A shrewd politician named Hijars was to be made governor of Upper California for the purpose of carrying this law into effect.
But now Figueroa seemed to regret his first action.

Perhaps it was jealousy that Hijars should have been appointed to his stead.

He bitterly opposed Hijars, refused to give up the governorship, and after considerable "pulling and hauling," issued secularization orders of his own, greatly at variance with those promulgated by the Mexican Cortes, and proceeded to set them in operation.
Ten Missions were fully secularized in 1834, and six others in the following year.

And now came the general scramble for Mission property.
Each succeeding governor, freed from too close supervision by the general government in Mexico, which was passing through trials and tribulations of its own, helped himself to as much as he could get.
Alvarado, from 1836 to 1842, plundered on every hand, and Pio Pico was not much better.

When he became governor, there were few funds with which to carry on the affairs of the country, and he prevailed upon the assembly to pass a decree authorizing the renting or the sale of the Mission property, reserving only the church, a curate's house, and a building for a court-house.