as
marked for higher honors, and was succeeded by Governor Pedro Fages.

Governor Fages was a good and energetic man, but better fitted for
the army than for the state; he was noted for his lofty principals of
morality. Fages resigned his office and returned to Spain; he was not a
tactful ruler, but like many others his name has suffered at the hands
of unscrupulous writers. Fages was succeeded in 1790 by Governor Jose
Antonio Romeu, a bright and able but very sickly man. Dr. Pablo Soler
the excellent physician and surgeon of the Province of California was
unable to help him; and Romeu died in Monterey in less than two years of
office.

Jose de Arrillaga was the sixth governor. This governor was a finished
general, and placed the presidios of California on a solid basis; he
was painstaking and careful of detail. He resigned on account of private
business affairs but later returned as he was reappointed governor of
California.

The seventh governor was Diego de Borica. Around this Governor cluster
many beautiful pages of Spanish history in California; his was a
character as gentle, religious and home-loving as he was scholarly and
tactful. It was under Borica's administration that the boundary lines
of Upper and Lower California were clearly defined. Borica, however, was
not a man who courted public life or honors, and resigned his office,
returning to Spain with his charming wife and daughter who always longed
for their mother country.

Before leaving Borica did a good service to Spain and California in
recommending the reappointment of Jose Joaquin Arrillaga. Arrillaga
continued to organize strong military defenses for California. He served
as Spanish Governor of California fourteen years, and first of all
declared himself on all occasions "a loyal son of the Church." He died
at Mission Soledad on July 25, 1813, and was buried there. The only
Spanish Governor to be buried in California.

The ninth Spanish Governor was Jose Dario Arguello, who was in office
one year, the interval between the death of Arrillaga and the advent of
Pablo Vicente de Sola the last Spanish Governor of California.

When Governor Sola took office in 1814, California had already bloomed
into a garden of beautiful men and women, many of them from the mother
country, others their children born in this distant province of Castile.
Also many Yankee, Russian and English trading ships came to California
then, and the Spanish presidios were the s