indians, pestered by a set of renegade deserters from whalers and merchant ships, who start by dozens and will eventually form themselves into a bandit gang and domineer over them; unable from want of spirit to protect themselves, they will soon dwindle into insignificance.  The missions, the only respectable establishments in this country are annihilated; they have been virtually plundered by all parties.  They sadly want the interposition of some powerful friend to rescue them.’

Belcher intimates that this friend, for California’s sake, should be Great Britain.

Since the days of the mission contract, William Hartnell had corresponded with the British trader, Alexander Forbes, partner of his good friend Eustace Barron of Tepic.  From an extensive correspondence with prominent Californians, maintained by both partners and their associate Robert Wyllie (Hartnell’s ubiquitous cousin), Forbes composed the contemporary portions of his famous book on California.  His illustrations were from the “elegant pencil” of that same William Smythe who had illustrated Beechey’s original Narrative; and his authorities on the past were of the best, being Venegas, Palou, La Perouse, Vancouver, Langsdorff, and Captain Beechey.  The book, simply called California, was published in London in 1839 and aroused more widespread interest than any previous piece of Californiana published in any country.  The was time ripe.

 

[Serialization of Susanna Bryant Dakin's The Lives of William Hartnell, pages 241 - 245]

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PROPAGANDA 2009

JAMES FRY’S NEW CD featuring Ian Avery, Cam Cumming, Tobias Meis: West Coast cool jazz – folk noir tradition: nine ‘more original songs’

 By ‘GOYO DE LA ROSA’

James Fry’s latest  CD, a collection of nine originals, is a humble gem, and destined to be a significant classic in the history of Victoria’s self-produced independent music scene.   

  The promising power of his own lyrical composer’s voice evident in only one song on his last CD called ‘ballads‘ (mainly a collection of covers of jazz and folk classics) is now more manifest in his very topical CD entitled ‘more original songs,’ just released.   Like ‘ballads,’ it’s dedicated to his wife, the Neo – Symbolist painter Virginia SmallFry, and is a Magic Canvas Production.   A black and white photo of one of her paintings is printed on the CD itself.

  Here James is accompanied by Ian Avery on a melancholic 1920s – sounding cornet, Cam Cumming of Earbone Studios on an electric bass guitar, and Tobias Meis on double bass.

  This is the living Pacifican North West Coast Psychedelic Folk-noir Jazz Music Tradition personified … via Croydon, England, Guelph Ontario and Fernwood, Victoria, Vancouver Island, Pacifica.  The melodies are memorable, the poetry is stream – of – consciousness Romantic Surrealism, the musical style is West Coast cool jazz meets Bob Dylan, the literary influences are Fante, Hemmingway, Bukowski + Dylan (again).   The underlying philosophy to it all is basically Wiccan Buddhist (or Buddhist Wiccan) pacificism.

  Nine songs, all written by James Fry, are arranged in a minimalist jazz trio format.  James sings and plays lead guitar, drums, harmonica and percussion on all cuts, with some cuts using the electric bass guitar of Cam Cumming, others the double bass of Tobias Meis.

  This CD could be understood as pages of history from the multifaceted life of James Fry, nine pages of James Fry’s episodic history, each episode refined into a song.

  The CD opens with ‘Pages of History,’ with James’ solo guitar and voice entering, and then the bass and percussion layering coming in a slow crescendo of volume. James Fry’s Buddhist – inspired philosophy is evident right from the start:

‘Pages of history, plaster the walls

The bigger the empire, the harder the fall.’  

The English Canadian immigrant knows a thing or two about fallen empires.

  In ‘No One to Blame,‘ a basically cheery melody is contrasted with apocalyptic scenarios and stern admonishments:

‘Don’t follow leaders, the leaders don’t know

They got lost in the woods, they got stuck in the snow

And this folly continues and the lies never end

But there’s no one to blame but ourselves’.

  Once again there is somewhat of a reproving or admonishing tone in the lyrical content and mocking intonation of James Fry’s ‘Home of the Brave,’ a critique of our neighbours’ and our own complicity:

‘A warrior with steely eye defends me when I need to fly

and raise myself above this lie.

And the meaning of this mystery 

is lost inside this parady of living like we do.

Like we choose to do.  In the home of the brave.’

  As if to provide a respite from the generally gloomy philosophizing, the next song ‘Like I Do’ is the only one taken from his last CD ‘ballads,’ and is basically a Romantic love song to his wife Virginia.  Even this is tinged with Buddhist agnosticism:

‘And in the end we reap the seed we sow

The journeys end we can not see

There’s only one thing that I know for sure

Nobody’s ever gonna love you like I do’.

  The melody to ‘Ode to Bukowski’ is basically cheerful, in contrast again to the harsh life of seclusion, booze and degradation shown to us in the lyric:

‘Henry Chinaski waved the world away

Locked the door, drew the window shade

Took misfortune as a lover

Raised a finger to the moon’.  

It’s very easy to imagine Tom Waits doing this.

  Returning to a more  Buddhist Romantic theme, ‘Sometimes’ seems to be aspiring to a more free world beyond the ever-morphing ambiguities of our own relatively minor personal relationships:

‘And now the world is watching you, tell me now what will you do

Tell me how can you believe it’s all true

So close your eyes and look at me, tell me now what do you see

Outside of you and me, outside of a hope and dream

Outside in a bigger world, outside where a man breathe

Outside where a man breathe’.

  ’Hurricane Approaching’ could very well become the most classic of all the songs on this James Fry CD: certainly it is the most Dylanesque.  It has the relentless, driven apocalyptic nightmare aspect of the best of Dylan’s songs in its Symbolist lyric content, pounding tempo and anxious sung intonation:

‘I heard a hurricane approaching, I could feel it on the wind

A premonition of the future, intuition from within

I saw a flaming sword above me and a hollow place below

And a feeling of uncertainty engulfed my troubled soul.’

  As if to hammer away at the theme of our mortal life’s uncertainty and the relative instability of all relationships, ‘Dhamma Chant’ has an almost martial beat and repeats the chorus:

‘Life of uncertainty, wheel of eternity, dodging the bullets of karma.

Something inside of me, says what will be, will be.

 Better just leave it to Dhamma.’

  This ‘Dhamma Chant’ is performed by the ‘Dhamma Chant Choir,’ comprised of Miranda Pidwerbetsky, Colleen Pillar, Virginia SmallFry, Dylan Fry, Mike Kuakanon, Serena Hurvitz, Lawrence Kerman and Cam Cumming, complete with kazoo.  It is easy to imagine Harry Manx, Paul Horn or even Delhi 2 Dublin doing this one.

  Finally, as if to reassure his listeners that he isn’t completely resigned to a destiny of karmic fate, James Fry ends ‘more original songs’ with ‘Dreaming of the Future‘.   Beyond hesitancy, ambiguity and doubt, he still wants to end up believing in a way:

‘But I won’t stop believing that this world will find a way

And the shadows will be lifted like the sunrise lifts the day.’

 

All lyrics are copyrighted by Magic Canvas Production

Contact: smallfryenterprises@shaw.ca

1 – 250 – 216 21 39

 

LA ROSA REVUE review by ‘Goyo de la Rosa’

DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL RESIGNED HIS POSITION ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1840, JUST BEFORE DONA MARIA TERESA BIRTHED THEIR SON NATHANIEL: Pages 239 – 240, ‘The Lives of William Hartnell,’ by Susanna Bryant Dakin

+++  Traveling on up the coast, leaving his so-called assistant behind, el visitador found that the situation at Capistrano had not been improved by his recent appointment of a mayordomo to succeed the administrador.  According to the diario: “When I passed by San Juan Capistrano the padre ministro [Zalvidea] told me that . . . . . the Indians . . . . were all running away because of Don Ramon Arguello; and that it was necessary to put in another mayordomo.”  Such a move would mean bad blood between el visitador and the most powerful member of the powerful Arguello clan.  On August 19, Hartnell records: “Today I received a letter from Don Santiago Arguello in which he demands satisfaction for my having forcibly deprived his son Ramon of the office of mayordomo of San Juan Capistrano, and so, and so on, and so on.”

Continuing with what now seemed the hopeless task of promoting “harmony among all classes,” el visitador ran into new complications at each mission.  Everywhere the ex-administrators, their families and friends were indignant at being displaced, at being forced away from the feeding trough.  Everywhere Hartnell’s own motives were questioned, along with his assistant’s; and the two were vilified together.  From San Buenaventura, on August 26, Don Guillermo wrote to his “brother” Jimeno: “You will see that my official duties have gone badly with me.”

He was cheered to receive, simultaneously, a letter from Don Manuel visiting at Alisal: (translation)

‘My sister Dona Teresa is waiting for you daily because (if you do not come) she will be assisted only by old women in her delivery, but we trust all will be well.  Angustias already has come out of her “bundling.”  At nine in the morning of the 14th she was delivered of a boy, plump and handsome – the women say he resembles my sister Dona Teresa – and we place him at your service . . . . . I hope you return soon, and remain in good health.  Your affectionate brother.’

This letter pointed the contrast between the simple love and faith of Hartnell’s family and the complex animosities he had aroused as visitador de misiones.  Don Guillermo resolved to resign from this position.  He would quit the labyrinths of politics and return to the warm security of his family circle.  In some other way, he would make them a living.

His resignation, dated September 7, 1840, was sent from the de la Guerra home in Santa Barbara after consultation with his father-in-law.  Governor Alvarado did not accept it immediately, but only after earnest conversations with his friend and former tutor, at the conclusion of his tour.

A last entry in Hartnell’s diario was penned September 15: “I left San Antonio and arrived at my rancho.”  Here he found a five-day-old addition to the family, a fine boy named Nathaniel after his English brother.  The family welcome dispelled the gloom that had been gathering in his soul.

DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL LOST CONFIDENCE IN ALL OF THE INVENTORIES DON CARLOS CASTRO HAD COMPILED: Dakin’s ‘The Lives of William Hartnell,’ page 238

+++  Pio Pico delayed so long in retiring from supreme command at San Luis Rey that el visitador finally came to a decision (August 1): “Up to now I have taken all the smooth, prudent, measures that I could in order to avoid the necessity of taking recourse to force; but a summons must not be sent, by an armed guard who will conduct Pico to court.”

When Don Pio appeared before the prefect at Los Angeles to account for his dilatoriness, he made ugly accusations against el visitador.  How humiliating Hartnell felt this to be, that he must waste time defending himself against unfounded accusations, when so much was crying to be done in the reform of mission affairs!

Excitement ran high among the Indians at San Luis Rey when the finally were summoned to meet with el visitador and el administrador for a settlement of their affairs.  The diario reports from the mission, on August 9, that “many more people were assembled today than on any previous occasion.”  Don Pio was publicly repudiated, and Hartnell entrusted to carry all Indians’ claims straight to the Governor.

Before leaving San Luis Rey, Don Carlos Castro went with Andres Pico, brother of Pio, to take inventory at the mission ranchos of Pala, Temecula, and San Jacinto.  Discrepencies between Castro’s reports of 1839 and 1840 had led Hartnell to suspect his own assistant of in on kill, of conniving with the Picos to secure mission property for himself.  Says Hartnell bitterly:

‘From the mayordomo of San Jacinto and from the statement of some Indians from here I found out that Don Carlos never went to San Jacinto and consequently, that he never counted the cattle of San Luis.  He put down anything he wanted to, or what the administrator told him there should be.  So he deceived me, but that is not the only fault he committed in the discharge of the Commission that  the government entrusted to him.’

The proved dereliction at San Luis Rey undermined el visitador’s confidence in all of the ranch inventories which Don Carlos had compiled, traveling the length of California three times in one year.  With old Father Duran, Don Guillermo now bemoaned “these labyrinths of California” in which they both were lost.