6o CALIFORNIA. 



rebelled, and had their scalps put on the frontage of his fort. 

 To the right of life and death over his people he added that of 

 coining money. He paid his men with tin coins, exchangeable 

 in his stores for clothes, kitchen utensils, eatables, and the 

 like. 



The Mexican Government acted with Captain Sutter as 

 the Turkish Government with the revolted and redoubtable 

 Pachas. They confirmed his authority by appointing him 

 Commandant of the frontier. But an American emigration 

 developing itself around New Helvetia, the Mexican Govern- 

 ment, remembering the annexion of Texas, and fearing the 

 same fate for New Helvetia, propositions were made to 

 Captain Sutter to exchange New Helvetia for the mission of 

 San José, and 50,000 dollars cash. But Sutter, who was fond 

 of his establishment, rejected these advantageous terms. 



The brilliant epoch of the existence of Captain Sutter 

 continued until the arrival of the North Americans. His 

 power was not able to resist this invasion. Everyone would 

 suppose that wealth should have been the compensation of a 

 power destroyed by the transformation of a semi-wild society 

 to that of a civilized one. In his position of first pioneer of 

 the country, owner of a vast territory and of thousands of 

 heads of cattle and horses, how to believe that Sutter was 

 not placed better than anyone else on the road to wealth, 

 especially when, by the construction of his saw mill, gold was 

 discovered. But it did not come to pass so. Thousands of 

 individuals invaded his territory in search of the subterranean 

 treasures before he had time to take his share ; the frequent 

 robberies of his animals during the first invasions, reduced con- 

 siderably the number of his cattle and horses, as also the size of 

 his domain, occupation being the only title of that epoch. The 

 Indians also deserted him, or wanted to impose unacceptable 

 conditions. Captain Sutter could have acquired a high position 

 among the North Americans if from the beginning he had been 

 in favour of them by giving the signal of insurrection, but in- 

 stead of that, the faithful Swiss of Charles X. repudiated all idea 

 of a revolutionary initiative, and with a certain number of 

 his faithful followers and Indians, all well armed, he tried to 

 repulse the Americans ; but he did not succeed, and he 

 remembered only too late that he had been a naturalized 

 American before coming to Mexico. 



Nevertheless, the conquerors admitted him into their 

 army, and treated him with great respect. Dazzled by such a 

 generous reception, Sutter, although a bad scholar in the 



