For a long time—all through the foggy summer here that is more like winter—I did not speak another word. But one morning my Indian girl woke me and said two French ships had sailed into the bay. I think the mandate of hospitality must course through our Spanish blood, Mother, for the urgency of welcoming these visitors from Europe pushed back my grief. All that day I prepared to receive the French explorers, for that is who had arrived. The servants and I—and even Don Pedro—cleaned house and tidied the garden, mended our best clothes, slaughtered lambs, stirred soup, and baked bread. I was ashamed of the meanness of our dwelling, but Don Pedro assured me that after so long at sea, the Frenchmen would deem our home a small palace. It was the such a kindest thing he said to me in so long.
The next day two French captains and assorted officers and naturalists came to the presidio and then to our home for a reception. I wore my black polonaise over a gray silk underskirt, which felt in keeping with our recent bereavement without being gloomy. I had not used French in many years, so at first I was shy, but during the evening many words and phrases came back to me. Don Pedro’s French is very poor; he needed everything translated. I could scarcely stop talking. I had not spoken to anyone in so long.
Our visitors were men of great refinement and kindness. The commander of the expedition, a Count de Lapérouse, is not a good-looking man but laughs so easily that one is charmed. They must eat very well aboard French ships, for he was surprisingly stout for one who had been so long at sea. His friend, the Viscount de Langle, who commands the second ship, is taller and thinner and more classically handsome but was quiet, almost grave. The officers were all young and so beautiful in their dress and manners. The men of science—they call themselves “savants”—intimidated me, but the junior botanist asked me about my garden, and poor man, I ended up telling him my entire life story! Then the most dashing member of the entourage, a young artist, asked if he could paint my portrait. It flatters me more than I deserve, but how I wish you could see it, Mother.
Don Pedro and I were more united in those days than we have been in many years. In the end, it was not the priests’ harsh intervention, nor even the birth of another child, but the introduction of some society that made all the difference. It confirmed for me what I’ve said all along, that if only we could live in a civilized place, we might be happy. But rest assured, dear Mother, that all is as well as can be expected. I still long for the day when I may return to Mexico City and see you again …
IV. From Fray Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, President of the California Missions and Head of the Mission of San Carlos Borromeo of Monterey in Carmel, to the Reverend Father Guardian Fray Francisco Palóu, Guardian of the Apostolic College of San Fernando, Mexico City
Dominus det tibi Pacem. I thank Your Reverence for the letter of April 20 and congratulate you on your election to the guardianship of the college. I thank you also for the supplies, especially the books. They will be my boon companions this next long year.
The three new priests also arrived safely. I will confess that at first I felt considerable unease as to their fitness for life in California. Fray Faustino Solá gave me most cause for concern. I know he left Your Reverence and the College filled with faith and confidence in the love of our Lord, but he grew strangely dejected during the voyage from San Blas. Captain Martínez told me that his officers feared for Fray Solá’s sanity, although the good captain is inclined to exaggerate. It was true, however, that Fray Solá arrived looking like a haunted and hunted man. Several weeks after his arrival, he had progressed no further than taking solitary walks in the mission gardens and was unable to perform any priestly duties. I had nearly determined to send him back to Mexico with the supply ships when an event occurred that was a source of delight and novelty to everyone in our mission community and that effectively distracted Fray Solá out of his torpor.
This memorable event was the visit, in September, of a French scientific and exploratory expedition commanded by the Count de Lapérouse. When the news came that two French frigates had sailed into the bay, we hurried to make our humble mission as presentable as possible. Even the Indians, usually so indolent, bestirred themselves to greater industry. Fray Matías Noriega informed me with joy that he hardly needed the lash at all in the weeks before and during the Frenchmen’s visit, as the Indians attended Mass more faithfully, ground more corn than their daily quotas, and repaired and swept out their dwellings when they saw us attending to ours.
The mission soldiers were not at first inclined to escort us to the presidio to meet our guests when they arrived, saying they had no orders from the governor to do so. But their own curiosity to see the visitors prevailed, so we—Fray Noriega, the three new priests, and myself—were on hand to greet the commander and his officers when they came ashore. Don Pedro was not altogether pleased to see us, particularly as it meant he was then bound by decorum to invite us to the reception at his home that evening. Even less happy to see us was his wife, Doña Eulalia, who was, as Your Reverence will no doubt recall from last year’s dispatches, a most unwilling inmate of our mission for some months last year after her scandalous and insubordinate behavior.
Under ordinary circumstances we would have declined such a reluctant invitation: indulging the pleasures of a table overseen by one of the most impudent, stiff-necked women in all of Christendom can edify no one. However, these were extraordinary circumstances. I wished to learn in person what spiritual or material needs our guests might have and to ensure that the mission was not denied the opportunity to extend Christian hospitality and assistance to them. They readily accepted our invitation to visit the mission. Their eagerness to see for themselves our work among the Indians was naturally gratifying to me and the other priests. It also had the salutary effect of calming the almost unseemly high spirits of Don Pedro and Doña Eulalia. One would never have guessed that only a year earlier their home had been riven and shamed by a discord so public and indecent that all of Alta California fairly buzzed with it. Curiously, they are like patients who resent the doctor who has healed them. Indeed, their hostility toward me and even more toward Fray Noriega is so marked that it will not surprise me if Don Pedro acts against us in some way. If this should occur, I hope I may rely on Your Reverence’s intercession on our behalf.
But to return to my account: two days after the reception, we were honored by the arrival of the French delegation, consisting of the count, his senior officers, and a distinguished group of savants that included astronomers, physicists, botanists, linguists, and artists. Among the naturalists were two priests who, I fear, regard themselves as men of science first and men of God second, but for all that, they were men of breeding, wit, and generosity. They expressed the most kindly interest in our endeavors, applauded our spiritual conquest of the Indians, and did not balk at the primitive conditions in which we currently live. I was nevertheless grateful that their visit so closely followed the arrival of the supply ships, as it meant we did not want for wine or cheese or candles. The demands of hospitality will necessarily mean some privation for us later, especially as we were compelled once again to accept a smaller share of wine than was our due from the supply ship, but I cannot regret sharing our bounty.
For all their suavity, our visitors carried with them a great burden of grief over the loss of twenty-one shipmates killed in Alaska in July. Several of the officers and even one of their naturalists sought me out, desirous of confession or spiritual solace. One young officer had lost not only his cabinmate in the accident in Alaska but, during the subsequent passage south, his servant, a man who’d been at his side since infancy. He attended Mass every day.
The ministry was not one-sided, however, for the visit raised our spirits as well. The most notable change was, as mentioned earlier, in Fray Solá, who, after meeting the Frenchmen, seemed suddenly to remember himself, becoming the amiable and energetic man described in Your Reverence’s letter. He befriended a young botanist from the expedition who expressed interest in our gardens
and in the native plants of the area. Fray Solá gave him a tour of the gardens he had come to know during his convalescence and even organized a botanizing expedition outside the mission. The next day he performed his first Mass. I rejoice that the Lord in His infinite mercy has seen fit to restore this young and able priest to the right use of his faculties. Most recently he has been ill, but Fray Noriega, who has taken upon himself the role of spiritual adviser to our new arrivals, assures me that it is but a minor stomach complaint and will soon pass. It is my hope that once he is fully recovered, he may serve in San Luis Obispo.
The Frenchmen left us with many tangible gifts as well. The young botanist gave us plants for our gardens—seed potatoes, grapevines, fig trees, and seeds for celery, artichoke, and melons—all miraculously preserved for over a year in the hold of his ship. The expedition artist completed a pencil drawing of their arrival at the mission and was kind enough to present it to me. Another gift came from the Viscount de Langle, who donated a small grinding stone to ease the work of the neophyte women. Regrettably, Fray Noriega reports that the women refuse to use it, preferring their traditional method of grinding corn, although it is more laborious and less effectual. I am no longer surprised by the neophytes’ ignorance, but I find I am not yet inured to disappointment.
With this I conclude my report. I have enclosed a list of our requests for next year. May God our Lord keep Your Reverence many years in His holy grace.
V. From Jean-François de Galaup de Lapérouse, Captain of the Boussole and Commander of the Expedition Ordered by His Majesty King Louis XVI, to his wife, Éléonore de Lapérouse, Albi, France
My dear Éléonore, tomorrow, if the winds are in our favor, we leave Monterey Bay in California, a place of unmatched natural beauty and abundance. The bay teems with life: indeed, right now outside my window, I see lines of pelicans flying low over the water, and earlier we were entertained by a group of curious sea otters that had gathered around the ship. The land is no less fertile and is home now to some fifty or sixty Spanish colonists as well as several hundred Indians. The Spanish reputation for hospitality, proven once already during our time in Chile six months ago, has been doubly confirmed here. The soldiers and missionaries in this remote outpost of New Spain have little of their own but give generously of it anyway. We leave with so much fresh livestock, vegetables, and grain that I fear we are leaving these good people to suffer later for their magnanimity. It was with difficulty that I persuaded them to accept payment for the provisions.
Here too I am called “Count”—indeed, I grow quite used to the title! Langle and I spent our first two days ashore as guests of the governor, Don Pedro Fages, a genial, urbane man in his fifties. In this newly conquered place it is a rough mud dwelling that passes for a governor’s house, and though it was clean and furnished with taste and comfort in mind, there was no hiding the rough-hewn floors or the windows, which had no glass, only bars to keep out intruders and stretched hides to keep out the elements.
As is so common among Spaniards, Don Pedro’s wife is nearly thirty years younger than he, younger even than you, my love. Sadly, Doña Eulalia’s beauty and charms, which must once have been considerable, have been worn down by tribulations and discontent. Her hardships may also have eroded discretion, for by the end of our first night ashore, when the governor hosted a reception in our honor, we knew altogether too much about this woman and her sad life. I will not sully this letter with a recitation of the more scandalous tales we heard, some from her own lips. Suffice to say that she misses the comforts of life in Mexico City—as indeed, what civilized woman would not?—and has lost two of her four children, one to a miscarriage suffered en route to Monterey four years ago, and the other, a newborn daughter, just a few months ago. This excited our compassion, of course, but we could not admire her. She seemed to have no friends among the wives of the men who serve under her husband, and fairly threw herself at each of us in turn, eventually landing on my botanist, Collignon, who had no underling on whom to fob her off. I persuaded our artist, Duché de Vancy, to offer to paint her portrait. She sat for him for an hour while he tried valiantly to impart to her a grace she no longer had. The poor woman was pathetically happy with the result.
After two days, we were quite ready to accept an invitation to visit the Franciscan fathers at the nearby mission. There are many such establishments up and down the coastline of California. They are the bases from which the missionaries work among the natives, providing sustenance and employment to converts. It sounds noble enough, and I wish I could say the result was such as to make me glad to be a Christian. But alas, it reminded me too much of the sugar plantations in Île de France, only with lower productivity and more morose slaves. On our arrival, we were warmly greeted by the pealing of bells and the five priests who are currently in residence. But the Indian converts were also arrayed before us, compelled to be there, I suspect, for a more listless group of human beings I have never before beheld. They showed neither surprise nor interest when we arrived, although I was given to understand that we were the first non-Spanish Europeans they had ever seen.
The good fathers are not content simply to convert the Indians. They demand a level of piety from them that no French priest would expect of a congregant raised in the faith from birth. The converts are whipped for missing daily prayers and whipped harder if they try to leave the mission. Father Lasuén, who is not only head of this mission but president of all the California missions, assured me they discipline the Indians with the same gentleness a father would use on his child. (I was put in mind of some ferocious beatings I’ve seen men administer to their own children, but did not say so.) He also told me, candidly and without bitterness, that the Indians are ignorant and childish, often behaving in ways contrary to their own betterment. The lack of any native religion or system of governance among them, far from making them tractable, renders all but a few of them unable to understand authority or consequences or to plan for even the near future, much less eternity.
I came to respect and admire this humble, thoughtful man who has devoted his life to the nearly hopeless task of improving the lives of these people. But there is a medieval quality to the endeavor that I could not see without dismay. The mission is unnecessarily impoverished: They conduct farmwork with primitive—even broken—implements. The Indian men, who entertained us by demonstrating their ancient hunting techniques, are rarely allowed to leave the mission to use their native skills to procure fish or game. As a result, nearly every meal is a thin gruel made of corn, and people go hungry in a land of astonishing plenty. The women spend all day grinding corn between two rocks, a time-consuming, wasteful process, and are punished if they fail to meet their daily quotas. This last defect at least we were able to address. Monsieur de Langle gave them the spare millstone from the Astrolabe, and he and Collignon spent an afternoon demonstrating its use to the women and to the priests who oversee their work. In these small ways we hope to fulfill the king’s directive to benefit everyone we meet.
If you’ve read my letters in order, my dear, you know of the calamity we suffered in Alaska. Only to you can I confess how much this loss continues to weigh on me. It is my last thought when I retire at night and the first when I awake. I had expected this stay among other Europeans to console me, but, if anything, it has had the opposite effect. Sailing on the open seas, away from Alaska, my grief had been held at bay; indeed, I could imagine that the accident had not happened at all, that the absent men were simply elsewhere on my ship. Here, however, I have had to relate our misfortune to solicitous men who sympathize with our loss and wish to ease our grief. Yet this telling and retelling only makes it more real. Every reception held in our honor reminds me of the men who are missing, men who charmed the colonists in Chile only six months ago and are now gone. I am grateful for the kindness of our hosts, but I will be even more grateful when we sail away. Oh, my love, if only I had some words from you to comfort me in the dark night! But the earliest I can hope for a lette
r to reach me is in Macao, or perhaps even later, in Petropavlovsk …
VI. From Fray Faustino Solá to his brother, Pablo Vicente de Solá, Sergeant, Free Company of Volunteers of Catalonia, San Blas, Mexico
Brother, I worry you are no longer in San Blas but have been sent off someplace to wage war in the name of His Most Christian Majesty and that this letter will never find you. It seems years since you saw me off as I boarded La Princesa. Perhaps it has been years. I can scarcely remember the voyage except that I expected every day to be drowned, and once I arrived, I was taken to my cell, where I expected every night to be murdered in my bed by Indians. I don’t know how many days I lay in that state. But by and by even one’s dreads begin to bore one, so I made my way into the mission gardens. I wish you could see them. We have olive trees and roses, and it reminds me of Mondragón and the villa where we grew up. As a boy I liked to walk in our gardens and pretend I was in the first garden, in Eden, and I do that here as well. Sometimes I am Adam, sometimes Eve, and sometimes the serpent.
But then the visitors arrived and it was no longer practical to pretend, as they seemed very real, with their scientific instruments and their notebooks and their curiosity. One of them became my friend, and when he left my heart ached, for I am sure we will never see each other again, but now I can recall neither his name nor his face. Is that not odd? He was a gardener, and we looked at plants together, both here and outside the mission, and I could not help but pretend we were in Eden, he and I, but I did not alarm him by saying so. One Sunday I was recovered enough to take part in a baptism, and then I was Adam, for the neophytes were brought forward one by one, and it was my duty to name them.
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