Note 13 — XVII THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA 1846–1847

August 27, 1846, 12Seymour wrote to the Admiralty: “My principal object has been, for many months, to be at hand to prevent or retard it [the American occupation of California], if I should be directed to take any proceedings for these purposes.” It was presumably to wait for orders that he placed himself at San Blas. What led him to sail for Monterey, however, as he did on June 14, was not Sloat’s leaving Mazatlán, but news that the Santa Barbara convention was likely to declare for independence (13Seymour to Bankhead, June 13). Had that been done, he would have felt that he had a ground on which to oppose American occupation, though he thought that a large body of reliable colonists would be necessary to establish British ascendancy (12Id., Aug. 27). When he arrived at Monterey he was aware that the United States and Mexico were at war, and this was in his opinion an additional reason for inaction (12Id., Aug. 27); but he wrote to Pico that American occupation should be regarded as merely provisional (12to Pico, July 23). Sir Thomas Johnson, commanding a British sloop-of-war off Mazatlán, showed his sympathies by constantly giving the Mexicans information about our vessels (76Gutiérrez, Apr. 8, 1846, res.).