Irish Catholic Colinization of California

A woman spy in Europe sleeping with a British Lord, I assume, acquired letters from her lover about England’s secret plan to colonize California with Irish Catholics as payment of the fifty million dollar debt owed her by Mexico. These letters were read by Jessie Fremont and her sister, who married a French Baron. These letters caused John Fremont to make war on Mexico in California with his army of Forty-Eighter who fled Europe as Socialists who hate the Pope.

This has everything to do with Manifest Destiny authored by Senator Thomas Hart Benton, the administer of the Oregon Territory, who sent his son-in-law west to find an Oregon Trail so American Settlers could drive out the British in the Beaver State.

The Bentons and the Fremonts are waging a secret war with Britain and the Catholic church around the same time the Great Patoto Famine broke out in Ireland. According to Lester G. Engleson who authored the ‘Proposal For The colonization of California by England’ this plot was hatched around 1833. Did the potato blight heighten the fear that alas Protestant England would have the final solution for its Irish Catholic problem, they sending a Mercy Flotilla around the Cape to Spudfornia with bags of virus free potato seeds? If so, then my kindred, John Fremont and the Bentons, got in the way.

Can you imagine a Irish Catholic Nation on the Pacific Coast? Instead of the Beach Boys, we would have the Peep O Day Boys fighting holy skirmishes with Protestant Oregonians who named a valley after William of Orange.

“I’m picking up bad vibrations!”

Most of the wars in Europe involved the Papacy.

The article ‘California and the Fremonts’ appeared in Land of Sunshine Magazine published by Charles Lummus who pubished by grandfather’s poems and short stories.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2012

John C. Pinheiro states in a recent book that while one prominent historian of Manifest Destiny, Frederick Merk, identified “a belief in a religious-like republican mission as the primary motivation for American expansion,” others have posited that many Americans imbued with the spirit of Manifest Destiny “desired only to ensure freedom for themselves or to encourage the United States’s development as a white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant republic.” Some historians have argued that desires for specific diplomatic and economic outcomes were the prime motivations for Manifest Destiny, while others have emphasized racism, anti-Catholicism, and Jacksonian doctrines derived from Jeffersonian principles as dominant factors.”

“Our Oregon question was, in 1845, unsettled and angry ; Mexico was
preparing for war with us. She owed a huge debt to Kngland, and an
English protectorate of California, with the Bay of San Francisco as an
English harbor, would be held as security. To make assurance doubly
sure, a colonization scheme was accepted by Mexico ; nominally re-
ligious, but to be made up from England’s treasury of fighting material,
Irishmen ; these, in thousands with their families, were to have a
grant of the San Joaquin valley from San Gabriel to San Francisco.f
This and much more was known, ofiicially, and also through ex-
ceptional information, from London and Mexico City ; and this is
what President Polk had to meet in March, 1845.

No ” weak nation trying to copy our Republic,^” but a formidable com-
bination in which the power of England and the religious zeal of the
Catholic church had also governing parts.”

LOS ANGELES

DECEMBER, 1895

California and Fremont.

Br JESSIE BENTOn FREMONT.

” If it were now to die
‘Twere now to be most happy : for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown Fate.”

OMETIMES there comes a culminating hour of hopes
fulfilled, so great, so deeply felt, that Othello’s feeling
seems its natural expression. “Unknown Fate” had
other comforts still in store for Fremont, but this beauti-
ful Los Angeles country was the scene of his first, his
unalloyed, memories of grand success. It “inspired
him then with devotion to California,” and when time and
illness made imperative the remove to a gentle climate
his heart turned to Los Angeles.

” There are no rough breezes blowing
* In that fair land,”

and illness was stayed.

Often we walked in vain endeavor to retrace once well-known places,
but they were built over with houses of American growth. Even the
landscape had changed. The noble sycamores and live oak trees along
the unvexed river had fallen under the American axe, and one had to
drive far to come upon a familiar object, such as the tall pomegranate
hedge of Don Benito Wilson, and the San Gabriel Mission church. But
the everlasting hills were there, and the lovely soft spring-like sunshine,
though we had left New York in a snow storm and reached here on
Christmas eve.

And some few old friends were left, and there were many welcoming
new ones. Of the past was Godey, the faithful companion of many
dangers — Godey the light-hearted and fearless, nearly ninety but
still gay of heart and alert of mind and body and renewing the youth
of his old Captain with his “You remember? And you remember ? ”

CopTiicbt ISM by Land of Soashiii* Pab. Co.

4 LAND OF SUNSHINE.

And Don Totoy Pico, eighty now, who, hearing his son answer ” yes,
my father is always well ; he still catches and saddles his horse every
morning,” looks severely at the son with ” Y porque no?”’ Why not
indeed, in such wholesome conditions and such a climate ? Listening to
the cheery talks I felt the joy of that long-ago time for them.

** You remember that day we ride over from San Fernando and on the
Cahuenga plain we see Don Andres Pico and his friends riding to meet
you? Eh, but they could ride ! And their fine horses dancing, and their
silver bridles and saddles shining ! and we just in our blue flannels all
stained with that hard march over the Santa Inez mountains. Well,
we were good men all the same.

“And Don Andres rides, all alone, to meet you, when you leave us
and ride to meet him. Then he unbuckles his sword and throws it far
off — then you unbuckle your sword and throw it away, and just you
two meet,

” Don Andres rides alongside and holds out his hand. Don Totoy
by me says ‘ he thanks him for giving me my life.’ (Don Totoy lifts a
look of affection to the General, then gravely nods approval and listens
again.)

‘* Then you settle all the whole thing ; and after you and Don Andres
first, we all ride through the Pass and into lyos Angeles — Eh, Mon
Dieti” cries Godey, who was the true old-time French enthusiast, ‘■’Mon
Dieu c’etait beau / ”

Ninety, and eighty, and seventy grew young as they recalled the
days of glorious youth.

Fremont was in exulting youth, only thirty-three, when he had the
certainty that on the Cahuenga plain he had completed the long hopes
and great aims of wise men, and secured that ocean frontier ” that now
gives us a country from sea to sea — from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on
the breadth of the temperate zone.”

With the throwing away of the swords, strife ended ; and our flag
went up — never to come down — and the long contest for dominion
over our continent, between France and England, transferred by P’rance
to us in selling Louisiana to Jefferson, was now finally decided. Though
Admiral Sir George Seymour, commanding the Collingwood, haughtily
notified Commodore Sloat that he had instructed British Consuls and
through them British interests to consider the condition ‘■’provisional
and still open.”

H. M. Ship Coi^TvINGwood,

Monterey, 22d. July, 1846.
{^Admiral Seymour to Commodore Sloat, enclosing his instructions to

Forbes, English Consul : )
Instructions to Forbes, from Sir George Seymour, Commanding British

Squadron :

* * * “I observe in the proclamation issued on the 7th of

July, (Sloat’s) ‘ that he acquaints the inhabitants that California will
henceforward be a portion of the United States.’

“Whatever may be the expectations of that officer, I apprehend he
would not be warranted by the practice or law of nations, nor, I believe,

CALIFORNIA AND FREMONT. 5

by the Constitution of the United States, to declare that California has
been annexed to that Republic ; and the tenure under which the forces
of the U, S. Squadron at present hold this province should therefore be
regarded as a provisional occupation pending future decisions or the
issue of the contest between the United States and Mexico ; and in that
light alone it should be regarded by you, until you receive instructions
from the department under which you act, for your conduct,”

A Knf Co.

JESSIE BENTON FREMONT AT 70.
from the bu»t by John (lutzon Borglum.

Negative by Mmnd*.

6 LAND OF SUNSHINE.

With his large feeling for this public good, Fremont had that inner,
heart-warming feeling that home would share his pride and joy to the
roots. For great international events must have roots. They cannot
” happen ; ” and their growth is of logical sequence. With England,
however slow and interrupted, tenacious always.

Some day it will be obligatory to teach our young people the history
of their own nation.

That high school of Boston historians, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft,
— has been carried forward and supplemented by Parkman and
Winsor and others who have individualized our later history, and I trust
our young people will grow up in knowledge and value of the patient
wisdom, the taking advantage of opportunities, which finally ended the
century of contest between France and England, then England and our-
selves for the Mississippi valley ; and for the later expansion of our
country westward, and to the Pacific.

With the purchase of Louisiana, Jefferson, continuing the work of our
Revolation, used every means to counteract England’s plans. When
he was President he would not even send to the Senate the treaty
England wished confirmed for a j’oini navigation of the Missisippi. It
was Jefferson who sent Lewis and Clarke to look for — and they found —
the sources of the Columbia. We all know how near we came to war long
after his time from allowing joint occupation of that river by England.
” When that Lion lies down with the Lamb, it is only after the lamb is
inside of him.”

In 1824, my father, whose Missouri constituents numbered many
French and Spanish, as well as American traders to New Mexico and
on to the Sea of Cortez (as the Gulf of California was then called), was
anxious to protect them across Mexican territory. He went to visit
Jefferson at his mountain home in Virginia and inform himself regard-
ing a peaceable outlet to the Pacific.

Jefferson had seen to this during his Presidency, and a map was re-
ferred to — our railways use now much of that old ” Santa F6 Trail ” — and
their long talk of future interests was good seed falling on good ground ;
to bring forth a hundred fold.

Among powerful, effective forces, now closing in for the last act, was
the philosophical historian who judged the future by the past as he
studied the history of nations ; the learned, the honorable, George Ban-
croft ; who among many high uses of his ninety useful years actively
moulded the history of California.

He had had previous years of intimacy with my father and with
Mr. Fremont ; but now Mr. Bancroft had come to Washington as Secre-
tary of the Navy under President Polk, he was in power to give effect-
ive shape to thought.

It was my happy right as well as my great pleasure to be part in the
councils held over the coming expedition of Fremont (’45-46) — councils
where with sure, light touch, past, present and future events were gone
over — “Unknown Fate ” to be watched for by the light of the past, and

CALIFORNIA AND FREMONT. 7

all present advantages to be used in shaping the future ; for nothing is
more true than

“Behind Fate There Stands a Man.”

For it was not Mexico but England we had now to confront for Cali-
fornia. It was no” weak power trying to copy our republic,” but our

H«rre VritoA, Edj. GKN, FREMONT IN 1864.

ancient enemy intending to hold the Bay of San Francisco. History
cannot be understood on detached facts.

When writing his memoirs the General was again in Washington for
the conveniences of records. Those of Mr. Bancroft were precious,
and we were together constantly. There is not place here for all
that belongs to that wonderfully interesting episode, but Mr. Bancroft
became so re-awakened to its dramatic interest that he resolved

8

LAND OF SUNSHINE.

to write a monograph on the taking of California. And in his 87th
year he made the long travel to Nashville to consult the private papers
of President Polk ; Mrs. Polk giving him fullest permission to copy and
use all he needed. Hence the Polk diary,* now in the Lenox library
of New York, which bought all of Mr. Bancroft’s library and papers.

Our Oregon question was, in 1845, unsettled and angry ; Mexico was
preparing for war with us. She owed a huge debt to Kngland, and an
English protectorate of California, with the Bay of San Francisco as an
English harbor, would be held as security. To make assurance doubly
sure, a colonization scheme was accepted by Mexico ; nominally re-
ligious, but to be made up from England’s treasury of fighting material,
Irishmen ; these, in thousands with their families, were to have a
grant of the San Joaquin valley from San Gabriel to San Francisco.f
This and much more was known, ofiicially, and also through ex-
ceptional information, from London and Mexico City ; and this is
what President Polk had to meet in March, 1845.

No ” weak nation trying to copy our Republic,^” but a formidable com-
bination in which the power of England and the religious zeal of the
Catholic church had also governing parts.

To meet this, at once and with the utmost secrecy possible, Bancroft
sent his orders of June 24, 1845, repeated in August and October, to Com-
modore Sloat, then commanding our Pacific squadron. J

Earlier, and with greater silence (because oral instructions could be
given) Fremont says, ” In 1845 I was sent out at the head of a third and
stronger expedition with instructions to foil England by carrying the
imminent war with Mexico into their territory of California. At the
fitting moment that territory was seized, and held, by the United States.”
Silence is essential to military success — Mexico had not proclaimed her
combinations, though we learned them through exceptional channels ; as
she learned all that could be known or inferred of ours, partly through
a woman in society, who was employed by the English Legation.
For the sake of her family, Mr. Buchanan, always kind-natured and
hating a fuss, made no exposure, but thereafter he opened his own mail;
and brought all his Mexican correspondence and newspapers to our
house for reading and translation, as he knew no Spanish. My father
did, also General Dix of New York, and these two as Chairman and
member of the Senate Military Committee were necessarily in active
consultation with the President. In the security of my father’s library
these Spanish letters would be read to Mr. Buchanan — discussed, and (by
my sister and myself) translations made of points to be laid before the
President and Cabinet. In this way I can speak with authority of the
councils I saw held, and the results hoped for from Mr. Fremont’s
third expedition. It was all planned — leaving details of time^ place
and circumstance to his own discretion. If possible, he was to be

* See Atlantic Monthly— August aad September, 1895.

+ The agent for this colonization resided all winter with the British Consul in Mexico City, was sent on to
California as a guest on the British war frigate Juno, and taken away by Sir George Seymour on H. B. M.’s man-
of-war Collingwood.

X The orders under which Sloat raised our flag, July 7, 1846.

CALIFORNIA AND FREMONT. 9

further directed later. But that might be impossible because of war,
and the interruption of the only and slow means of travel, involving
months of time and great personal risk. The home government of

L A Eng. Co. Photo, (copyrighted) by I).<

"the PATHFINDER" AT 77 {jUNE, I890).

lo LAND OF SUNSHINE.

Mexico sent positive orders to General Castro to drive Fremont out of
the country ; Fremont having previously asked and obtained his per-
mission to rest and refresh his party. These orders arrived by the
brig Hannah, March 9th, 1846, and were at once made fully known
by General Castro to our Consul, Larkin — and Mr. Larkin immediately
informs and warns Fremont , also writes it to the State department
ofl5cially.

Castro then made a pretext that his permission did not include the coast
country ; and Fremont, thinking the time had come, entrenched himself
on the Gavilan Peak. But judging it premature he left, after some days'
waiting, and moved slowly north — where Gillespie overtook him a few
weeks later with the expected signal. Gillespie came direct from the
President and Secretary of the Navy, accredited as ''Special and Con-
fidential agent for California. ' ' Through Gillespie Fremont obtained all
needed supplies and money from the Naval officer in command then,
Captain Montgomery, U. S. S. Portsmouth.

For six months after our flag was raised there was not, and never had
been in California, but one officer of the U. S. Army, Fremont. His
party were American citizens ; self-reliant, experienced mountain men —
'* each of us Captain in his own way," as Carson said to me with just
pride. Now when notified from Washington through Gillespie ' ' the
time has come to act — discrketly, but act," Fremont asked the aid of
American immigrants and raised our flag.

Commodore Stockton could not as a Naval officer " command " either
an army officer or citizens. But as a land force was needed to co-operate
with the men-of-war along the coast, they all, Fremont and the
Pioneers, voIvUNTEERED to serve under Stockton ; renouncing, for the
sake of securing California, the dearest right of Americans, independent
self-control. They laughed at Stockton's offer to pay them twelve dollars
a month. " We only want pay for our wagons and teams and guns ; we
will trust the government." And our government did pay them in that
way ; paid them all the expenses of their part in taking California.
And interesting reading it makes now to see in those Congressional
debates who opposed having "valueless land" on any terms. Only
fifty years ago ! This war debt was less than one million, and fourteen
millions was the price paid Mexico for California. After '48 and the
gold discoveries, fancy if fourteen millons would have been accepted.

It is not a gracious office to overthrow a local story, but really as
there was not a single soldier or uniform in Fremont's battalion, "the
many army buttons and other evidences of a soldier camp " found some
miles west of Los Angeles, cannot be held as belonging to his forces.
He came, direct, into the little town. Was warmly welcomed, and at
once occupied a large two-story adobe house with a broad gallery all
around the upper story. The house was not far from the old Spanish
cathedral — nearly in a line with the hill long called " Fort Hill." The
battery and earthworks were put by him on the projecting height where
Mrs. Wills has built her beautiful home — localities identified by General
Fr6mont for her soon after our arrival in 1888— and the flag of the

CALIFORNIA AND FREMONT.

II

Castelar street school is almost where our flag — of fewer stars then, but
equal power — waved in the sea breeze against the same majestic
mountain background.

Trade's effjacing finger has built away the traces of the old head-
quarters, but it was in line with the battery above on the hill, and
traces of the earthworks still remained when we came out seven years
ago. Naturally the battalion was quartered very near. Self-respecting
men they were, used to good homes and comforts, and the long, rainy
march over and among the coast mountains had been wet and rough.

" I pause to say that only in emergencies which call out the best men,

fnend, Cng. SENATOR BENTON, OF MISSOURI.

of Mtb. FiMDont, and tb* flnt great foretecr and friend of tba Woat (from portrait bj friodriebi, abont 1839).

12 LAND or SUNSHINE.

could any four hundred be collected together among whom would be
found an equal number of good self-respecting men as were in the
ranks and among the officers of the companies and of the staff of this
corps." (Fremont's Memoirs, p. 595.)

Fremont had had many charges to "conciliate the people of the
country," and did so from his own feelings as well as for policy ;
it had been one of his advantages for this that he needed no in-
terpreter, for he knew Spanish well, and acting directly with governing
Californians they came to know and trust him.

Stockton had issued a proclamation declaring forfeited the lives of in-
surgents who had broken parole — Don Totoy, captured at Santa Barbara,

Herve Friend. Eng.
MRS.

FREMONT'S HOME, WEST 28tH STREET,

Photo, by Maude.
LOS ANGELES.

had broken his parole, also ; and so by military law forfeited his life.
But this extreme measure, though decided on by a court martial, and
bravely accepted by Pico, was set aside by Fremont. Pico's name was a
noun of multitude, and this pardon touched many of the most influen-
tial Californians, and caused the surrender to Fremont rather than to
Stockton.

An elderly woman, Doiia Bernarda Ruiz, aunt to the Picos, came to
thank Fremont for Pico's life, and offered herself as intermediary with
Don Andres. Largely to her good sense and clear perception of the in-
evitable, was due the shaping of that historic treaty of Cahuenga, em-
bodied in the final settlement of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Which also
settled Admiral Seymour's defiant protest.