own  internal  concerns.*  A  few  days  afterwards,  Alvarado  ad-
dressed the  Los  Angeles  ayuntamiento,  announcing  the  action
of  the  congress  and  complimenting  the  Los  Angeles  people
upon  the  interest  manifested  by  them  in  the  cause  of  liberty  and
the  good  faith  shown  in  upholding  the  terms  of  the  treaty
recently  agreed  upon."  On  May  lO  he  issued  a  general  address
to  the  people  of  the  state,  informing  them  of  the  action  that  had
been  taken,  congratulating  them  upon  the  success  of  the  new
system,  and  encouraging  them  to  look  forward  upon  the  pros-
perity of  California  as  assured.'

But  of  all  the  official  papers,  emanating  from  his  pen  during
this  period,  the  most  remarkable  was  a  proclamation  issued  at
Santa  Barbara  on  July  9.  In  it,  he  no  longer  called  himself  gov-
ernor of  the  "  Free  and  Sovereign  State  of  Alta  California,"  but
governor  of  the  "Department  of  Alta  California."  The  differ-
ence, which  might  not  at  first  sight  appear  of  any  importance,
was  very  great  It  was  much  more  than  a  difference  in  mere
names;  it  represented  a  difference  in  things;  it,  in  itself,  indi-
cated a  complete  revolution.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Alva-
rado would  have  been  willing  to  become  the  second  Washington
of  a  new,  free  and  independent  nation  on  the  Pacific  But  he
was  not  a  visionary.  He  soon  perceived  that  there  was  a  very
great  difference  between  the  Californians  and  the  Anglo-Saxon
colonists  of  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  continent.  He  saw  that
what  was  practicable  for  the  latter,  reared  as  they  had  been  in  a
school  of  freedom  and  inured  to  energetic  struggle,  was  entirely
out  of  the  question  for  the  former.  It  became  plain  to  him  that
the  only  chance  of  preserving  California  for  the  people  of  his
own  race  and  blood,  was  to  preserve  it  as  a  part  of  the  Mexican
nation.  A  revolution  had  taken  place  in  his  own  mind  and  he
made  it  a  revolution  in  the  country  by  a  stroke  of  his  pen.  A
fitting  opportunity  had  presented  itself  in  the  arrival  of  news
from  Mexico  that  on  December  30,  1836,  the  Mexican  congress,
in  dividing  the  national  territory,  had  made  a  single  department
of  the  two  Californias*  and  that  on  April  17,  1837.  General
Anastasio  Bustamante,  after  the  capture  of  Santa  Anna  by  the

*  Cal.  Archives,  D.  S.  P.  Ang.  XI,  395-402.
