California [pp. 543-547]

CALIFORNIA.
Proposition Second. Here I contend that when an insect is a native
of or naturalized in any country, they are always governed by some
invariable laws which determine their appearance. The grasshopper
is annual, coming every spring or summer; the locust of our climate
septem.decennial, appearing once in seventeen years, but the cotton
fly has no regular periods of return, showing that when it reaches our
climate it is by some casualty.
In proposition third, I maintain that if the cotton fly sojourned here
during the winter or winters, that when it did appear at all, it would
do so simultaneously through the whole cotton district, instead of which
we see it progressing regularly from south to north, and from west to
east.
Such are the speculations that I have entertained concerning the
cotton worm, from which I conclude that it originates in South Ame.
rica, and reaches us through Mexico, and never can become a denizen
of our soil.
Art. IX.-CALIFORNIA.
THE people of the United States very naturally feel a very great in.
terest in every thing connected with this terra incognita, bordering
upon our territeries, and under the jurisdiction of a power with whom
we are now at war. The military possession which we have taken of
the country, and the important ends to be subserved by its retention or
purchase, have not a little augmented this interest. In any case, we
believe that the destiny of California is more nearly wrapped up in that
of the republic of the north than of the central despotism which has
hitherto claimed it as its own.
This territory became first known to Europeans in the romantic age
of Corter, whose fleets navigated its gulf and its main stream, known
as the Colorado of the west. The Jesuits peopled the country and
ruled it until their overthrow left it in the hands of the Dominicans.
Here it declined more rapidly than its previous progress. California
resisted but feebly the arbitrary policy of Santa Anna in overthrowing
the Constitution of 1824. In 1835, Mr. Forsyth offered, on the part of
the American government, five millions of dollars for the country.
Seven years after, Captain Jones, of our navy, seized upon its port of
Monterey and raised the American flag in the mistaken belief that war
had been declared between the two governments.
343