The Spanish government did not intend to abandon California. The peninsula immediately became a province of Mexico, and was provided with a civil and military government, subordinate to the viceroy of that country. The mission fell under the rule of the Dominicans, and from their mode of treatment, most of the converts soon returned to their former state of barbarism. The Spaniards soon formed establishments on the western side of the peninsula. In the spring of 1769, a number of settlers, with some soldiers and Franciscan friars, marched through the peninsula towards San Diego. They reached the bay of San Diego after a toilsome journey, and the settlement on the shore of the bay was begun in the middle of May, 1769. An attempt was made, soon after, to establish a colony at Port Monterey; but the party under Portola that went in search of the place, passed further on to the bay of San Francisco, and could not retrace their steps before the cold weather set in, and they then returned to San Diego. The people left at San Diego had been several times attacked by the natives, and after the return of Portola's party they almost perished for want of food. But a supply arrived on the very day upon which they had agreed to abandon the place and return to Mexico. Portola again set out for Monterey, and there effected a settlement. Parties of emigrants from Mexico came to the western shore of California during the year 1770, and establishments were made on the coast between San Diego and Monterey. The multiplication of their cattle, independent of the fruits of agricultural labor, before 1775, made the settlers of Upper California able to resist the perils to which their situation exposed them. In order to give efficiency to the operations on the western coast of North America, the Spanish government selected the port of San Blas, in Mexico, at the entrance of the Gulf of California, for the establishment of arsenals, ship-yards and warehouses, and made it the centre of all operations undertaken in that quarter. A marine department was created for the special purpose of advancing the interests of the Spaniards in the settlement of the western shore of California. By the energy displayed in managing this department the Spaniards succeeded in making eight establishments on the Pacific coast between the California peninsula and Cape Mendocino, before 1779. The most southern post was San Diego, and the most northern, San Francisco, on the great bay of the same name. The establishments were almost entirely military and missionary, the object of the Spaniards being solely the occupation of the country. The missions were under the control of the Franciscans, who, unlike the Jesuits, took little care to exert themselves in procuring information concerning the country in which they were established.