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]