were founded on personal ambition and avarice rather than patriotic impulses, nor is it likely that the territory would have secured its independence without the aid of a foreign power. British interests had undoubtedly counselled the acquisition of California; but the fate of war suddenly threw it into our hands, and probably at the very moment when English subjects and the Mexican government were combining to exclude us from the positions on the Pacific which were so necessary for our mercantile progress as well as political and maritime convenience.
As soon as the country was quieted by the arrangement which Colonel Frémont made with the Californian leaders at Couenga, the people who had been engaged in the brief local war returned to their peaceful avocations. Our forces were stationed in small detachments, from Sutter's fort to San Diego, while our national vessels were anchored in the different harbors throughout the whole coast. In the maritime towns the supreme authorities collected a revenue from imports under the Contribution tariff. Order was promptly restored every where; but the only recognized control was that of the military government, which had devolved upon Colonel Mason at the departure of General Kearney.