And if the Spanish missionaries did so much what did the Spanish civil and military authorities and settlers do? To Spanish explorers we owe the discovery and exploration of California, as well as of South America, Mexico and other portions of the New World, including the Pacific Ocean; indeed is it not to Spain and her good Queen Isabella the Catholic, to whom we really owe the discovery of America by Columbus? But not to deviate from Spain's work in California, it was the early Spanish governors who first framed laws and drew up a constitution in California, and it was they who made the first land grants, it was by Spanish explorers too that the first maps of California were drawn, under Spanish rule were many of the present towns and cities founded, from Spain came the first dawn of refinement and civilization, the first army and navy, the first artists, musicians, physicians and skilled workmen, in fine the first white child born in California was born of Spanish parents settled in Monterey. And what was the record of Spain's dominion in California? Setting aside unfounded calumnies as absurd as the one which claims that Philip II passed a law sentencing to death any foreigner who set foot on Spain's dominions in the New World, relegating such lies to where they belong, Spain's rule in her New World possessions, including California was marked by humanity as well as energy. Cortes, Pizzaro, Vizcaino, Coronado, Menendez, Ponce de Leon, Cabeza de Vaca, Balboa, as well as the later "pathfinders" governors and viceroys of Catholic Spain, were men of honor, and sobriety to whose names no "butcheries and cruelties" may be justly attached. Perhaps one of the best proofs of Catholic Spanish humanity is the fact of the preservation of the aborigines of the land wherever Spanish conquests were made. Take for example, the statistics of the last census of Mexico which reveal that of a population of 15,000,000 souls 7,000,000 are pure Indian 5,000,000 mestizos or of mixed Indian and foreign extraction and only 3,000,000 foreigners or of Mexican birth but of purely foreign extraction. Take, California, Arizona, New Mexico and other former Spanish possessions of whom the same may be said in proportion. In these places no Indian reservations are seen as where the Puritans held sway. If Spain were guilty of the cruelties so falsely imputed to her, Mexico in particular would be a Spanish or Latin-American Republic, as it is, she may hardly be termed as such. But Catholic Spain acted as explorer, civilizer and with her venerable missionaries sponsor to the conversion of the heathen tribes of her New World colonies, leaving in them the traces of her enlightenment and christianity, yes, leaving them monuments of her humanity!