beside the sea was to be their final resting-place, they would not have told it. When they turned their back on Nauvoo, the whole western coast was before them, with its multitudinous mountains and valleys, its rivers and lakes, and long line of seaboard. Of the several parts of this immense territory, ownership and right of occupation were not in every instance de- termined. The question of the boundary line between England's possessions and those of the United States had stirred up no small discussion and feeling, and out of the present war with Mexico would doubtless arise some changes.^ It was a foregone conclusion in the minds of many, before ever the migratory saints had reached the Missouri Kiver, that when the pres- ent troubles with Mexico were ended the United States would have California. But however this might be, the saints had a firm reliance on an overruling providence, and once adrift upon the vast untenanted west, their God and their sagacity would point out to them their future home. Thus it was that while the Mormons in the western states took the route over- land, another portion living at the east took passage round Cape Horn, the intention being that the two bodies of brethren should come together somewhere upon the Pacific slope, which indeed they did.^
The national title to what is now the Pacific United States being at this time thus unsettled, and the Mormons having been driven from what was then
^In a letter to Pres. Polk, dated near Council Bluffs, Aug. 9, 1846, the determination was expressed, 'that as soon as we are settled in the great basin, we design to petition the U. S. for a territorial govt, bounded on the north by the British and south by the Mexican dominions, east and west by the sum- mits of the Rocky and Cascade Mts. ' And again elsewhere: ' We told Col Kane we intended settling in the great basin on Bear River Valley; that those who went round by water would settle in S. F. That was in council with the twelve and Col Kane.' Hist. B. Young, MS., 133, 140.
- In his address to the saints in Great Britain, dated Liverpool, 1849, Elder
John Taylor says: 'When we arrive in California, according to the provisions of the Mexican government, each family will be entitled to a large tract of land, amounting to several hundred acres; but as the Mexican and American nations are now at war, should Cal. fall into the hands of the American nation, there has been a bill before congress in relation to Or., which will undoubtedly pass, appropriating 640 acres of land to every male settler.' MiUennicd Star, viii. 115.
