CALIFORNIA. 43 



these settlements yearly, arrived in Monterey only 

 while we were there. The missions possess some 

 bud barks in the harbour of San Francisco, built by 

 foreign captives. Even the Presidio has not a 

 single boat ; and other havens are no better off. 

 Strangers catcli otter-skins even in the Spanish 

 harbours ; and only a smuggling trade, which the 

 new governor of California, since his appointment 

 (fourteen months ago) has tried to suppress, fur- 

 nishes this province with the most indispensable 

 articles. Spain has given way in the affair of 

 Nootka. England and the United States, without 

 regarding its vain territorial possessions, are now 

 negotiating about the colony at the mouth of the 

 Columbia; and the Russian American Company 

 liave still a settlement a few leagues north of San 

 Francisco. 



But the maintenance of this colony is ascribed 

 to another motive besides poHcy : namely, the 

 pious intention of propagating the Christian re- 

 ligion, and the conversion of heathen nations. 

 The governor of the province himself, informed 

 us, that this was the real state of the case. Well, 

 then, a good work has been here injudiciously be- 

 gun and ill-executed. 



The pious Franciscans, who hold the missions in 

 New California, are not skilled in the arts and 

 trades which they ought to exercise and teach, nor 

 in any oi" the languages s{)oken by the nations to 

 whom they are sent. They are monks, exactlv 



