A PROJECTED IRISH SETTLEMENT IN CALIFORNIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 52, 22 April 1887, Page 18

A PROJECTED IRISH SETTLEMENT IN CALIFORNIA.

One of the might-have-beens of history, fraught with great possibilities, was the project conceived by an Irish priest Rer. Eugene Macnamara, "or colonising the Mexican teritory of California with Irish emigrants, as early as 1846. The Calif ornian historian Bancroft, and General John C.Fremont, in his " Memoirs " now being published, give details of the scheme, which came very near to being successful. 6 Father Macnamara was a zealous missionary who early perceived the great natural resources of California and its suitability for a hardier race of inhabitants than the unenterprising Spanish colonists. He also foresaw the aggressive designs of the American pioneers aud realised the weakness of the Spaniards to oppose them. The subseqnent Bhameful ipoliation. of Spaniard and aborigine alike, by the American conquerers, proves the justice of his apprehensions, although it is by no means certain that a greater misfortune might not have befallen the territory and the continent bad his well-meant design succeeded. For his plan, briefly stated, was to coloaise California with Irish Catholic families, a people " moral, industrious, sober and brave," who should stand as a barrier between the Spaniard and the encroaching American. But beyond the honest plan of Father Macnamara lurked a deeper well-laid scheme of the English Government to seize the country, ostensibly, of course, for the " protection of British interests " Admiral Seymour, of the English Navy, was in Californian waters, ready upon the slightest pretext to plant his flag on the shore, when the dilatory Mexican Government at last gave its assent to Father Macnamara's scheme. But before the slow-moving Englishman could take the decisive step, Fremont on land and an American fleet on sea had hoisted the stare and stripes, and California was a part of the great Union. " We cannot fail," says Fremont, " to sympathise with the grief o! a mind which had conceived a project so far-reachin? and whicn kfcd experienced the shock of overthrow in the moment of its complete success. The time, the thought, the labour of arbitration, the patient endurance with slower or inferior minds— all had resulted in the blank of absolute failure. In the interests of his Church it was a nobly conceived plan : one among the great ideas which affect nations. General Fremont points to the success of other missions to prove that the 3000 Irish Catholic families whom Father Macnamara had intended to bring out would have proved an inestimable blessing to the country, by reclaiming the wild mountain Indians, and introducing a stable, moral and prosperous civilisation. Yet we cannot feel any regret that the scheme failed. It is best that California should be American. It would have been an incalculable misfortune for the State and the United States had it fallen into the hands of England, as it probably would have done but for American intervention. It is not to be supposed that an Irish colony would have long remained under the rule of weak and slothful Mexic« ; and it is evident that England only needed a pretext for seizing on the territory. Fatner Iffacnamara's scheme was the conception of a lofty and zealous mind too unselfish to apprehend the cunning designs of the Englishmen who gave it countenance. Its failure was no loss to the cause of religion or of human freedom. — Pilot.