I Cultivated This Man's Acquaintance, And During
The Five Weeks That He Was With Us, - For He Remained On Board
Until we arrived at San Diego, - I gained a greater knowledge
of the state of political parties in Mexico, and
The habits
and affairs of the different classes of society, than I could
have learned from almost any one else. He took great pains in
correcting my Spanish, and supplying me with colloquial phrases,
and common terms and exclamations in speaking. He lent me a file
of late newspapers from the city of Mexico, which were full of
triumphal receptions of Santa Ana, who had just returned from
Tampico after a victory, and with the preparations for his expedition
against the Texans. "Viva Santa Ana!" was the by-word everywhere,
and it had even reached California, though there were still many
here, among whom was Don Juan Bandini, who were opposed to his
government, and intriguing to bring in Bustamente. Santa Ana,
they said, was for breaking down the missions; or, as they termed
it - "Santa Ana no quiere religion." Yet I had no doubt that the
office of administrador of San Diego would reconcile Don Juan to
any dynasty, and any state of the church. In these papers, too,
I found scraps of American and English news; but which were so
unconnected, and I was so ignorant of everything preceding them
for eighteen months past, that they only awakened a curiosity which
they could not satisfy. One article spoke of Taney as Justicia
Mayor de los Estados Unidos, (what had become of Marshall? was he
dead, or banished?) and another made known, by news received from
Vera Cruz, that "El Vizconde Melbourne" had returned to the office
of "primer ministro," in place of Sir Roberto Peel. (Sir Robert
Peel had been minister, then? and where were Earl Grey and the Duke
of Wellington?) Here were the outlines of a grand parliamentary
overturn, the filling up of which I could imagine at my leisure.
The second morning after leaving Monterey, we were off Point Conception.
It was a bright, sunny day, and the wind, though strong, was fair;
and everything was in striking contrast with our experience in the
same place two months before, when we were drifting off from a
northwester under a fore and main spencer. "Sail ho!" cried a
man who was rigging out a top-gallant studding-sail boom. - "Where
away?" - "Weather beam, sir!" and in a few minutes a full-rigged
brig was seen standing out from under Point Conception. The
studding-sail halyards were let go, and the yards boom-ended,
the after yards braced aback, and we waited her coming down.
She rounded to, backed her main topsail, and showed her decks
full of men, four guns on a side, hammock nettings, and everything
man-of-war fashion, except that there was no boatswain's whistle,
and no uniforms on the quarter-deck. A short, square-built man,
in a rough grey jacket, with a speaking-trumpet in hand, stood in
the weather hammock nettings.
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