obedience, to prevent their escape, or, if
they should elude the vigilance of their guards, to bring them from the
midst of their numerous tribes, improving the favourable opportunity of
making new converts by the power of the sword.

The fate of these so called Christian Indians is not preferable even to
that of negro slaves. Abandoned to the despotism of tyrannical monks,
Heaven itself offers no refuge from their sufferings; for their
spiritual masters stand as porters at the gate, and refuse entrance to
whom they please. These unfortunate beings pass their lives in prayer,
and in toiling for the monks, without possessing any property of their
own. Thrice a day they are driven to church, to hear a mass in the Latin
language; the rest of their time is employed in labouring in the fields
and gardens with coarse, clumsy implements, and in the evening they are
locked up in over-crowded barracks, which, unboarded, and without
windows or beds, rather resemble cows' stalls than habitations for men.
A coarse woollen shirt which they make themselves, and then receive as a
present from the missionaries, constitutes their only clothing. Such is
the happiness which the Catholic religion has brought to the
uncultivated Indian; and this is the Paradise which he must not presume
to undervalue by attempting a return to freedom in the society of his
unconverted countrymen, under penalty of imprisonment in fetters.

The large tract of arable land which these pious shepherds of souls have
appropriated to themselves, and which is cultivated by their flocks, is
for the most part sown with wheat and pulse. The harvest is laid up in
store; and what is not necessary for immediate consumption is shipped
for Mexico, and there either exchanged for articles required by the
missions, or sold for hard piastres to fill the coffers of the monks.

In this way were the missionaries, and the military who depended upon
them, living quietly enough in California, when the other Spanish
colonies threw off their allegiance to the mother country. The
insurrection having spread as far as Mexico, they were invited by the
new governments, under advantageous conditions, to make common cause
with them, but they remained true to their King; nor was their fidelity
shaken by the total neglect of the Spaniards, who for many years
appeared to have forgotten their very existence, and had not even
troubled themselves to make the ordinary remittances for the pay of the