Alvarado drank to Vallejo.

Vallejo bowed to his Governor. "Senor," said he, "you are right.
I have seen Mexico. I have been a scholar, as well as a soldier. I
knew Von Resanoff's Russian slyness. My father was at the Presidio
in 1807, when he obtained rights for a few fur hunters. Poor fellow!
he never lived to claim his bride, but he was a diplomat."

"Foreigners will finally outroot us. Here is Sutter, building his
fort on the Sacramento! He's a good fellow, yet I'll have to burn
New Helvetia about his ears some day. Russian or Swiss, French or
Yankee, it's all the same. The 'Gringo' is the worst of all. Poor
Conception de Arguello. She waited long for her dead Russian lover."

"General, do you think the Yankees can ever attack us by land?"
said Alvarado.

"Madre de Dios! No!" cried Vallejo, "we will drag them at our
horses' tails!"

"Then, I have no fear of them," said Alvarado. "We occupy San
Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco, the missions of
San Juan Capistrano, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and Santa Clara,
and help to control the Indians, but these home troubles have
stopped their useful growth."

Governor Alvarado sighed. Governor Hijar in 1834 had desecularized
the Catholic missions. Their cattle were stolen, their harvests
and vineyards destroyed. The converts were driven off to seek new
homes among the Utes, Yubas, Feather River, Napa, and Mohave tribes.