mss142-vasilevShishmarev-i4-028

- 137 -

give a pleasant and healthy variety to the diet. In addition,
how easy it would be to execute all these tasks with the set-
tled Indians, not having the need to buy black slaves for this
purpose. Now, the natives imitate the laziness of their men-
tors and prefer to live on what nature gives them rather than
to toil. But the Spanish administration at that time was very
much to blame for that, because it forbade all nations, ex-
cept our Company, to trade with the colonies, and at that, it
was allowed to purchase only wheat and horned cattle for the
settlement [of Ross], and that, for cash.8 For this reason,
the inhabitants of California needed all luxury goods so that
they asked us to pay for the purchased provisions not with
money but with merchandise. They not only did not have tea,
but not even the produce of other American colonies belonging
then to Spain, such as sugar, coffee, rum, and spices. Abso-
lutely nothing was delivered by sea because there was nothing
to take from there in exchange, and a delivery from Mexico by
the overland route was accompanied not only by great diffi-
culty because it could be done only by pack mules with the
dangers of crossing over the Andes, but from the wild Indians
of those regions. For the same reason, in general, communi-
cation with Mexico was, at that time, once, or at the most,
twice a year, and the Spaniards lived in complete ignorance
of the rest of the world. They learned about the insurrection
of the Peruvian District [at Cuzco, 1813?] only a year before
our visit, and then, from two frigates sailing from Lima to
Monterey. These frigates burned the "presidio," took a contri-