this to your master and tell him it is a hair from the beard of Agustin
Machado. You will find it sufficient guarantee." The clerk saw that he
had made a mistake, and, taking the hair, placed it in the leaves of his
note book and allowed the goods to be taken away. When the captain
returned, he was mortified that there had been any distrust shown.

While California was a Spanish province its chief ruler was appointed by
the home government and was always an educated gentleman of good family,
generally an officer of the army. The coming of a new governor was a
great event in the colony and was celebrated with all possible ceremony
and display.

In 1810 Mexico began its revolt against Spain. In California the people
were in sympathy with the mother country and had no doubt of her final
success. For a long time they received little news of how the war was
progressing. They only knew that no more money was sent up to pay the
soldiers or the expenses of government, that the padres no longer
received any income from the Pius Fund, that even the trading vessels
from Mexico upon which they depended for their supplies had ceased to
come.

Times became so hard that the local government turned for aid to the
missions, which had become largely self-supporting. Many of them were
indeed wealthy communities, and the padres responded generously to the
demand for help. For several years they furnished food and clothing to
the soldiers, and money for the expenses of government, for the most of
which they never received payment.

Gradually the fine clothes of the Californians wore out, no vessels
arrived from which they could purchase more, and again it was the