Revolutions are matters of frequent occurrence in California. They
are got up by men who are at the foot of the ladder and in
desperate circumstances, just as a new political organization may
be started by such men in our own country. The only object, of
course, is the loaves and fishes; and instead of caucusing,
paragraphing, libelling, feasting, promising, and lying, they take
muskets and bayonets, and, seizing upon the presidio and
custom-house, divide the spoils, and declare a new dynasty. As for
justice, they know little law but will and fear. A Yankee, who had
been naturalized, and become a Catholic, and had married in the
country, was sitting in his house at the Pueblo de los Angeles,
with his wife and children, when a Mexican, with whom he had had a
difficulty, entered the house, and stabbed him to the heart before
them all. The murderer was seized by some Yankees who had settled
there, and kept in confinement until a statement of the whole
affair could be sent to the governor-general. The governor-general
refused to do anything about it, and the countrymen of the
murdered man, seeing no prospect of justice being administered,
gave notice that, if nothing was done, they should try the man
themselves.
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