+++  Some stage of childbearing had become her “usually way,” according to David Spence.  ++  The second wing, devoted to kitchen and dining facilities, was distinguished by a huge outdoor oven where all cooking now could be done, although a prevailing breeze from the bay kept the weather too cool for more than occasional ‘al fresco’ meals.  The family and guests usually ate at a refectory table, mission style, in the dining room.  It was necessary to light tallows early in the day, summer and winter, for little sunshine could penetrate the small, barred windows.  Pine flares were in readiness to provide out-of-door illumination for cooking the evening meal and lighting one’s way at night along the rough roadway.  ++  Within a few months after Don Guillermo’ss return from South America it became obvious that Dona Teresa was again with child.  In later years, when her family had increased to enormous size, she said: “My husband gives me everything that I want.  I give him myself and his children.  There is an Indian girl for every baby as soon as it is born; I have only to bear and love them.”  ++  True enough, there were Indian servants for anyone who would feed them and provide new covering when the old wore out.  Mostly they seemed satisfied with a bowl of ‘frijoles’ three times a day, and sufficient material to make a mother hubbard, once in a while, or some other garment unchanged in style since Serra’s day.  ++  The Hartnells lived well during this period.  The Irishman Tivy had been followed from Ireland by his wife, his three children, and a dairy maid.  Captain Lincoln brought them all around the Horn, from Liverpool to California, along with household goods and complete dairy equipment.  From then on, the ranch leased by McCulloch and Hartnell provided butter and cheese, besides milk, cream, and beef reserved from the salting concern for family consumption.  Its diversity of products was not rivaled by any other ‘hacienda’ of the day.  ++  During Hartnell’s absence in South America, David Spence had busied himself with the planting of an orchard, nearly a hundred fruit trees acquired from near-by missions.  A large vegetable garden also became his constant care.  And from each ship’s cargo he reserved sufficient cloth and household goods to supply the company personnel, their families, and Indian servants.  +++

+++  Many British captains had him to thank for supplying their needs in a courteous and effective manner.  It was his pleasure, as an Englishman far from home, to serve his countrymen.  ++  FOR RUSSIA  ++  During Hartnell’s absence in South America, a surprise had been prepared for him by a loving wife and a faithful employee.  Without his knowledge, Dona Teresa and David Spence enlarged the Hartnell home to accomodate an increasing family and a succession of visitors.  Hints in Don David’s letters had not prepared Don Guillermo for the imposing edifice to which he was conducted straight from the customhouse.  The site remained the one he had chosen, half a league back from the water’s edge on land rising to the timber line, commanding a beautiful view of the bay to the north and pine-covered hills to the east.  It was on the outer, southern edge of the little community, overlooking every other house.  ++  From the roadway he saw no alteration in his home.  But Don Guillermo, entering the familiar front door, found that he could pass directly across a ’sala’ (living room) into a patio protected from the wind by new inverse wings, and already planted with flowering vines and shrubs.  The new walls were built of adobe-mud bricks, in four-foot thickness like the originals, and the whole roofed with shingles from near-by woods.  The nucleus of the new home was the whole of the old, a low building formerly partitioned, now transformed into the large ’sala,’ freshly whitewashed and decorated with heavy lace curtains, holy pictures from Spain, and furniture of mixed nationalities and periods.  De la Guerra heirlooms associated happily with novelties from company cargoes.  A guitar in a corner gave mute reminder of evening song.  ++  Occupying one of the new wings were comfortably furnished sleeping quarters for the family and guests.  An enormous bed dominated the master bedroom, indeed the whole house.  Rawhide, stretched over a wooden frame, made a not uncomfortable base for an accumulation of bedclothes topped by a lace coverlet.  Henceforth from this vantage ground, during advanced pregnancy and early recovery from childbirth, Dona Teresa would direct the household.   +++

+++  An essay on the Plight of the Mentally Afflicted [reprinted, with occasional editing, from the May 2008, Vol. 22, No. 4 of Island Catholic News]  ++  I am legally bound to take a shot at the Eric Martin meds clinic.  Missing this shot means ultimately being arrested.  I’m not sure the meds are the true answer to my problems.  A little more cash from the government would smooth over dire emotional issues.  ++  I’ve had my wars with the psychiatric system.  In the eighties I was so disgusted by my treatment that I fled the country for the States and lived there for three and a half years, happily unmedicated.  We’ve all seen ‘Cuckoo’s Nest.’  Well, part of it is true.  ++  I recall so many brutal lessons learned in Vancouver’s notorious Riverview in the eighties.  I developed a lifelong hatred of the practice of over-medication.  It seemed to me - and I had no way to know that I was right - that to medicate someone, to alter the chemistry of their brain in order to have them love you was a practice that belonged in the Roman Coliseum not the modern hospital.  ++  Being a quiz kid from a way back and potential Rhodes scholar, I long ago realized that my problem was not a chemical imbalance in the brain but a very faulty awareness of the exact ramifications of anti-social behaviour.  ++  All through the sixties and seventies, I was something of a rebel in hair, deportment, speech, drug use, sexual mores and politics and so when I found myself heavily medicated in 1982, behind bars, with no rights, I had to assume that I had not erred on the side of caution and as a deeply religious person, had to renew my bonds with the Saviour and put myself totally in his hands.  ++  Riverview was an absolute nightmare.  A ward with fifteen men scribbling and smoking furiously.  I became a heavy smoker then and there, and began a lifelong battle with the noxious weed, trying to find some humour in smoking two packs a day at times.  The food was terrible.  We had no rights.  We were totally subject to the whims and sarcasms of the overpaid guards and waiting long hours for the effete doctors to put in a mystical appearance.  Sometimes they didn’t show at all but appeared days later, tanned and refreshed, having been on vacation.  ++  It was more than a study in annoyance.  It was a positive ordeal and by then I was already a minor star of the stage, screen and television and all my credits seemed to count for naught.  No one cared what I had done in a previous existence.  I prayed on a daily basis to the good Lord and sometimes my prayers were answered.  I found a little solace in reading and every night prayed for sleep to deliver me to the Paradise I had been promised by the Anglican Church, as the great grandson of the Bishop of British Columbia.  ++ What had I done to deserve such a fate?  Merely broken a large window after seeing some junkies shooting up at a party.  I lost all faith then and there in the significance of the Crown, the efficacy of British Justice and the fairness of the Courts.  I had absolutely no rights, subject to a thirty day assessment to see if I was fit to stand trial.  Mentally, I prepared to leave Canada for good, forsake my family and cut all ties with my friends and artistic support team.  They extracted from us four vials of blood every three days.  We were being used as guinea pigs.  ++  One day the Lord Jesus Christ walked through the wall and placed his hand on my shoulder just as I was frozen immobile reeling from an allergic reaction to the drug haloperidol, invented by the Nazis in 1942.  He said “All will be well, you will live to triumph over these fools.”  ++  There are more rights for mental patients in Britain and the U.S.  Canada lags atrociously behind in the treatment of the different, the wayward, the confused and the enlightened.  Of this I am sure.  And the Province of B. C. has the worst record in Canada.  ++  I got into hot water all through the eighties and nineties.  I just couldn’t get it through my thick skull that I was dealing with a brutal, totalitarian system that cared nothing for gardens, poetry, Shakespeare or magic, that payed itself handsomely for doing next to nothing and vacationed every year in Florida.  ++  Finally, in 2000, the penny dropped.  I lost nearly everything in a housing fiasco and had a good talk with myself and the Saviour over money, rights, property and the figment of artistic recognition.  I’m happier now but my God-given rights are still being violated.  I’m 55 and thinking of spending my golden years in Britain where they elect loonies to high office, not drug them and beat them with rods.  ++  Not to sound like Conrad Black, in Britain I would be eligible for an MBE for deeds accomplished .  It’s a different set of rules.  I love my Canada but it has almost destroyed me and if it weren’t for a poetic gift that needs to be shared and a circle of close friends, I would long ago have departed this planet for good.  ++  [This essay appeared on page 4 of the current issue of ICN with a black and photo of the author taken from a Concerned Citizens' Coalition 2005 campaign poster with the legend: 'VOTE DAVID BURKE, Freelance Cinematographer, Mental Health Advocate, Cultural Policy Advocate, VICTORIA CITY COUNCIL,' designed by 'Goyo de la Rosa.']  +++ 

+++  Personal news from Spence (dated September 27) reaches Hartnell in Santa Barbara during his detainment there:  ++  ’I have to inform you that on the 24th inst. I was Baptised in the Mission of Santa Cruz by Padre Luis and have now got an addition to my name (viz. David ‘Estevan de le Mersed’ Spence ‘para serven a vd.’).  It is easy for any person to make jest of such ceremonias, but beleave me I have past through some very serious ones, and I think or at least I hope, it will make a great alteration in my mode of living.’  ++  Don Guillermo was not surprised, immediately upon arrival in Monterey, to have Spence confess his desire to marry young Adalaida Estrada.  The Scotsman also wished to go into business for himself, reminding Hartnell that his contracted time was at an end.  ++  Dona Teresa remained unchanged.  She had refused to believe any rumors that “kind friends” brought to her attention.  As always, Don Guillermo’s will was hers, and she welcomed him without reserve.  Their little sons were in the best of health, delighting in their father’s return.  He would not admit that they could have forgotten him, but spent the first few days of his return in making sure they never would again.  Voluntarily to assume his bonds again, the bonds of family love and and the most motherly religion, now seemed to him the greatest happiness.  Past peccadillos, exorcised by confession, served merely to intensify present bliss.  Teresa knew that she had nothing to fear, that she shared her husband with no one.  Together they laid the ghost of Lady Lynch.  ++  Hartnell continued in trade mainly in Monterey, with vessels flying the flags of Great Britain, France, Russia, the United States of America, Mexico, Chile, and Peru, while he attempted to wind up the affairs of that ill-fated firm, Macala y Arnel.  ++  Verification of his appointment as British vice-consul never came from Mexico City.  But knowing from recent experience in Peru what chaos was attendant upon revolution, Hartnell continued to act as advised by Captain Beechey.  Patriotically he performed the duties of the office, without waiting for a title to be conferred or even seeking a salary. . . . +++

+++  [Reprinted from the May 2008, Volume 22 No. 4 edition of Island Catholic News, after slight editing from the original]  ++  ’Father Mike,’ as he came to be called, was a gentle soul who stewarded Saint Andrew’s Cathedral as Rector, and also served in many other Diocesan parishes where he was well-loved for his gentle pastoral manner, his sympathetic and empathetic listening skills, his firm but non-judgmental manner in the confessional, and his old-fashioned piety in praying the Mass and serving Eucharist to the People of God.  ++  I first became acquainted with him when attending Mass at the Cathedral church with my family.  His love of Christ and the Church came through brilliantly in his homilies.  His sermons were often thought-provoking, based on his extensive reading of the Holy Scriptures, Church history and contemporary papal documents.  ++  He was aware of topical events, but he was old-fashioned and soft-spoken when addressing contemporary problems, and somehow managed to accommodate his temperament and style of being with the innovations of the Second Vatican Council.  ++  As an altar boy at the Cathedral, I had the privilege of serving him at many Masses, including the old Latin rite.  He was always very patient with the altar boys, and never once do I remember being chastised for making a mistake in serving him at the altar, which I did regularly.  ++  I recall visiting him at the University of Ottawa where he kindly endorsed my application for a Canadian passport.  I wasn’t sure what he was doing there, and remember hoping at the time that he would come back to Victoria, which thankfully he did, to serve for many more years.  ++  Even in his supposed retirement, he continued to hear confessions, to pray Masses, to attend to the dying, such as my own faithfully departed late mother Sheila Mary Margaret Hartnell (nee Turnbull) and her third-born son and my dearly departed brother Adrian Thomas Hartnell, and to generally make himself available as many older priests of his generation such as Father William Hill and Father Andre Dion and others do to this day, filling in the gaps of the mythical priest shortage.  ++  HIs manner in the confessional was non-threatening, and one always left Monsignor after receiving absolution confident that one had made what is popularly called ‘a good confession.’  ++  During some of the long years of the Saint Anne’s Academy saga, he sat at monthly meetings with Tom Loring, Marnie Butler, Pat Jamieson, myself and others on the board of the ‘Island Catholic News.’  There he would often give us laypeople the official or clerical view of local Church matters, including Bishop De Roo’s hands-off policy with respect to the endangered old Catholic convent.  ++  While those positions were sometimes at variance with those of the laypeople, we all managed somehow, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, to remain respectful of each other’s positions.  ++  He was, however, very courageous in that he was one of the few priests in the Diocese who would bother to occasionally send letters to the editor of the local newspapers, especially if there was a need to defend the Church’s position on matters of controversy in the secular world.  I am grateful to acknowledge that he was the only priest that publicly supported the Concerned Citizens when we objected to the attempt to show a pornographic film in the auditorium of Saint Anne’s Academy.  Sister Mary Margaret Cantwell, the historian and archivist of the Sisters of Saint Anne, also wrote a good letter to the papers of the day decrying the proposed screening.  ++  My last talk with Monsignor was a difficult one and for which I must learn to forgive him.  I had read in the ‘Diocesan Messenger’ monthly newspaper, the official publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria, that a few positions on the Diocesan Finance Committee were to become vacant.  Monsignor O’Connell was the appointed man to screen the applicants.  I phoned him up and told him that I was interested in helping the committee.  ++  He proceeded to interrogate me in a manner that I must say I found demeaning and degrading, asking me what made me think that I was qualified.  Frankly, I was shocked by his condescension to me, and he effectively discouraged me from writing a letter to him detailing why they should accept me.  ++  I believe that my main mistake was in telling him beforehand that I had grave misgivings about the way the Diocese was being administered in terms of its finances, citing the disgraceful Lacey land lawsuits and all the rest of the of the scandalous recent history of episcopal waste and bureaucratic obfuscation.  ++  So, in this regard of his closing ranks with the secretive bishops when it came time to be accountable, he was a man with feet of clay, like the rest of us.  I can and do forgive him now, but only by the grace of the Holy Spirit am I able to do so.  ++  May God bless his soul.  +++ 

+++  The wanderer received a royal welcome in Santa Barbara from his mother-in-law and such brothers- and sisters-in-law as were about.  Don Jose, Pablo and Francisco had not yet returned from Mexico, and Teresa long since had taken her little boys back to Monterey.  Though Don Guillermo longed to lay eyes on his own family, he stayed some time in the south, selling articles form the ‘Huascar’’s cargo and making arrangements for her return to Lima filled with California produce.  ++  During his absence, harsh commercial restrictions again had been enforced.  Disembarkation again was allowed nowhere save at San Diego, or Monterey, and cargoes could be taken on only at the four ‘presidios,’ San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco.  At the various missions, Don Guillermo found many of his old friends gone, banished because of Spanish birth, retired, or dead from old age.  Even his close relationship with the governor, which in the case of Sola and Don Luis Arguello aided him in navigating the shoals of commercial restrictions, no longer existed with the hypochondriac incumbent.  Echeandia refused to live at Monterey, and nursed himself continually in the San Diego sun, taking no part in the life of either community.  ++  It was necessary, after collecting produce from the southern missions, to make a special trip to Echeandia’s headquarters in San Diego.  Here Hartnell secured the Governor’s permission to take aboard a huge pile of hides and tallow lying on the beach at San Juan Capistrano.  As in Logan’s time, Echeandia granted the special request but showed no inclination toward changing such regulations as were ruinous to coastal trade.  ++  Despite all these difficulties, the final invoice of the ‘Huascar’ showed a respectably sized cargo; but no proceeds went on Hartnell’s account with Begg and Company.  The contract with Sevilla had proved too exacting.  To McCulloch in Lima, Hartnell writes:  ++  ’Thank God I have at last got out of Sevilla’s clutches.  The vessel takes with her besides 14,398$ worth of produce for him, 2500$ for McCulloch, Gates and Reid and I have likewise paid 1125$ demurage and upwards of 3000$ to Mancisidor, besides various other debts of the concern; so that upon the whole I have not done so very bad under the present circumstances whatever Mr. Begg may think of it.’  +++

+++  Before his departure from California, Don Guillermo had received assurances from most of these “old cowled friends” that, whatever the outcome of negotiations in Lima, they would remain faithful to him personally.  It was conceivable that Hartnell, operating on his own, might enjoy a virtual monopoly of the mission trade far outlasting the terms of the mission contract.  The words of Father Jose Viader, writing from Santa Clara on July 1, 1827, were indicative of the Franciscans’ feeling of trust in Don Guillermo, whatever their sentiments about the absent partners might be:  ++  ’Concerning the failure of the house of Begg and Company [given as an excuse for the approaching dissolution of McCulloch and Hartnell in the months preceding Don Guillermo's departure for South America] . . . . I can assure you that I am still suspicious of this failure; but you should not believe that the esteem which I always have felt for your honor and other personal traits has lessened or will lessen.  I shall always be the same, and from now on, and forever, you can count on me as one of your friends who anxiously awaits an occasion to serve you, and I pray God to give you many years.’ (translation)  ++  Bearing the burden of a heavy debt but buoyed up by many such expressions of confidence, William Hartnell departed from the South American continent, this time forever.  He sailed as supercargo aboard the ‘Huascar’ bound for California.  To friends in Lima, he said that his only remaining ambition was “to pay off my debts as quick as possible and leave speculations for those who find pleasure in them.”  ++  Aboard the ‘Huascar’ were goods consigned to Hartnell by various Lima merchants, including materials from McCulloch and his fellow countryman, Hugo Reid, the American Daniel Coit, John Gates (the only one of Hartnell’s old friends who remained with Begg and Company), and a sharp Peruvian named Sevilla.  Individual contracts called for Don Guillermo to collect a return cargo on the California coast.  +++

+++  Some good friend has been kind enough to let her know about your being prisoner in Lima.”  ++  Home new is not very exciting: “I have planted about seventy trees in the Garden, that was all we could from Soledad but as soon as I can pass the river will try San Johns [San Juan Bautista] for more.  There is vary little communication with any of the missions owing to so much rain, really this year looks something like twenty-four.”  The letter ends on a philosophical  note: ” The Old Sargent is going to die, and Cooper’s wife is with child.  One out of the world and another in, a fair exchange is no robbing.”  ++  Hartnell spent the early part of his Lima visit in renewing old friendships.  Among the few familiar faces was Don Antonio Cot, who had been forced to flee from California as a Spaniard unwelcome in any Mexican province.  For the time being he had rejoined Mancisidor in the main office.  ++  When Hartnell came face to face with his own partners, it did not take long to reach decisions.  McCulloch was sufficiently busy with his own affairs not to protest a dissolution of the five-year-old partnership.  Begg’s main interest lay in getting his money out, and Hartnell wished to continue in the California trade on his own, with financial backing by his father-in-law.  ++  The articles of dissolution, as finally drawn up by efficient Mr. Fraser, specified the company’s total loss as $29,069.  The terms of dissolution provided that payment of this amount be apportioned $18,169 to John Begg and Company and $6,813 to McCulloch, leaving Hartnell responsible for the payment of $4,087.  The latter in addition agreed to assume outstanding debts owed to the company in California.  HIs final obligation mounted to $18,885.  ++  On May 1, 1828, out from the Lima office went a letter to the faraway fathers of the California missions, notifying them of the dissolution of McCulloch, Hartnell and Company, and of Hartnell’s independent continuance of trade on the California coast.  Composed in his best Spanish style by Don Guillermo, it ended courteously: “We can not let this opportunity pass without thanking you most sincerely for the many favors which have been granted us and we beg you to continue your favor and protection to the said Hartnell in the same manner as has hitherto been done for your grateful servants.”  +++ 

+++  That these changes were greater than Logan realized was indicated by the fact that of half a dozen friends he mentioned by name, three already had been forced to flee the country, and the great Zalvidea, recently removed from his post of authority at San Gabriel, was confined to a cell at San Juan Capistrano suffering from nervous breakdown.  Sanchez and Peyri remain on sufferance at San Gabriel and San Luis Rey.  ++  Hartnell heard that Don Jose and his sons had been turned back at San Blas, not allowed even to proceed to Mexico City, much less to occupy the seat in Congress to which Don Jose had been elected, or to acquire a liberal education in the capital.  Substitute Gervasio Arguello (an accredited ‘hijo del pais’) set out on the overland journey alone, while the three de la Guerras awaited a northbound vessel.  Upon return to Santa Barbara Don Jose planned to occupy himself solely with his own affairs, particularly with overseeing final details of his fine new house.  He had resigned the honorable post of ‘comandante’ in order to become ‘diputado’ to Mexico City, and he was no longer entitled to live in the ‘presidio’ home where Don Guillermo had courted and married his eldest daughter.  Changes, changes in California - every ship from the north brought news of more.  ++  And in Lima Hartnell felt strange and lost.  HIs old friend Atherton put it tersely: “We have lots of new faces here, although few establishments since you left.”  The five years of Hartnell’s absence had been troubled by continual counterrevolutionary activity, besides political chicanery and insubordination among the patriots themselves.  ”As for office business,” added Atherton, “it is in a bad way.”  ++  Hartnell found his former circle of friends quite broken: Wyllie living in Mazatlan, Atherton no longer connected with Begg and Company though still in Lima, and Wyld away.  Only Miss Lynch remained in her niche, not married, and as lovely as ever.  Old embers blazed again, briefly, and then subsided forever as far as happily married Hartnell was concerned.  ++  But by the time a few sea captains had appeared on the California coast, coming from Callao, rumor was rife.  When David Spence can contain himself no longer, he writes to his master: “By the by, How did you escape that English wifie of yours?  I have as yet keeped it all quiet,” but “I have for your satisfaction enclosed a letter I had the other day from Mrs. Hartnell. . . .”  +++

+++  ’No news particular only the potatoes and pumpkins are looking up every day.  . . . .  ++  ’Captain Beechey joins me with his kind compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Hartnell.  ++  ’Wishing you a good passage and a speedy return.’  ++  Six weeks before sailing, when Hartnell first arrived in Santa Barbara, he had written William Logan telling of the projected voyage.  In answer, a letter was awaiting him at Lima, dated March 30 from Hacienda del Monte Puno in the Andean highlands, and saying:  ++  ’Mr. Begg mentions your now being in Valparaiso and expected daily in Lima.  I hope when you sailed from California you left Mrs. H. [and] little Billy with another little squire as a companion in good health and spirits along with all other relatives and friends.  ++  ’I am happy to hear of your arrival, hoping that you will have an amicable drawing up of the establishment Accts. and clear up any former doubts and reflections that may have arisen from little or no foundation; and have not the least doubt, but Mr. Begg and yourself will make a future relationship and continue the specn. in California which I think well of.’  ++  Of his own affairs, Logan reports that mining problems in the Andes, which he lacks the experience and knowledge to solve, have forced him into the decision to resign from his present situation, and he has not made up his mind about the future.  He expects to see Hartnell soon in Lima; and of all his California companions, Logan most anxiously inquires after “our old cowled friends. . . . .and in particular how P. Jose Maria Zalvidea, Sanchez, Peyree, and Ripoll are holding out.”  He has heard rumors of the persecution of Spaniards and hopes they are unfounded.  In conclusion he asks: “How does our best friends Cot and Mancisidor pass their time?  Do once more think of an old servant and friend and communicate some news to him respecting the different changes you have had since I left.”  +++