of Louisiana for a constitution. The publication of the text was wisely deferred, lest the Mexicans, with their democratic instincts and admixture of negro blood, should shrink before its revolting slavery clauses. Although little concerned at the nature of his measures, so that they served his purpose, Walker based his advocacy of slavery on lofty grounds, as a missionary scheme for civilizing the blacks, while assisting to liberate the whites from degrading manual labor. The prestige acquired at La Paz had to be preserved; and as it might at any moment be dimmed. by a detachment from the other side the bay, the filibusters resolved to seek a still safer base for operations. Their preparations for departure so fired the patriotism of the Mexicans that the entire town rose in lively chase of some stragglers. Walker promptly turned his guns upon them and landed to the rescue, whereupon the natives retired, with some casualties, it is claimed. Thus was the liberator's expedition baptized in blood, in the glorious battle of La Paz." Un A few days later the party appeared at Todos Santos Bay, the new headquarters, whose desert surroundings and paucity of inhabitants promised to be safeguards against molestation, while the proximity to the United States frontier must serve to inspire greater confidence for the invasion of Sonora. fortunately the scanty population centred in a military colony whose destitution had infused a desperate courage into an otherwise harmless soldiery, and finding the rancho stock to be rapidly disappearing under the appetite of American foragers, their stomachs filed a stimulating protest. The result was a series of harassing attacks, abetted by the rancheros, whose stolid comprehension could not grasp the advantage of exchanging insecure, elusive property like roaming cattle for the title deeds to fixed landed estates offered 27 The Mexicans also claimed the victory, pointing in proof to the hurried departure of the invaders. by Walker's band.28 hand. But reënforcements were at 31 The victory at La Paz had roused wide enthusiasm at San Francisco. Her editors extended their welcome to the new republic into the sisterhood of states,29 and her vagabond population offered their aid to build its fortunes. Indeed, H. P. Watkins,30 vice-president of Walker's republic, quickly enrolled some 300 of the claimants for glory and plunder in Colorado desert,3 and despatched them in the middle of December to Todos Santos, greatly to the relief of the criminal calendar. Walker now began to drill and forage for the march into Sonora, to which the peninsula was formally united under the title of Republic of Sonora. But discontent was already spreading. To the newcomers had been pictured rich churches and wellstocked haciendas, inviting to pillage and plenty. They found instead only arid ranges with a few mud huts, and with scant rations of corn and jerked beef, which were not calculated to cheer the flagging spirit for a tramp through the wilderness to face the lines of bayonets beyond. Lash and even executions availed not, and when, after a suicidal delay of three months, the start was made, in the latter half of March, barely 100 men fell into line. A week's journey through the desert, while at their heels hovered the Cocopas, who sniffed their beeves, served to dispel among the rest all lust for the spoils of Sonora. On reaching the Colorado River only 35 ragged liberators remained, chiefly ministers and other high officials who were loath to relinquish the glittering titles that placed them above common men. Before such a series of reverses the ardor of Walker himself had to yield, and he 28 The captive governors availed themselves of the turmoil to bribe the captain of the vessel to slip away with them. 29 Alta Cal., Dec. 8, 1853. 30 Walker's law partner at Marysville, dubbed colonel. 31 Later enlistment notices in Alta Cal., Jan. 3, Feb. 1, 1854. At Sonora the hot-bed for rowdies, an enthusiastic meeting was held on Jan. 17th, Baird, Walker's quartermaster, and others making stirring speeches in behalf of liberty and humanity in the namesake state. The bark Anita left Dec. 13, 1853, with 230. Others took the steamer to San Diego. DOWNFALL OF THE REPUBLICS. 599 turned to rejoin the handful left behind to hold the country. Encouraged by the waning strength of the foe, soldiers and settlers gathered with fresh zeal for the fray, and gave impulse to the retreating steps of the filibusters. At the frontier the harassed stragglers were met by United States army men, who, on May 8, 1854, took their parole as prisoners of war with unwonted consideration, and provided them with free passage to San Francisco. to San Francisco. Walker was arraigned for infringing the neutrality laws, and acquitted. Although the verdict was manifested by a defeat of justice, the public as a rule approved it. The expedition, once so lauded, was already branded as a piratical raid, and the cause of humanity had passed into a joke; yet a flattering conceit hovered round the grandeur of the plan and the daring of the enterprise, which served to wreathe the leaders at least with a halo of romance. 32 Walker passed out of sight for a time within an editorial sanctum; 33 but his fame had gone abroad, and his busy pen propped it assiduously in correspondence with Spanish America. His reputation as an able and brave leader, with influence for rallying adherents, perchance with official backing, had floated on swelling rumor to distant Nicaragua, where the Granada and Leonese factions were then busily squandering blood and treasure in the strife for power. The Leonese, being defeated, looked around for aid, and bethought themselves of the little California editor. The longedfor opportunity had come. Casting aside the quill, he hastily enrolled threescore choice comrades, and stole away in the Vesta on May 3, 1855. His career 34 32 Assisted by the well-calculated failure of the consular trial just ended. Watkins and Enory had been arrested shortly before for enlisting men, and fined $1,500 each, but the sentence was never enforced. Watkins, pioneer of Marysville, represented Yuba in the state senate in 1858, and died at Oakland, Dec. 28, 1872, age 53. Marysville Appeal, Jan. 4, 1873; Alameda Gaz., Dec. 27, 1873; Colusa Sun, Apr. 11, 1874; Alta Cal., June 3, 16, Oct. 13–20, 1854. 33 Alta Cal., June 16, 1854. 34 The sheriff had laid an embargo for a heavy grocer bill, but his deputy was made captive till the vessel reached the high seas. Others followed in after this is better known to the world than the fiasco in Lower California. His skill and energy turned the scale in favor of his allies, who rewarded him with the position of generalissimo. Success brought more personal adherents to his banners, and fired with ambition, he vaulted into the presidential chair, changing religion to court the masses. Casting prudence to the winds, he perpetrated one outrage after another, till the exasperated natives rose to expel him in 1857. During the subsequent futile efforts to regain a foothold, he visited California to cast his nets for means, but failed to gain any sympathy, and his execution in Honduras in 1860 evoked not a ripple of regret. 36 35 In Lower California circumstances were against him, although the long delay at Todos Santos detracts from his otherwise resolute promptness. In Nicaragua his own heedlessness, as in rousing the enmity of the influential navigation company, and in forcing a needless and repelling slavery act upon the people, served to cut short a career which might otherwise have borne him to the summit of his ambition. His skill as a projector and commander were shackled by unreasonable obstinacy, tinged with a fatalistic belief in his high destiny as a liberator and standard-bearer for the United States. His cold unscrupulousness withheld admiration, and divested him of the romantic glamour which infolds the less important achievements of the gallant Raousset-Boulbon. And so the brilliant efforts which might have taken rank with those of a Houston sank under the aspect of indifference to freebooting schemes, and the gray-eyed man of destiny dwells in memory as a pirate. the steamer, under the guise of through passengers for the eastern states. They entered under a contract for men and arms transferred to Walker by an American of Nic. 35 His silence while at S. F. in March 1859 augured new schemes, and a vessel in the harbor attracted suspicion. His old partner, Henningsen, was then enlisting men in the east for Arizona. S. F. Bulletin, March 31, 1859; S. F. Post, Jan. 11, 1879. 36 Full account of his career during 1855-60, in Hist. Cent. Am., iii., this series. |