Accordingly, their debts were regularly paid, and the people were,
in the main, well treated, and attached to those who had spent their
whole lives among them. But the administradores are strangers sent
from Mexico, having no interest in the country; not identified in
any way with their charge, and, for the most part, men of desperate
fortunes- broken down politicians and soldiers- whose only object is
to retrieve their condition in as short a time as possible. The change
had been made but a few years before our arrival upon the coast,
yet, in that short time, the trade was much diminished, credit
impaired, and the venerable missions going rapidly to decay. The
external arrangements remain the same. There are four presidios,
having under their protection the various missions, and pueblos, which
are towns formed by the civil power, and containing no mission or
presidio. The most northerly presidio is San Francisco; the next
Monterey; the next Santa Barbara, including the mission of the same,
St. Louis Obispo, and St. Buenaventura, which is the finest mission in
the whole country, having very fertile soil and rich vineyards.
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