almost gone, his men were sick with scurvy, of which many had died, and putting the most helpless on board the Santo Tomas, he sent her to Acapulco for aid, and sailed, January 3, 1603, with the flagship and fragata, for the north.  A storm soon separated the vessels and they did not see each other again until they met in the harbor of Acapulco.  Vizcaino was told by the pilot, Bolanos, that Cermenon had left in Drake’s Bay a large quantity of wax and several chests of silk, and he entered the bay on January 8th to see if any vestiges remained of ship or cargo.  He did not land, but awaited the arrival of the fragata.  As she did not appear, he became uneasy, and sailed the next morning in search of her.  On the 13th, a violent gale from the southeast drove him northward.  This was followed by a dense fog, and when it lifted, he found himself in latitude forty-two — the limit of his instructions — with Cape Blanco in sight, “and the trend of the coast line onward,” he writes, “towards Japan and Great China, which are but a short run away.”  Only six of his men were now able to keep the deck, and he bore away for Acapulco, where he arrived March 21, 1603.  Of the company that sailed with him, forty-two had died.

In 1606, Philip III, King of Spain, ordered that Monterey be occupied and provision made there to succor and refit the Philippine ships.  He directed that to Vizcaino should be given the command of the expedition.  His orders were not carried out and Vizcaino sailed instead for Japan, whence he returned in 1613, and died three years later.

For over one hundred and sixty years, no steps were taken for the pacification and settlement of Alta California.  The galleons continued to make their yearly voyages to the Philippines, and returning, sail down the coast within sight of the fair land; but no harbor of refuge was established and no attempt was made to colonize the country.

At last the Spanish king began to realize that if he would retain his possessions in America, some action was necessary for their protection.  Spanish sovereignty in the Pacific was threatened.  The Russians had crossed Bering Sea, had established themselves on the coast of Alaska, and their hunters were extending their pursuit of the sea otter into more southern waters.  England had wrested Canada from France and was ready to turn her attention to the American possessions of Spain.  The Family Compact of the Bourbon princes of France, Spain, and Italy had aroused the ire of Pitt, then at the zenith of his fame, and he resolved to demand an explanation from Spain, and, failing to receive it, attack her at home and abroad before she was prepared, declaring that it was time for humbling the whole house of Bourbon.  A check in the cabinet caused Pitt’s resignation, but in 1766 he was again restored to power with vigor and arrogance unabated.

On February 27, 1767, Don Carlos III of Spain issued his famous decree expelling the Jesuits from the Spanish dominions.  This society had established a number of missions in Lower California, and Don Gaspar de Portola, a captain of dragoons of the Regiment of Spain, was appointed governor of the Californias and sailed from Tepic with twenty-five dragoons, twenty-five infantry, and fourteen Franciscan friars to dispossess the Jesuits and turn the California missions over to the Franciscans.