Gaston, burning with indignation, easily fell into sympathy with some of the every-ready malcontents conspiring against the new government. The plot was found out, but Gaston received warning in time to put fifty miles of hard riding between him and the fatal anger of Santa Ana.
He returned to San Francisco, his old sense of wrong aggravated by this new grievance. With singular inconsistency we find him writing to a correspondent in France, in bitter complaint of the apathy shown towards his scheme by the "intelligent and rich" Americans, at the same time that he warns his compatriots against the designs of the United States on the territory of Mexico and the world at large. His gloomy forebodings must awaken a smile, in view of the actual results, yet they speak a sentiment which was powerful enough, ten years later, to work out the imperial tragedy of Maximilian.
"Europeans," he says, "are disturbed by the growth of the United States, and rightly so. Unless she be dismembered, unless a powerful rival be built up beside her, America will become, through her commerce, her trade, her population her geographical position upon two oceans the inevitable mistress of the world. In ten years Europe dare not fire a shot without her permission. As I write, fifty Americans prepare to sail for Lower California, and go perhaps to victory. _Voila les Etats-Unis!_"
On the 2nd of April, 1854, three hundred French military colonists sailed from San Francisco, upon a formal invitation from the Mexican consul, to perform the duty formerly allotted to De Boulbon; the latter had been declared an outlaw by the Government. Nevertheless he resolved to hazard a descent upon Arizona, counting on the fidelity of those colonists and the moral support of the French Government, still uneasy over the ambitious designs of the United States. On the 24th of May he sailed from San Francisco on the little schooner _Belle_. His departure was hurried, as the United States authorities, warned of his purpose, had taken steps for his arrest and detention. In his haste he was forced to leave behind a small battery which he had bought for the expedition. The captain of the _Belle_, an American, hesitated to put to sea, but Gaston (so says his biographer) promptly put him in irons and took command of the vessel himself. His avowed object was the carrying out of the original contract of 1852, namely, the protection of the mines of Arizona; but Arizona had meanwhile become American territory, under the Gadsden treaty of 1853. Hence the present attempt of Gaston was filibustering, pure and simple, if not something worse.