For nineteen years after their arrival in Mexico, Father Junipero and his three friends were kept at work there, under the control of the College of San Fernando, in founding missions and preaching. On the suppression of the Jesuit Order, in 1767, and its consequent expulsion from all the Spanish dominions, it was decided to send a band of Franciscans to California, to take charge of the Jesuit missions there. These were all in Lower California, no attempt at settlement having been yet made in Upper California.
Once more the friends, glad and exultant, joined a missionary band bound to new wildernesses. They were but three now, Verger remaining behind in the College of San Fernando. The band numbered sixteen. Serra was put in charge of it, and was appointed president of all the California missions. His biographer says he received this appointment "unable to speak a single word for tears." It was not strange, on the realization of a hope so long deferred. He was now fifty-six years old; and from boyhood his longing had been to labor among the Indians on the western shores of the New World.
It was now the purpose of the Spanish Government to proceed as soon as possible to the colonization of Upper California. The passion of the Church allied itself gladly with the purpose of the State; and the State itself had among its statesmen and soldiers many men who were hardly less fervid in religion than were those sworn exclusively to the Church's service. Such an one was Joseph de Galvez, who held the office of Visitor-General and Commander, representing the person of the King, and inspecting the working of the Government in every province of the Spanish Empire. Upon him rested the responsibility of the practical organization of the first expedition into Upper California. It was he who ordered the carrying of all sorts of seeds of vegetables, grains, and flowers; everything that would grow in Old Spain he ordered to be planted in New. He ordered that two hundred head of cattle should be taken from the northernmost of the Lower California missions, and carried to the new posts. It was he also, as full of interest for chapel as for farm, who selected and packed with his own hands sacred ornaments and vessels for church ceremonies. A curious letter of his to Palon is extant, in which he says laughingly that he is a better sacristan than Father Junipero, having packed the holy vessels and ornaments quicker and better than he. There are also extant some of his original instructions to military and naval commanders which show his religious ardor and wisdom. He declares that the first object of the expedition is "to establish the Catholic religion among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of paganism, to extend the dominion of the King our Lord, and to protect this peninsula from the ambitious views of foreign nations."