During our narrative we do not wish to lose sight of the fact that we have professed our work to be primarily a work of love, avoiding bitter truth, which can do no good, and avoiding personalities, hence the absence of names may be noted in this chapter, but it is invariably the unpleasant duty of a writer to tell some unpleasant things in a historical sketch, else how could justice be done to others, and how straighten misunderstandings? We do not wish to merely cast aspersions at the Mexican race or any other, for the gross and sordid not to say sinful delight of doing so, but we wish to present to the reader plain facts of this period of history. Here we will add that even as "there is beauty in a blade of grass" there were and are good qualities and virtues in many individual Mexicans, but we cannot but wonder at the contrast of the two first periods of our state's history, and at the difference so vast between two races and characters so often absurdly confused. Here, we must mention perhaps the most deplorable incidents of this period, incidents to which in spite of ourself we have so often alluded, namely the Acts of Secularization of the missions. First, we will mention that some writers accuse Spain of having passed an Act of Secularization of Mission property in 1813, but such an assertion is considered unfounded by good authorities, perhaps it had rise from the fact that disturbances against Spanish rule were felt in Mexico as early as that period and echoes of it reached the small Mexican faction of California, causing much uneasiness to the missionaries. But three Acts of Secularization of the missions were passed in the years 1826, 1829 and 1835. And what did not the good fathers with their neophytes and converts suffer! And what did not the many loyal friends of these beloved fathers not suffer with them through sympathy! Indeed no Spaniard or his descendants can speak of those Acts without the crimson of just indignation mounting to the cheek. But Spaniards were powerless to check the lawlessness of the times. The missions were gradually but slowly dispossessed of their lawful property, and all their wealth confiscated, several times were many of the dear Spanish fathers deported; they returned to Spain where a warm welcome awaited them, but how sad to leave their missions reared by the most heroic labors of the "martyr stuff" within them or their immediate predecessors, Serra, Lasuen, Lopez, Dumetz, Crespi, Palou, names "held in benediction;" and what would become of their poor converted Indians who clung to them so faithfully and whom they had raised to the plane of christian men and women from nakedness, savagery and paganism! Besides the missionaries, many other Spaniards, too, were put on a list of those to be deported, among these there would not have been much resistance offered, as the changes of the government were sad enough, but before the resolution