PEACEMAKER: William Edward Petty Hartnell ‘loved his wife [Dona Maria Teresa de la Guerra Hartnell] so deeply and enduringly that she was sustained for the time she must spend on earth without him’

With the passing of Hartnell went a leading character from the California scene.

Yet so crowded had the stage become that few seemed conscious of his absence, aside from family and close friends.

An English companion of his youth wrote shortly before his death: “I have looked anxiously for your name in different accounts I have seen of California, but unsuccessfully.”

To this day, in recounting his time, historians overlook Hartnell.

Only in his home community has the name been honored.

One hundred years after the establishment of Hartnell’s school at Alisal, Salinas named its junior college for him.

A few miles away, adobe walls of the parent institution still are standing on the abandoned Camino Real, among the unchanging hills.

William Hartnell’s contribution to California history is difficult to define.

He created a plane of understanding in a primitive, polyglot community, and presided over it for many years.

By the end of his life, Monterey had become a microcosm, a little world inhabited by people from many countries.

Each stranger was assured of welcome and understanding at la casa Arnel.

Only discourteous conduct ever barred the door.

Hartnell played the undramatic, indispensable role of interpreter his whole life through.

Procedure at California’s constitutional convention might have ground to a standstill, lacking Hartnell’s contribution, his ability to explain and reconcile clashing convictions.

Instead, it became one of the most successful congresses in history, accomplishing its many aims in a few hard-working weeks.

Without respite, following the period when he represented people ignorant of their conquerors’ language, Hartnell spent the last years of his life in translating the new laws so that they could be understood by all who must obey them.

The first school of higher learning and liberal arts, the first girls’ school, and the inception of public education in California – all these we owe to a man who considered himself a failure in every career he embarked upon.

William Petty Hartnell was a man of many failures, many faults.

Yet unremittingly he tried “to promote harmony among all classes.”

Through stern effort, he helped to bridge from war to peace, to conduct his conquered country out of chaos into order.

He educated his own and other children for enlightened citizenship, girls as well as boys, red Indians along with white students.

And he loved his wife so deeply and enduringly that she was sustained for the time she must spend on earth without him.

Teresa de la Guerra Hartnell lived on at Alisal into the ‘eighties, surrounded by children and children’s children.

They delighted in her tales of the days that were gone, of the father who built firm the foundation of their lives in California.

The End

 

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Published by Stanford University Press 1949

Pages 292 – 293

 

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1854 – 1949 – 2010

PEACEMAKER: ‘The kind Mrs. Hartnell [nee Maria Teresa de la Guerra]– one of the noblest among the native ladies of California’ saved the life of Monterey alcalde Walter Colton with ‘her roots and herbs’

Even the Indians caught the fever and, within a month, members of the gente de razon who remained in Monterey were without servants, besides other comforts of life.

Ruefully Colton describes his own situation:

‘We have a house and all the table furniture and culinary apparatus requisite, but our servants have run.

‘A general of the United States army, the commander of a man-of-war, and the alcalde of Monterey in a smoking kitchen, grinding coffee, toasting herring and peeling onions.

‘Those gold mines will upset all the domestic arrangements.’

The alcalde, overworked and underfed, fell ill at this time, and would have been in serious condition had it not been for Dona Teresa Hartnell.

With undying gratitude he says:

‘In a half-delirious state, which followed close upon the attack, I looked up and saw bending over me the kind Mrs. Hartnell — one of the noblest among the native ladies of California. . . . . I resigned myself to all her drinks and baths; she did with me just what she pleased. 

‘She broke the fever without breaking me; restored my strength and in a week I was in my office, attending to my duties.

‘What she gave me I know not, but I believe her roots and herbs saved my life.’

The hardships of a servantless life at home grew to seem worse to Colton than any the mines had to offer; so he locked his office and joined the rush himself.

Hartnell, with a deliberation which came from advancing years and ill health, finished his legal assignment.

He then went, by order of General Riley, who succeeded Richard Mason as military governor of California, to oversee the printing in San Francisco.

It was to be done by the press of the Alta California, which had absorbed the first little paper, the Californian, edited and published by Colton, Semple, and Hartnell himself.

Three hundred copies he ordered “for distribution among the officers of the existing Government, to be paid out of the Civil Fund.”

Hartnell arrived in San Francisco toward the end of May, to find great changes from the sleepy little pueblo of his early visits.

Overnight, almost she had become a crude American city, powerless to resist the horde of “argonauts” who were hastening by land and sea to wrest a fortune out of the rich northern lodes.

San Francisco already was a boom town.

The original community of adobe houses centering around the plaza had simply been absorbed into a sprawling, noisy city of frame and canvas.

Susanna Bryant Dakin: The Lives of William Hartnell, published by Stanford University Press, 1949, pages 284 – 285.

PEACEMAKER: ‘A little daughter named Margarita Amelia was born to Dona Teresa and Don Guillermo [Hartnell] on February 22, 1847′

This interview with Dona Teresa put the lonely and disgruntled officer in such a good frame of mind that when he met Teresita in the hallway, he forgot to look behind her ears.

He only noted, this time, that she was “extremely graceful and pretty.”

The magic of the Hartnell home was working even on Lieutenant Wise, who had been correct in his surmise.

A little daughter named Margerita Amelia was born to Dona Teresa and Don Guillermo on February 22, 1847.

Mission records show that this was the seventeenth Hartnell offspring (even the mother lost count occasionally).

Four sons had already died.

Another, the little Nathaniel who had been born at Alisal in 1840, died shortly after his seventh birthday, cause unknown.

In those days a child’s death was regarded as truly an act of God as his birth.

Pediatrics, like birth control, was a science yet to be discovered.

Don Guillermo spent the remainder year 1847 and early 1848 making a selection, translation, and digest in English of such Mexican laws as were “supposed to be still in force and adapted to the present condition in California.”

As various sections were finished, the Americans posted copies prominently in all the pueblos of Alta California.

But Governor Mason (relieving Kearney while the general went to Washington for further instruction in occupation) planned in addition that the digest be printed by the government press in San Francisco and distributed in greater numbers than ever had been possible in the past.

Besides his task of legal selection and translation, Hartnell continued to edit the Spanish section of the Monterey Californian (moved to San Francisco in May 1847).

He enjoyed such work, but soon was roused from his scholarly abstraction by news from the north that gold had been discovered at New Helvetia by James Marshall, while building a sawmill for Captain Sutter.

Don Guillermo rode to the capital from Alisal, to sort out facts from rumors.

Everyone seemed similarly engaged, and work was suspended.

Finally, the alcalde sent a messenger all the way to Sutter’s Fort, to seek the truth.

Two weeks later, when the man rode into the Monterey plaza, he had to force his way through a crush of Californians and their conquerors.

In Colton’s own words:

‘As he drew forth the yellow lumps from his pockets and passed them around among the crowd, the doubts which had lingered till now fled. . . . . .

‘The excitement produced was intense and many were soon busy with their hasty preparations for departure to the mines.

‘The blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf and the tapster his bottle.

‘All were off for the mines, some on horses, some on crutches, and one went in a litter.’

 

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

PEACEMAKER: Pages 282 – 283

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Stanford University Press 1949

 

PEACEMAKER: Dona Maria Teresa de la Guerra Hartnell ‘gave her full consent to any schemes undertaken in California for the amelioration of her sex’

Hutton was welcome in such homes as Hartnell’s and Jimeno’s because of mutual interests and good manners.

Others were not so fortunate.

One young navy officer, who arrived in the rainy season and lacked the social graces, described the same people unkindly, with little understanding or knowledge of their ways.

Lieutenant Wise notes in his diary that “with the denizens of Monterey, even the wealthiest, cleanliness was an acquirement very little appreciated or practised.”

Even while “playing the agreeable” with a young lady he noticed a “chemisette of a chocolate hue peeping through a slit in her sleeve,” and resolved, in the case of becoming infatuated like so many others, “to exact a change of raiment in the marriage contract.”

This was Teresita Hartnell, who learned the polka from Wise, never suspecting his horrid thoughts.

By chance, the lieutenant was sent by his superior officer on an errand to la casa Arnel.

In the courtyard he passed by Indian servants “rejoicing in great masses of wiry shocks of hair, quite coarse enough to weave into bird cages.”  

He was glad to see that the rain was doing for some of these savages “what they never had the energy to perform themselves — washing their faces.”

Finally, says the navy officer:

‘I reached terra firma, thankful to have escaped with my boots overflowing with mud and then we marched boldly into the domicile.

‘We entered a large, white-washed sala where, after clapping hands, a concourse of small children approached with a lighted tallow link (for it was a dark day) and in reply to our inquiries, without further ceremony, ushered us by another apartment into the presence of the mistress of the mansion.

‘She was sitting a la grand Turque, on the chief ornamental structure that graced the chamber — namely the bed, upon which were sportively engaged three diminutive brats, with a mouse-trap — paper cigarrittos — dirty feet, and other juvenile and diverting toys.

‘The Dona herself was swallowing and puffing clouds of smoke alternately —  but I must paint her as she sat, through the haze.

‘”Juana,” said she, calling to a short, squat Indian girl, “lumbrecita por el Senor” a light for the gentleman — and in a moment I was likewise pouring forth volumes of smoke.

‘She wore her hair, which was black and glossy, in natural folds stright down the neck adn shoulders, dark complexion, lighted by deep, black, intelligent eyes, well-shaped features, and brilliant white teeth.

‘I saw but little of her figure, as she was was almost entirely enveloped in shawls and bed-clothes. . . . .

‘She excused herself on the plea of indisposition for not rising, and it being one I surmised she was a martyr to every year or so, I very readily coincided in opinion, but in truth I found the Senora . . . . . sensible, good-humoured, and what  was far more notable, the mother of fourteen male and five female children — making nineteen the sum of boys and girls total, a she informed me herself, without putting me to the trouble of counting the brood; and yet she numbered but seven and thirty years, in the very prime of life, with the appearance of being again able to perform equally astonishing exploits for the future.

‘She named many of her friends and relatives who had done wonders, but none who had surpassed her in these infantile races.

‘In Spain she would receive a pension, be exempted from taxes and the militia.

‘On being told this she laughed heartily, and gave her full consent to any schemes undertaken in California for the amelioration of her sex.’

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Pages 281 – 282

PEACEMAKER IN HAWAII: ‘In English remarkable for its directness and simplicity, [King Kamehameha] responded to [William] Hartnell’s salutation, inquiring of conditions in California’

 How delightful and untroubled seemed Honolulu.  At the time of Hartnell’s visit it boasted about six thousand residents who lived in great comfort, the Europeans and Americans in handsome houses of stone and frame, venetian shuttered, and the Polynesians in grass huts, ingeniously contrived and well suited to the tropical climate.  Their king ruled from an impressive palace.  Shops abounded, offering all conceivable wares, and flowers were everywhere, filling the atmosphere with fragrance and brilliant color.

Into this cosmopolitan place, the creation of second-generation missionaries, Robert Wyllie had sailed a few months previously with General Miller and his pretty daughter.  Presently the amazing Wyllie insinuated himself into the good graces of the king himself, known as the Lonely One, and by the time of Hartnell’s arrival was serving as secretary of state to His Polynesian Majesty.

A quarter-century had elapsed since the cousins’ last meeting.  Yet their friendship was of the kind that need not be fed by proximity.  The doctor embraced his former patient (whom he had helped to carry on a stretcher aboard the John Begg, in 1822).  He listened to Hartnell’s current troubles, carefully perused the papers brought from California, and finally gave as his opinion of the loan made in 1827: “The claim is a clear and just one, beyond all dispute, and the amount $7,800 ought to be paid, and moreover interest at the rate legal in Monterey where you made the loan.”

  He spoke of the matter to Admiral Seymour, and refrred his cousin to papers which he once had seen in the archives of the British legation in Mexico.  Wyllie understood that Hartnell had the interest of McCulloch’s heirs at heart, as well as his own.  As a final measure, he advised putting the whole matter in the hands of Mr. Forbes, British vice-consul to California.

Following his doctor-cousin’s advice, Hartnell got the document off with a note to “His Excellency” Mr. Forbes, explaining once again the circumstances of the loan.  He then was free to enjoy himself while waiting for return passage to California.  Since Wyllie wished him to have an audience with the King, Hartnell spent several hours each day learning something of the Hawaiian language.  He planned to deliver a speech to Kamehameha in the native tongue, and memorized the following words (translation from the Hawaiian):

I shall always consider this day, Sire, as one of the most fortunate in my existence, because I have been accorded the very high honour of presenting to Your Majesty my most humble respects.  I am very glad to see Your Majesty in good health and pray God to grant you a long and prosperous reign for the felicity of your subjects and general welfare of the dominions which you so admirable govern.

The Lonely One was delighted to meet such a clever fellow.  In English remarkable for its directness and simplicity, he responded to Hartnell’s salutation, inquiring of conditions in California.  At this time, Kaemehameha was thirty-four years old.  His body had not yet yielded to obesity, and he made an impressive appearance in a royal-blue uniform with gold epaulettes, a sword at his side, and single gold star on his breast.  Hartnell felt that “good humour rather than strength of intellect” characterized the King’s dark face.  Kamehameha seemed to depend on a cabinet of five, all Americans save Dr. Wyllie, for decisions of real importance.

Hartnell’s cousin had supplanted Bingham in state councils, and the court atmosphere was greatly changed since Father Patrick’s day.  The clouds of Puritan disapproval had rolled away, and Kamehameha was becoming renowned for his poker parties and drinking bouts, as well as for occasions when he filled his formal drawing room with beautiful women and the music of a concert grand.

SUSANNA BRYANT DAKIN: The Lives of William Hartnell

Stanford University Press: 1949

Pages 275 – 276 

 

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL HARTNELLIANA 1949 – 2010

by ‘Goyo de la Rosa’

Don Guillermo ‘Hartnell, with the others, signed a resolution of loyalty to Mexico, but refused to run away from Monterey,’ p. 272, The Lives of William Hartnell, Susanna Bryant Dakin

William Hartnell, remembered for his service to Commodore Jones four years previously, was asked to translate Sloat’s proclamation.  He also acted as U. S. appraiser in the customhouse where, six days after the fall of California’s capital, the Mexican customs officials met to protest the American conquest.

Pablo de la Guerra appeared as leading spirit in this anticlimatical act.  With fiery eloquence he begged his fellow officials, including his English brother-in-law, to support the Mexican cause still embodied in General Jose Castro.  Since fighting still continued in the south, they should flee from the fallen capital and regain every loss.  Hartnell, with the others, signed a resolution of loyalty to Mexico, but refused to run away from Monterey.  De la Guerra, in turn, refused to give over the custom-house flags and boats to the American conquerors.  Finally, alone, he fled southward to avoid giving parole.  It was a long time before he saw his sister and brother-in-law Hartnell again, and some time before bitterness subsided, on both sides.

Besides accepting the customhouse position, Don Guillermo agreed to become surveyor and land auctioneer for the American government, to help straighten out the land-grant muddle left by Pico in his last days in office.

Perhaps the most important service that Hartnell performed toward the establishment of peace and understanding was to act as an editor of California’s first newspaper.  Its first appearance was an important event in the capital.  Not only had no newspaper ever been published in the country, but the appearance of outside publications was spasmodic.  A few people subscribed to the Honolulu Polynesian.  A few, like Hartnell, received copies of the Lima Gazette or the London Times from Mexico City, on incoming vessels.  But it remained for the American Robert Semple to bring out a regular, comprehensive newssheet, printed in Monterey and distributed weekly.

[Excerpt from THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL, written by Susanna Bryant Dakin and published in 1949 by Stanford University Press, pages 272 - 273]

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL HARTNELLIANA 2010

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]

DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL wrote Don Jose de la Guerra congratulating him having been ‘nominated delegate to the Mexican congress’

+++  On the heels of his British house guest came an equally interesting Frenchman, Auguste Duhaut-Cilly, commanding ‘Le Heros’ on a voyage of trade and exploration ‘autour du monde.’  Like Beechey, the French captain was a keen observer, and likewise left a written account of his travels which has been widely read and translated into languages other than his own.  Hartnell heard of Duhaut-Cilly’s appearance on the California coast about the time the ‘Blossom’ sailed for Sandwich.  On February 22 he wrote to Don Jose in Santa Barbara that “every moment we expect a French merchant vessel which planned yesterday to leave San Francisco.”  ++  A month later, after an opportunity of becoming well acquainted and performing friendly offices for the Frenchman, Don Guillermo wrote a letter of introduction to his father-in-law, recommending Duhaut-Cilly without reserve.  ++  Though warned by Mr. Begg “that it is the policy of France to have a possession in these seas,” and aware that the Frenchman might have a purpose similar to Captain Beechey’s the Englishman asked his father-in-law to offer unstinting hospitality to his new friend.  He truly liked the man, considering him “a gentleman of pleasing personality and many accomplishments.”  Of the meeting in Santa Barbara, Duhaut-Cilly himself says (translation from French):  ++  ’We went to see the commandant, Don Jose de la Guerra y Noriega.  He dwelt in the presidio, while waiting for the completion of quite a fine house he was having built without; and for which I was bringing him some beams I had taken on board at Monterey.  In Don Jose we found a well-informed and estimable man, surrounded by a large and charming family, from whom we had a gracious and hearty reception.  His large fortune and fine character were the cause of his enjoying a great influence in the country; and although he was a Spaniard, he had just been nominated delegate to the Mexican congress.  ++  Already Hartnell had sent congratulations to the old Spaniard, saying: “I have been exceedingly pleased to hear of the new honors conferred upon you by the nation.”  +++

Captian Beechey wrote to the English Consul General in Mexico D.F. recommending DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL as Vice Consul in Monterey

+++  SIR  ++  ’The inconvenience I myself experienced at San Francisco from the want of some Government Agent to provide for the necessities of the ship under my command and to interest himself in the negociation of several Bills we had had occasion to draw on his Majesty’s Government would alone I trust be thought sufficient reason for my addressing you on the present occasion; but I am the further induced to do so from having found on my arrival at Monterey that much inconvenience and loss has occurred to some British Ship owners in consequence of the want of some person of authority to whom they could appeal and in whose hands they could lodge their case.  ++  The trade of the Pacific is now becoming much extended, and British Merchant Vessels & Whalers constantly visit both the Ports of Monterey and San Francisco; their Seamen occasionally quit their ships and are left behind and some have become obnoxious to the Mexican Government in these Ports; all of which call for an appointment of some Agent such as a Vice Consul, whose principal residence should be Monterey.  I am encouraged in my recommendation of the subject to your notice from having found Mr. Hartnell, a partner of the very respectable house of Begg & Co. at Lima and resident of Monterey, a person willing to take upon himself the duties of the appointment without salary being attached to it; this gentleman has already been of great assistance to me in forwarding the service I am engaged upon and procuring several supplies which the Ship stood in immediate need of, and is entitled to my public thanks for so doing.’  ++  Captain Beechey was ambitious to complete the survey of the coast of California which had been left unfinished by Vancouver, and to aid Great Britain in the inevitable contest of European powers and the United States for possession of this rich and empty, strategic, and vulnerable territory.  But like Vancouver a generation earlier, Beechey was forced to relinquish the survey before completion.  He found it impossible to obtain the necessary naval stores and medicines for his men not only in California but anywhere on the west coast, and proceeded to Canton.  En route, the ‘Blossom’ put in at Oahu, and her captain sent a note by the ‘Harbinger,’ dated February 18, to his fellow countryman and friend, William Hartnell:  ++  ’We have had papers up to the middle of August last – which state that the country and commercial interests are improving and the Banking houses extricating themselves from the difficulties they had been suddenly plunged into by the singular speculations that had been made; and that the Bank of England was exerting itself to its utmost to assist them. … +++

December 24, 1825: loss overboard of Captain Davis of the ‘Esther’

+++  …  When the new house burned down, on December 17, Hartnell wrote an unsympathetic letter advising Tivy to erect a shed near the beach for the deferred ‘matanza.’  It also could serve as a shelter for the homeless Irishmen.  ++  A change in governors brought about the second blow.  Jose Maria Echeandia, lieutenant colonel of engineers, was sent from Mexico City to succeed  the popular ‘hijo del pais,’ Don Luis Arguello.  Don Luis had been accused of being too easy going, drinking too much, granting too many favors to his friends, notably Macala y Arnel.  Echeandia gave orders that foreign trade again be restricted to the ports of Monterey and San Diego, and that heavy new duties be levied in addition to the old.  Since duties always had been the largest items of expenditure on Hartnell’s account books, the enforcement of such orders would mean ruin to the pioneer British firm.  ++  The resident manager wrote to Begg and Company on December 3: “If vessels are not allowed to touch at all the places they have been accustomed to do, the priests will sooner let their produce rot in the missions than attempt to carry it by land to the two above mentioned ports.”  ++  Carrying his special permit from Arguello “to trade in all the ports of California and also in all the landfalls and bays nearest the missions,” William Logan sailed in December on the ‘Speedy’ from Monterey to San Pedro, only to be refused admittance to the harbor which actually was his home.  In a rare rage, he continued southward to San Diego for a personal interview with Governor Echeadia.  ++  Logan found the newcomer nursing his health in San Diego’s all-year sunshine, and thought he had a pleasing personality.  Nearing forty years of age, Echeandi was tall, slight, brown-haried, and very fair-skinned.  He seemd aristocratic and even gentle, preoccuppied with his own ill health and so absent-mnded as to ask his secretary before signing a document, “What is my name?”  ++  Logan secured special persission to unload and reload the ‘Speedy’ in San Pedro.  But no commitments on future legislation were forthcoming.  ++  All during December the outlook grew blacker.  On Christmas Eve came the wreck of the ‘Esther’ and the loss overboard of Captain Davis, perhaps the ablest officer in the company’s service. …  +++