410 ADOPTION OF A STATE CONSTITUTION. [1811. 



peril and hardship have been cheerfully encountered. The 

 ,-cean tempest has lost its terrors ; the vomito of New Gre- 

 nla is supposed no longer to possess the power to harm ; and 

 horrors of Indian warfare or starvation, both equally 

 eaded in former times, no more affright the timid, or dis- 

 • uiage the weak-hearted, as they wend their way, faint in 

 ody but stout of soul, across the trackless wastes of New 

 iixico and Descret. And if, perchance, nature at length 

 oecomes exhausted and gives way ere the glittering prize has 

 been clutched, the last thoughts of the wayfarer may dwell 

 upon the home he has left, smiling with everything that could 

 cheer or comfort him, and the sad faces and sadder hearts 

 that witnessed his departure, yet with them are mingled feel- 

 ings of regret that he was unable to reach the land of promise 

 before him. 



It might naturally be expected, that the population of Cali- 

 fornia would exhibit a mongrel character. Almost every 

 •lime and creed under the sun has its representatives there. 

 Yet it is a remarkable fact, and one highly creditable to the 

 immigrants, that the state of society in the main has been, 

 and now is, a great deal better than could be looked for among 

 such an incongruous mass. Outrages and excesses have been 

 committed, but they are daily becoming less frequent. For 

 several months the citizens governed themselves, in a degree, 

 by laws arbitrarily adopted, yet which were both appropriate 

 and needful, and usually administered with impartiality and 

 justice. On the 1st day of September, 1849, a convention 

 of delegates elected in the different districts, in pursuance of 

 a proclamation of General Riley, then acting as civil and 

 military governor of the territory, assembled at Monterey, and 

 on the 12th day of October following, adopted a state consti- 

 tution, modelled, in all its general features, after the new 

 '•'institution of the state of New York ; and immediately after 

 the adjournment of that body, all the necessary steps were 

 .en to bring the question of their admission into the con- 

 federacy before the national Congress, at its ensuing session. 

 (8.) The eastern boundary of California established by 



