This brief quotation from the Foreign Office reply to the Admiralty contains the substance of the entire letter. Its tone indeed indicates surprise that the Admiralty should ask for any large increase of force in the Pacific.

46

But one further incident concerned with English action in California requires mention. Although, after 1842, there were repeated rumors that Mexico had directly offered to sell or transfer California to Great Britain, the evidence already presented in this article furnishes sufficient proof of the falsity of those rumors up to 1846. More direct testimony is, however, furnished when at last. the offer was actually made. In the first months of 1846 little attention was paid at Mexico to what was taking place in California,* but when war with the United States apparently became unavoidable anxiety rapidly developed as to the fate of California, and a plan. was brought forward to place that province in the hands of Great Britain. After some preliminary interviews, Paredes, the Mexican president, officially proposed to transfer California to England as security for a loan. This offer was made in May, 1846, and in reporting it to Aberdeen, Bankhead stated that: "It is an indirect. offer of sale, and it is the first time that any such offer has ever been hinted at from a responsible authority." This testimony is important in view of the persistent rumors of earlier offers. Bankhead was careful not to express any opinion to Paredes of the probable action of the British government, and in transmitting the matter to Aberdeen indicated doubt as to its importance. He did transmit it, however, and at the same time Paredes instructed the Mexican minister in London to press the affair officially. It is perhaps conceivable that such an offer, if made two years earlier, might have received some consideration by Aberdeen, but the time. had gone when any such scheme was feasible, even if Great Britain had been favorable to it. Bankhead's despatch of May 30 containing the offer reached London shortly after a governmental political change, and it fell to Palmerston, who was again at the Foreign Office, to answer it. This letter, dated August 15, shows the new ministry adopting without material change the policy of the pre

Bankhead's interest was at this time greatly aroused by proposals, or suggestions, unofficially made by Mexicans of prominence that a solution of Mexican difficulties might be found in an overthrow of the republic and the establishment of a monarchy under a European prince. Bankhead was much attracted to the idea, and Aberdeen expressed friendly interest. The suggestion was not new, for similar plans had been in the air even as early as 1837, and even specified an Austrian prince.

44

F. O. Mexico, 197, no. 73, Bankhead to Aberdeen, May 30, 1846.
Ibid.

ceding government toward Mexico and the Californian question.48 Palmerston wrote:

If the Mexican President should revert to the above proposition you will state to His Excellency that Her M's. Govt. would not at present feel disposed to enter into any Treaty for the acquisition of California: and the more so, because it seems, according to recent accounts, that the Mexican Govt. may by this time have lost its authority and command over that Province, and would therefore be unable to carry into effect its share of any arrangement which might be come to regarding it. The incident had in truth no direct bearing upon the question of British plans in regard to California, for the offer did not come until long after British policy was definitely determined. The importance of the facts just cited lies rather in the proof furnished that but one offer of sale was ever made by Mexico, and that not until May, 1846. The preceding account drawn from the available English documents in the Record Office is intended as a presentation of the most essential part of the evidence bearing upon the interests and intentions of Great Britain toward California. In estimating the extent of that interest and intention, it must always be borne in mind that at this time Great Britain had exactly as much right to acquire the province of California as had the United States or any other power. The possessor of the territory was Mexico, and Mexico alone had legal right to the country. When Americans made up their minds to occupy this province, and took steps to secure it, they had no more claim to it than had British citizens. This fact is sometimes lost sight of, or is clouded by American writers. With them, the existence of any plan in the mind of a British agent upon the coast was in itself an offense against socalled rightful American claims. The idea is, of course, absurd. The plan of Forbes to acquire California is in itself no more blameworthy than the plan of the American consul, Larkin. In the same way, a plan put forward by the British government would have been. no more blameworthy than that originated by the American government. In fact, however, it has been shown that no such plan by the British government ever existed. Restating again, briefly, the general results of this investigation, it is shown that there was a genuine and lively interest among British agents in securing California for England, if possible, and secondly, that these agents acted wholly without instructions to this effect from their government, and were ultimately either checked or reproved for such slight openings as were made by them.

48 F. O., Mexico, 194, no. 4.

The lack of British governmental interest in California was due to a variety of conditions, among which may be specified as of first importance general indifference to colonial expansion under any circumstances; lack of positive information about California; the relations with Mexico; and lastly and most important of all, the peculiarities of the Texas question, for here, in reality, lay the key to the whole situation. The only departure from the attitude of British governmental indifference toward California is noted in Aberdeen's instruction of December 31, 1844. This instruction was purely spasmodic and temporary, was the result of a momentary irritation with Mexico, and even it was of such a nature as to discourage British agents. The theory of an active British governmental design upon California is then wholly without foundation.

EPHRAIM D. ADAMS.

DOCUMENTS

1. Texts of Columbus's Privileges

It is well known that, for precautionary reasons, Columbus caused several codexes, or chartularies, to be compiled, each containing transcripts of certain grants of privilege, conferred upon him by Ferdinand and Isabella.

An examination of one of these codexes not hitherto described in print,1 and a partial collation of the text of the several volumes, has led to some new conclusions regarding the history of this book. Two of the manuscripts are well known—(a) the Genoese codex, printed by Spotorno in 1823, in the Raccolta di Documenti e Studi pubblicati dalla R. Commissione Colombiana, part II., volume II., in 1894, and in other editions, and published in facsimile in r893, and (b) the Paris codex, published in facsimile in 1893 under the editorship of B. F. Stevens, with a comprehensive introduction by H. Harrisse. Besides these, there are (c) the Providence codex, containing selections and extracts from the complete codex, and briefly described in Thacher's Columbus, II. 564-565, note, and in the introduction to the edition of the Genoese codex in the Raccolta Colombiana, pp. xvii-xix, and printed in the appendix to the latter volume; (d) the Washington or Florentine codex, purchased in Florence in 1818 by Dr. Edward Everett, for many years virtually lost, but acquired from Dr. William Everett by the Library of Congress in 1901, of which some account is given by Mr. Wilberforce Eames in a note in Thacher's Columbus, II. 562-564, and by Mr. Herbert Putnam in The Critic, XLII. (1903), 244-251; and (e) a codex of earlier date than any of the others, which was exhibited at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago among the manuscripts of the Duke of Veragua, and of which the Library of Congress possesses photographic copies. The following note relates chiefly to the Washington and Veragua codexes.

From the data in the Genoese and Paris codexes, it has naturally been concluded that Columbus's Book of Privileges was first compiled in the early part of the year 1502, shortly before his fourth voyage. These two codexes are in several parts-documents one

It is, however, mentioned in Mr. Herbert Putnam's article, "A Columbus Codex", in The Critic, XLII. (1903), 246, 248.

to thirty-five, authenticated by the alcaldes and notaries on January 5, 1502, and described by the editors as the codex proper; the thirty-sixth document, the Bull of Demarcation of May 4, 1493, which follows the first notarial authentication; documents thirtyseven to forty, inclusive, separately authenticated by the notaries on March 22, 1502; and, finally, a few miscellaneous documents of no legal value and unauthenticated.

There can be no doubt that the Washington codex was compiled at about the same time as the Genoese and Paris codexes. On the dorse of the second vellum folio of the Washington codex is the

statement:

Este es traslado de dos escripturas escriptas en pargamino de cuero, la una abtorizada, de ciertas cedulas é cartas é titulos del Almirante de las Yndias ante ciertos alcaldes é firmadas é sygnadas de Martin Rodriguez, escriváno publico de Sevilla.

This is a transcript of two writings written on parchment, one of them authorized, of certain cedulas and letters and titles of the Admiral of the Indies before certain alcaldes, and signed and rubricated by Martin Rodrigues, public scrivener of Seville.

That the two parchment writings mentioned are the Genoese and Paris codexes, appears from a collation of texts. A comparison has been made of the various texts of the Bull of Demarcation of May 4, 1493, in the three codexes with the following: (a) the text as given, in part, in facsimile in Autógrafos de Cristóbal Colón (opp. p. 20), published by the Duchess of Berwick and Alba in 1892, (b) as reproduced from the Vatican register in Heywood's Documenta Selecta é Tabulario l'aticano (1893), and (c) as printed in Navarrete's Coleccion de l'iages, II. 28 ff., and elsewhere. The bull published by the Duchess of Berwick and Alba, who reproduced only a little more than one-third of the document, belonged to Columbus. Like the texts in the Genoese and Paris codexes it is prefixed by a certification from the Bishop of Barcelona, and in several of its readings it agrees with the texts of the three codexes, while differing from the Vatican register, Navarrete, Solorzano (De Jure Indiarum, I. 610), and other texts. It is evident that it was from the Alba bull or from a closely similar text that the texts in the Genoese, Paris and Washington codexes were, either immediately or mediately, derived. It appears further that the text in the Genoese codex most closely resembles this original, that the deviations from this original in the Genoese manuscript are 'For an account of this document see the Raccolta Colombiana, part I., vol. II., p. clxxiv.