DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL wrote to Don Jose de la Guerra: ‘There is no hope of saving the Ex-Young Tartar.’

+++  Hartnell himself commenced to look forward to the expiration of the mission contract.  Its usefulness had been outlived.  ++  During the early days of the contract, Mr. Begg and even McCulloch often had charged the California partner with lack of exertion, with absorbing too completely the spirit of the land.  But such accusations ceased as it became plain to all that a business depression was settling slowly over Europe and South America, causing the failure of many speculative concerns, threatening the very existence of James Brotherston and Company and thus, indirectly, of Begg and Company and MacCulloch and Hartnell, subsidiary as they were to the Liverpool concern.  ++  The development of personality through defeat is an elusive subject, difficult to understand.  It took increasing fortitude to withstand such bitter blows  as fate delivered in quick succession to ambitious Hartnell.  Even his partners admitted that he was showing strength of character to a surprising degree.  ++  During a November storm the ‘Young Tartar,’ the company’s invaluable coasting schooner, was beached at San Diego.  David Spence made herculean efforts to salvage her, but Hartnell wrote sadly to his father-in-law: “There is no hope of saving the Ex-Young Tartar.”  ++  Early in December it was discovered that Mr. Tivy devoted himself entirely to his own affairs at the ranch leased by the company for its curing business.  The first impression had been deceptive.  After a quarrel with the ranch owner, Tivy and his assistants had been turned out of comfortable quarters in the main house.  Thereupon the Irishmen spent all their time in building another house, because Tivy expected his wife and children to come by the next company ship.  ++  They allowed the months of the ‘matanza’ (yearly slaughtering of cattle) to come and go, making no effort to erect sheds and perform other seasonal duties.  Hartnell’s explanation is the kindest one possible:  ”Such perverseness was due not to bad intentions on Tivy’s part, but to his youthful egotism, for he pitted his opinion concernIng the timing for the annual matanza against those of all other ‘rancheros’ in the country.”  …   +++