possessed little of the tremendous personal force of their predecessors,
and a generous endowment of such personal force was as needful now as it
ever had been.

Not unless we wish to emulate Southey's learned friend, who wrote whole
volumes of hypothetical history in the subjunctive mood, it is hardly
necessary for present purposes to discuss the internal changes which,
had the missions been left to themselves, might in the long run have
brought about their decay. For as a matter of fact the missions were not
left to themselves. The closing chapter of their history, to which we
have now to turn, is mainly concerned, not with their spiritual
management, or with their success or failure in the work they had been
given to do, but with the general movement of political events, and the
upheavals which preceded the final conquest of California by the United
States.

In considering the attitude of the civil authorities towards the mission
system, and their dealings with it, we must remember that the Spanish
government had from the first anticipated the gradual transformation of
the missions into pueblos and parishes, and with this, the substitution
of the regular clergy for the Franciscan padres. This was part of the
general plan of colonization, of which the mission settlements were
regarded as forming only the beginning. Their work was to bring the
heathen into the fold of the church, to subdue them to the conditions of
civilization, to instruct them in the arts of peace, and thus to prepare
them for citizenship; and this done, it was purposed that they should be
straightway removed from the charge of the fathers and placed under
civil jurisdiction. No decisive step towards the accomplishment of this
design was, however, taken for many years; and meanwhile, the fathers
jealously resisted every effort of the government to interfere with