PEACEMAKER: Through Don Pablo de la Guerra’s influence with Mexican Governor Don Pio Pico, DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL ‘was asked to organize a treasury department for the fast-growing pueblo of San Francisco’

Collectively, they had supplied him with cash for family needs beyond the produce of Alisal and Cosumnes, and there were a few months of incessant worry, in late 1844 and early 1845, from which Don Guillermo was rescued by his brother-in-law, returning from Europe.  Through Don Pablo’s influence with Pio Pico, Hartnell was offered a new government job which he had no choice but to accept.  He was asked to organize a treasury department for the fast-growing pueblo of San Francisco, similar to his Monterey plan which had proved efficient through the years.  It meant separation from his family, but surcease from financial worry.

Shortly before his departure, on December 13, 1844, Don Guillermo received a letter from Captain Sutter at New Helvetia asking – nay, commanding – him to do various commissions in the capital for the king of the northern empire.  Sutter wrote in German, ending with a veiled threat: “I would be very grateful to you especially as the political horizon looks very cloudy and you cannot think of peace any more. . . . . I am here in a martial state, every day we are drilling.  I have a strong garrison, and several thousand Indians ready to fight for their fuhrer at any moment.”

Sutter’s courier had orders to return with an immediate answer from Hartnell.  Unintimidated and with dignity, Don Guillermo answered the fuhrer: “It will always give me great pleasure to serve you to the utmost of my power but I only received your letter yesterday, and your courier tells me that he must leave today, so that it is impossible in so short a time to form any idea of what may be done for your, but I shall noT lose sight of your interests.”  He did not trouble to write in German, save a salutation at the end.

Important events crowded each other in California from February, 1845, when Pio formally succeeded Micheltorena as governor, to May 1846, when President Polk proclaimed that “by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between that government and the United States.”

During this inexorable march of time, Robert Wyllie continued his effort to transform California into a British colony by peaceful penetration.  In rueful mood, Cousin William would read his letters. 

 

CCC – LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL HISTORY: Page 267 of Susanna Bryant Dakin’s biographical history of Alta California in the early 19th century: The Lives of William Hartnell, published by Stanford University Press in 1949.

 

CCC