2S2 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
Immediately after the Padre Prefecto’s banishment, Echu- 
andra made a tour of the missions, assembled the Indians in 
each, and by annnterpreter, explained to them that the Mexi¬ 
can Government had directed him to declare the Indian con¬ 
verts of the Californias to be free citizens of the Mexican 
Republic—released thereafter from what he termed slavery to 
the Padres, and subject only to the laws of the nation and his 
commands as its official agent; aud that all those who bore 
good characters, and had learned agriculture, or any of the 
useful arts by which they could gain a livelihood for them¬ 
selves and families, he was instructed to say were entitled to 
have lands assigned them on the mission premises, and a pro¬ 
portionate quantity of the animals, as cattle, horses, &c., 
and be gathered into parishes with Padres to superintend them 
who should be subject to the missions; that those of them, 
who had not learned agriculture, or other useful art, or had 
not sustained reputable characters, must remain at the 
missions and earn by their increasing knowledge and virtue 
a title to freedom and the rights of property. The Padres 
were required to aid in carrying out these mandates of the 
Reptblic, and at the same time to continue their work of • 
converting and training the Indians for the civil and social 
state contemplated by the Government. Meantime the General 
informed the Padres that their yearly stipend of four hundred 
dollars would be indefinitely withheld; ordered them to have 
bells rung whenever he approached the missions ; and to in¬ 
struct the converts that they, as well as themselves, were 
subject to his authority. 
This course of the Mexican Government appears on its 
face to be one of those high moral acts which a single age 
seldom sees twice performed. The Creator has sent down to 
us, through the train of ages, the evidence that in the begin¬ 
ning He created as great a variety of the human genus as He 
did of any other race of living beings. From the New Hol¬ 
lander, who is connected to our kind by a physical form but 
little superior to that of the ape, and by the instinct and ca- 
