IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE TO ROYALTY. 81 



is shipped for Mexico, and there either ex- 

 changed 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 con- 

 ditions, 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 mSke the ordi- 

 nary remittances for the pay of the military, or 

 the support of the monks. Still their loyalty 

 remained unshaken; they implicitly obeyed 

 even that command of the King which closed 

 their ports against all foreign vessels ; and as 

 the republicans were considered as foreigners, 

 and no ships arrived from Spain, the missions, as 

 well as the Presidios, soon began to suffer the 

 E 5 



