According to plans made at Loreto before the first expedition started for Alta California, it was felt that a third mission would be needed half way between San Diego and Monterey. It was the intention to establish this station at San Buenaventura. Once in California, however, circumstances intervened and it was 1782 before the opportunity for actually founding this mission occurred. In March of that year, a conference of some importance took place at Mission San Gabriel. Present were Father Serra, three of his Franciscans, Governor Felipe de Neve, and the ex-sergeant, Jos Ortega, now a lieutenant after Father Serra's unsuccessful campaign to have him appointed governor of California.

The meeting between Fr. Serra and de Neve was of utmost importance to the missionaries, for the governor had been in the territory almost five years and now, for the first time since his arrival, had agreed to discuss the establishment of a new mission. Fr. Serra had received word that six new Franciscan padres were being sent from the College in Mexico City but there were other difficulties to be solved.

From the point of view of the royal authorities in Mexico, new missions in the California style were expensive. The first missions had been supplied in part with goods taken from the Jesuit missions of Lower California; now each new mission had to be supplied with materials purchased and shipped from Mexico City. European wars were draining the Spanish treasury and all available funds were being sent to the mother country. California, other than for its strategic position, meant little to the Spanish crown and offered nothing in the way of material profit. From the King's standpoint, mission expenditures were unnecessary.

The Franciscans took the position that the money spent was taken from the Pious Fund, a fund collected privately by their predecessors, the Jesuits, solely for the purpose of maintaining the missions of Baja and, by extension, Alta California. Such an attitude received little sympathy from the Crown and its viceroy, for, by the Patronado which Pope Alexander VI issued in 1493, the King was given a free hand, based on law, over certain temporalities and appointments in administering the Church in the New World. Therefore, he argued that the Pious Fund was to be administered at his discretion. For the moment, the King did not desire to spend additional money in California.

This position of the Crown led it to support the civil point of view. If California could be colonized by merely distributing land to the newly arrived settlers, it meant a much less expensive way of protecting the area from foreign encroachment. As the governors had long been arguing, a small white population was of far greater value to the Crown than any number of the unpredictable Indians.

The Yuma uprising also furthered Spanish distrust of the Indians and the policy was embodied in a code of authority by Viceroy Bucareli. From this code, de Neve fashioned new regulations which ordered that all future missions be set up in the Arizona style favored by Commandante de Croix. This meant, of course, no mission industries founded on Indian labor and also only one father to a mission.

The meeting at Mission San Gabriel must have been a difficult one for both Father Serra and the Governor. The new regulations had been published and Fr. Serra was aware of de Neve's part in forming them, yet his College of San Fernando was still doing a valiant battle against their actual enforcement. Fr. Serra and de Neve agreed on the establishment of two new missions, however, one at the site designated for Santa Barbara and one at San Buenaventura. De Neve planned to accompany the settlers, for he was interested in Santa Barbara, which also was to have a presidio. After the party was one day out, a courier arrived with orders from de Croix, bidding de Neve to meet with Pedro Fages who was coming from Sonora to campaign against the rebellious Yuma Indians.

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