Such was the case in California; but that the reader may understand the events which are to follow, it is necessary to draw a brief sketch of the country.  I have already said that California embraces four hundred miles of sea-coast upon the Pacific Ocean.  On the east, it is bounded by the Californian gulf, forming, in fact, a long peninsula.  The only way of arriving at it by land, from the interior of Mexico, is to travel many hundred miles north, across the wild deserts of Sonora, and through tribes of Indians which, from the earliest records down to our days, have always been hostile to the Spaniards, and, of course, to the Mexicans.  Yet far as California is—­too far indeed for the government of Mexico to sufficiently protect it, either from Indian inroads or from the depredations of pirates, by which, indeed, the coast has much suffered—­it does not prevent the Mexican government from exacting taxes from the various settlements—­taxes enormous in themselves, and so onerous, that they will ever prevent these countries from becoming what they ought to be, under a better government.

The most northerly establishment of Mexico on the Pacific Ocean is San Francisco; the next, Monterey; then comes San Barbara, St. Luis Obispo, Buona Ventura, and, finally, St. Diego; besides these seaports, are many cities in the interior, such as St. Juan Campestrano, Los Angelos, the largest town in California, and San Gabriel.  Disturbances, arising from the ignorance and venality of the Mexican dominion, very often happen in these regions; new individuals are continually appointed to rule them; and these individuals are generally men of broken fortunes and desperate characters, whose extortions become so intolerable that, at last, the Californians, in spite of their lazy dispositions, rise upon their petty tyrants.  Such was now the case at Monterey.  A new governor had arrived; the old General Morreno had, under false pre-texts, been dismissed, and recalled to the central department, to answer to many charges preferred against him.

The new governor, a libertine of the lowest class of the people, half monk and half soldier, who had carved his way through the world by murder, rapine, and abject submission to his superiors, soon began to stretch an iron hand over the townspeople.  The Montereyans will bear much, yet under their apparent docility and moral apathy there lurks a fire which, once excited, pours forth flames of destruction.  Moreover, the foreigners established in Monterey had, for a long time, enjoyed privileges which they were not willing to relinquish; and as they were, generally speaking, wealthy, they enjoyed a certain degree of influence over the lower classes of the Mexicans.

Immediately after the first extortion of the new governor, the population rose en masse, and disarmed the garrison.  The presidio was occupied by the insurgents, and the tyrant was happy to escape on board an English vessel, bound to Acapulco.