r, was above the
superstitions of the Spanish race; yet both, skillful diplomatists,
knew well how to avail themselves of the superstitions of others. The
early Spanish adventurers to Mexico were a good illustration of the
doctrine of total depravity, and the priests, that held them in
leading-strings, were as depraved as themselves. "Like priests, like
people." Our first settlers in California had learned self-government
and self-control in the school of Protestantism; and when they took
possession of that part of the country beyond the limit of Spanish
settlements, where there were no laws and no written code, they were a
law unto themselves, and the Spanish Americans that gathered about them
found more perfect protection to life and property than they had ever
before enjoyed. The Spanish adventurers at Mexico lavished the wealth
which they had acquired by the forced labor of the Indians in the mines
upon priests and monks, who amused them with lying miracles. They also
gave money as an atonement for the criminal lives they led, and to
shield themselves from the vengeance of the Inquisition, where they
were suspected of being rich. The religion of the Californians was a
simple veneration for the truths of Scripture. In some it amounted to
devotion, but it was devotion sanctioned by reason and the
understanding. They all alike despised superstition and abhorred
despotism. In conclusion, I may add, that, had such a race of men as I
saw in the mountains and villages of California at an early period of
its settlement existed at the time of the conquest of Mexico, they
would have revolutionized the world.

We have heard much of the immorality, excessive extravagance and luxury
of the cities of California; but the following picture of the state of
the city of Mexico in the heyday of its prosperity, five years before
it was destroyed by an inundation, is from the black-letter volume of
Thomas Gage, of which I have already availed myself.

"Almost all Mexico is now built with very fair and spacious houses,
with gardens of recreation. The streets are very broad; in the
narrowest of them three coaches may go, and in the broadest of them six
may go in the breadth of them, which makes the city seem a great deal
bigger than it is. In my time it was thought to be of between thirty
and forty thousand inhabitants, Spaniards, who are so proud and rich,
that half the city was judged to keep coaches; for it was a most
credible report