History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

DESTINATION OF THE MORMONS. 239
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 determined.
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. 7
It was a foregone conclusion in
the minds of many, before ever the migratory saints
had reached the Missouri River, that when the present
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 overland,
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. 8
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
7 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 M ts. ' 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.
8 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.'
Millennial Star, viii. 115.