PEACEMAKER: ‘In 1839, conservative Richard Hartnell, representing the foreign office, had come from London to visit his long-lost cousin William Hartnell’ in Monterey California

Shortly after de Mofras’s visit, A. M. Barrier was named French consul to California.  Circumstances prevented his arrival, however; and Louis Gasquet, making the long and dangerous journey in his place, did not appear until 1845, only a few months before the Mexican War.  The appointment of James Forbes as British vice-consul spurred Washington to action.  Thomas Larkin was informed that henceforth he must act as United States consul, retaining his residence in Monterey.  As in Hartnell’s case, he long had performed the duties of the office without receiving recognition or remuneration from his mother country.

Deprived of diplomatic duties by Forbes’s appointment and of many customhouse chores by the war scare which was driving trade away from Monterey, William Hartnell had unaccustomed leisure for letter writing.  He made good use of it.  His correspondence with Robert Wyllie flourished during the forties as never before; and it was concerned, for the most part, with an ambitious scheme for British colonization of California.

Alexander Forbes a few years back had been first to promote the idea that Mexico should discharge a portion of her huge debt to Great Britain by the cession of land in California and Texas.  This seemed displeasing to the British foreign office, whose policy was retention of the status quo and more intensive settlement of British colonies, particularly Canada.

In 1839 conservative Richard Hartnell, representing the foreign office, had come from London to visit his long-lost cousin William Hartnell, living in the capital of California.  Following the Atlantic voyage, he travelled overland to the west coast.  On the way he found much to displease him in Texas, now hopelessly Americanized, and the same tendancies seemed to be sprouting riotously in California.  Returning to London after a brief visit in Monterey, he wrote a series of letters to the London Times, comparing British and American colonization in North America.

[Page 259 of Susanna Bryant Dakin's 1949 history of Alta California: The Lives of William Hartnell, page 259]