136 THE ROARING FORTIES 



cent years. The gist of Lord Aberdeen s policy 

 was, not to acquire California for Great Britain, 

 but to keep it out of the hands of the United 

 States by any means short of war. His posi 

 tion was the same as in relation to Texas. 

 The interests of Great Britain required that the 

 expansion of the American Republic be opposed 

 by every peaceful influence. Aberdeen would 

 have guaranteed California to Mexico if France 

 had been willing to join in the bond. He re 

 jected overtures from a revolutionary party of 

 California who suggested a British protectorate, 

 but accompanied the rejection with a plain inti 

 mation that if a revolt should separate the 

 province from Mexico, Great Britain would pre 

 fer to give it protection rather than see that 

 function undertaken by any other power. After 

 the annexation of Texas, when war was clearly 

 impending, he urged Mexico in the most ener 

 getic terms to avoid war, on the ground that she 

 would surely lose California also. He even took 

 into apparently serious consideration schemes 

 for the creation of a British interest in Califor 

 nia by large grants of land to British holders of 

 Mexican bonds. But this was at the time when 

 the Oregon question was in its acute stage, and 

 the British cabinet perceived easily enough that 



