The methods used are hardly justified, even
by the national blessings of extension to this ocean threshold of
Asian trade. The descent was planned at Washington to extend the
domineering slave empire of the aspiring South. The secret is out.
The way is clear for the surplus blacks of the South to march in
chains to the Pacific under the so-called "flag of freedom."
Valois discovers at Monterey that no man of the staff of the
"Pathfinder" will be made an official pet, They are all proscribed.
The early fall finds him again under the spell of the bells of the
Mission Dolores. Whither to turn he knows not.
Averse to manual labor, like all Creoles, the lad decides to seek
a return passage on some trader. This will be hardly possible for
months. The Christmas chimes of 1848 sound sadly on his ears.
With no home ties but his uncle, his memories of the parents, lost
in youth, fade away. He feels the bitterness of being a stranger in
a strange land. He is discouraged with an isolated western empire
producing nothing but hides and tallow. He shares the general
opinion that no agriculture can succeed in this rainless summer land
of California. Hardly a plough goes afield. On the half-neglected
ranchos the owners of thousands of cattle have neither milk nor
butter.
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