NEW MEXICO KEARNEY MACNAMARA CALIFORNIA. 343 



We have already said that it was part of our government's ori- 

 ginal plan to reduce New Mexico and California, — a task which 

 was imposed upon Colonel Kearney, a hardy frontier fighter, long 

 used to Indian character and Indian warfare — who, upon being 

 honored with the command was raised to the rank of Brigadier 

 General. This officer moved from Fort Leavenworth on the 30th 

 of June, towards Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, with an 

 army of sixteen hundred men, and after an unresisted march of 

 eight hundred and seventy-three miles, he reached his destination 

 on the 18th of August. Possession of the place was given without 

 a blow, and it is probable that the discreet Armijo yielded to the 

 advice of American counsellors in his capital, in surrendering 

 without bloodshed to our forces. Kearney had been authorized to 

 organize and muster into service a battalion of emigrants to Oregon 

 and California, who eagerly availed themselves of this favorable 

 military opportunity to reach their distant abodes on the shores of 

 the Pacific. After organizing the new government of Santa F6, 

 forming a new code of organic laws, and satisfying himself of the 

 stability of affairs in that quarter, Kearney departed on his mission 

 to California. But he had not gone far when he was met by an 

 express with information of the fall of that portion of Mexico, and 

 immediately sent back the main body of his men, continuing his 

 route through the wilderness with the escort of one hundred 

 dragoons alone. In September of this year, a regiment of New 

 York volunteer infantry had been despatched thither also, by sea, 

 under the command of Colonel Stevenson. 



There is evidence in existence that shortly before the com- 

 mencement of this war, it had been contemplated to place a large 

 portion of the most valuable districts of California, indirectly, under 

 British protection, by grants to an Irish Catholic clergyman named 

 Macnamara, who projected a colony of his countrymen in those 

 regions. He excited the Mexicans to accede to his proposal by 

 appeals to their religious prejudices against the Protestants of the 

 north, who, he alleged, would seize the jewel unless California 

 was settled by his countrymen whose creed would naturally unite 

 them with the people and institutions of Mexico. " Within a 

 year, he declared, California would become a part of the American 

 nation ; and, inundated by cruel invaders, their Catholic institu- 

 tions would be the prey of Methodist wolves." The government 

 of Mexico granted three thousand square leagues in the rich valley 

 of San Joaquin, embracing San Francisco, Monterey, and Santa 

 Barbara, to this behest of the foreign priest ; but his patent could 



