San Francisco, and any other tenable points within the territory said to have been re- cently ceded by secret treaty to Great Britain."
These naval expounders of the laws of nations would have regarded the expression by any European power of a doubt of the right of the United States to purchase territory in either of the four quarters of the globe, as an insult to the national sovereignty ; but they calmly deter- mine, without consulting their own government, to rob England of a territory they supposed she had acquired by treaty, although they well knew that by such a robbery they would, of course, involve their country in a war with their great and powerful " commercial rival."
The three officers composing the Council, as well as the Commodore, and the Secretary of the Navy under whom they were acting, were all from the slave States.
On the 19th October, the Commodore entered the har- bor of Monterey. The Mexican and not the British flag met his sight, and of course he achieved an easy conquest. He landed, and, without opposition, took possession of the fort, and unfurled the stars and stripes. The provident Commodore had brought ^vith, him for the edification of the Cahfornians, whom he intended instantly to transform into American citizens, printed proclamations in the Spa- nish lanfjuacre, which were without loss of time distributed among the inhabitants. " These stripes and stars," said the proclamation, " infallible emblems of civil Uberty, of liberty of conscience, with constitutional right and lawful security to worship the great Deity vo. the way most con- genial to each one's sense of duty to his Creator, now float triumphantly before you, and hence and for ever will give protection and security to you and ,your children, and to countless unborn thousands." Amid all this fustian we distinctly discover, that the immediate and permanent an- nexation of California was the object of the expedition.