TO SAN DIEGO. 93 
original founder, who had resided here for thirty-four 
years. At no time, he said, were there more than six- 
teen Spanish soldiers here, who occupied a building 
facing the mission, which is still standing. 
Father Antonio Peyri took possession of this Mis- 
sion of San Luis Rey CG. e. St. Louis the king) in the 
year 1798. He first built a small thatched cotfage, and 
asked for a few cattle and Indians from the mission. 
At the end of his thirty-four years residence, he left it 
stocked with nearly sixty thousand head of domesti- 
cated animals of all sorts, and yielding an annual pro- 
duce of about thirteen thousand bushels of grain. Af 
ter so many years of successful labor, in which he ex- 
pended the most valuable part of his life, the worthy 
Father left his mission with only what he judged suffi- 
cient means to enable him to join his convent in the 
city of Mexico, where he threw himself upon the charity 
of his order. The toil of managing such an establish- 
ment, would be sufficient motive for a man of Father 
Peyris age to retire ; but the new order of things, which 
had introduced new men and new measures, accele- 
rated his resignation. Whatever his motives may have 
been, his voluntary retirement in poverty, to spend the 
remainder of his days in pious exercises, must be. 
applauded by the religious; and his noble disinterest- 
edness by all. 
Mr. Alexander Forbes, who met the venerable Peyri, 
and who has given us this account of his history, thus 
closes his remarks on this mission, and the affection 
entertained by the Indians for their pastor: ‘‘The best 
and most unequivocal proof of the good conduct of 
these Fathers, is to be found in the unbounded affec- 
