Father Patrick Short met DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL at Mision San Carlos

+++  ’I shall not trouble you with an account of our situation here; fame has doubtless informed you that in many respects it is not enviable.  We should have willingly embraced the kind of hospitality made to us by our good friends in California had not imperious duty dissuaded us from it.  He is not a good shepherd who abandons his flock; he is but a hireling who flies at the approach of the wolf.’  ++  Father Patrick made a masterly understatement in saying his position in the Islands was not enviable.  He belonged to the Catholic Order of Picpus formed in France for the purpose of establishing missions in the South Sea Islands, where already Protestants were strongly entrenched.  Father Patrick and a French companion, Jean Alexis Auguste Bachelot, were sent to the Hawaiian Islands in 1827, Bachelot as apostolic prefect.  They met with a cold reception, since Queen Kaahuamanu already had inclined her ear to Protestant missionaries, and they ruled the Polynesian Court, in the person of Hiram Bingham from Connecticut.  ++  Minor persecutions ended in banishment of the Catholic priests because, as the Queen said, “their doings are different from ours and we cannot agree.”  No longer having a choice of abandoning their flock, the shepherds wearily went aboard the ‘Waverly’ and were sent to the mainland.  On January 21, 1832, Captain Sumner landed the two priests at Malibu Beach without food or water, ten leagues from the nearest dwelling.  By great good luck, an Indian strolling in search of sea shells came upon the black-robed castaways.  Recognizing their holy nature, he guided them to San Gabriel Mission, where Bachelot was taken on as assistant to Padre Sanchez.  Short went north to stay at San Carlos Mission with an old friend, Father Moreno.  There he met the Englishman whom he had long admired from reputation.  Hartnell, quick to recognize Father Patrick’s qualifications, engaged him to instruct young de la Guerra in higher mathematics.  ++  Among Hartnell’s papers having to do with the establishment of his school is a series of letters from this clever brother-in-law, describing his progress in English educational institutions. . . . +++