pected quarter came to him in the person of General Stephen W. Kearney, who, having completed the subjugation of New Mexico, had pushed on to California with a small force to assist in its conquest. Learning of the state of affairs, Kearney had sent word to Stockton in San Diego, that he wished to effect a junction with him. Meeting Gillespie and a small force which Stockton had sent out to him, Kearney engaged the Californians at San Pasqual, near San Diego, with disastrous results and had to be rescued from his perilous position by a second relief force from Stockton.

"With their combined forces of about 500 men, Stockton and Kearney set out for Los Angeles. But near San Gabriel on January 8, 1847, they engaged in the final and most serious battle of the war in California. The enemy with 600 mounted men and four field pieces attacked the American force with all the despairing energy of a dying cause. Again and again the beautifully mounted and utterly fearless vaqueros charged the American squares, only to be mowed down by the steady, galling fire of the trained marksmen. At last the Californians broke and fled. In their rapid retreat northward they met the tardy Fremont, coming down from Monterey with reinforcements, and to him surrendered on January 14. With the signing of the articles of capitulation at the Rancho de Cahuenga there was closed the only real war which has ever reddened California soil.

"The anomaly of two governors sitting in authority lasted until Colonel Richard B. Mason arrived to supplant Kearney as head of affairs. The two rival governors went east. Fremont was court martialed for mutiny and disobedience and recommended for dismissal from the service. President Polk sanctioned the sentence, but ordered the penalty of dismissal to be remitted. Fremont, with his native high spirits, refused the indulgence of the president and resigned his position as lieutenant colonel in the army."

The events of the conquest have been set forth in succinct order in a paper by Honorable Winfield Davis, heretofore quoted. He thus summarizes the genesis of government in California for the period immediately following the conquest:

Commodore John D. Sloat hoisted the American flag at Monterey July 7, 1846, and by proclamation took formal possession of California in the name of the United States government. Died on Staten Island, New York, November 28, 1867.

Commodore Robert F. Stockton, by proclamation dated at Los Angeles, August 17, 1846. Died at Princeton, New Jersey, October 7, 1866.

Captain John C. Fremont, appointed by Commodore Stockton, January 16, 1847. Died at New York City, July 13, 1890.

General Stephen W. Kearney, by proclamation dated at Monterey, March 1, 1847. Died at St. Louis, Missouri, October 31, 1848.

Colonel Richard B. Mason, by proclamation dated at Monterey, May 31, 1847. Died at St. Louis, Missouri, July 25, 1850.

General Bennet Riley became military governor April 13, 1849, and served until the organization of the state government in December, 1849. Died at Buffalo, New York, June 9, 1853.

News of peace between the United States and Mexico reached California August 7, 1848. A considerable population had been attracted to the country by the discovery of gold at Coloma in January of that year, and the laws of Mexico were found unsuited to the new conditions. The subject of forming a civil provisional territorial government had been agitated from the first of the year, but it did not assume an organized form until in December. On the 11th of that month a large meeting was held at San José, at which were adopted resolutions in favor of holding a convention to form a provisional territorial government to be put into immediate operation, and to remain in force until Congress should supersede it by a regular territorial organization. The action of the meeting met with the approval of the people of the northern and middle portions of the country. On December 21st and 22d, two public meetings were held at San Francisco, and resolutions were passed concurring in the plan of action suggested by the people of San José. Similar resolutions were adopted at meetings held at Sacramento on January 6th and 8th, 1849, at Monterey on the 31st, and at Sonoma on February 5th. These five districts elected delegates to the proposed convention-the district of Sacramento 5, Sonoma 10, San Francisco 5, San José 3, and Monterey 5. But the five other districts-San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego-failed to concur in the movement. The San José meeting recommended that the convention should assemble at that place. on the second Monday of January, 1849. The San Francisco meeting, believing that date too early to allow communication with the remote districts, recommended that it should meet on March 5th, and that was concurred in

by the districts of Sonoma and Sacramento, and tacitly by San José. The district of Monterey constituted its elected delegates a committee to confer with those from the other districts to obtain a still further extension of the time of holding the convention. The Corresponding Committee, appointed in San Francisco, endeavored to spread intelligence of the action of the various meetings, but the inclemency of the weather and the impassable condition of the roads and streams had, up to January 24th, prevented all communication with the five districts that were unrepresented. On the last named date the committee issued a recommendation "that the time for the proposed assembling of the Provisional Government Convention be changed to May 1, 1849." Twelve of the delegates that had been elected to the proposed convention met at San Francisco early in March, 1849, and issued an address to the people, in which it was recommended that a new election be held for delegates to meet in convention at Monterey on the first Monday in August. and that the delegates "should be vested with full power to frame a state constitution to be submitted to the people of California." To provide for their immediate wants the citizens of Sonoma, San Francisco, and Sacramento districts elected, early in 1849, district legislative assemblies. In June the San Francisco assembly issued an address recommending the election of at least twelve delegates from that district to attend a convention at San José on the third Monday in August for the purpose of organizing a government for the whole territory of California, such conditional or temporary State government to be put into operation at the earliest practicable moment after its ratification by the people, and to become a permanent State government when admitted into the Union. Simultaneously with this action of the assembly, though without any knowledge of it, General Riley issued at Monterey a proclamation for the election of delegates to a constitutional conven

tion.

Professor Royce holds that with July 7, the conquest was largely begun; that Sloat hesitated at Monterey when he heard of the confusion produced by Fremont and the Bear Flag movement in the north, for the gallant old admiral had expected to find a peaceful territory, whose people were eager to become American citizens. Royce says: "Sloat seems to have been unwilling to commit his government to the direct support of what naturally appeared to be an irregular insurrection." Neither Sloat nor Consul Larkin

understood Fremont's instructions, and the mystery of his bold conduct perplexed them, as they had received no orders to do anything in violence. After Sloat had raised the flag at Monterey he tried to ascertain from Fremont the exact nature of the authority under which the latter had acted, and the commodore was disappointed when Captain Fremont refused to confide in the naval authorities or to explain why he acted as he did. Sloat thought there should have been definite orders to warrant what Fremont did in the Bear Flag revolt. History shows that there were no such instructions.

Note. Some readers will desire a few more facts concerning the alleged unauthorized actions of Fremont, as charged by Professor Royce and others. Careful students are referred to Royce's excellent history of the state, which covers the period from 1846 to 1856, but an outline of his views may be abridged here:

Royce holds that the evidence is definite that Fremont disobeyed his orders and acted hastily and arbitrarily, also that Sloat desired a peaceful revolution and even promised Pico that he would try to quiet the troubles in the north; so, under the circumstances, Fremont was to the commodore a disturbing force that it was difficult, even impossible, to control. Our author says: "Thus here, as through all the subsequent months, Captain Fremont's conduct in the north remained effective as a serious hindrance in the way of the true conquest of California. It delayed the raising of the flag at Monterey a full week after Sloat's arrival, by making him uncertain how to apply his instructions to the anomalous conditions; and when Sloat had begun to act" the conduct of Fremont and his men in the Bear Flag episode was a great obstacle in the path of peaceful settlement. Sloat and Consul Larkin realized that much had been lost by the ill-advised Sonoma episode. Says Royce: "For Larkin, the man who, of all Americans concerned with California during this crisis, best did his duty; the one official whose credit, both private and public, is unstained by the whole affair; and who personally, if dessert be considered, and not mere popularity, is every way by far the foremost among the men who won for us California,Larkin had not been idle, not before Gillespie came, and much less afterward. He had obeyed all orders. * As an intriguer, he was dis

tinctly successful, and no drop of blood need have been shed in the conquest

of California, no flavor of the bitterness of mutual hate need have entered, at least for that moment, into the lives of the two peoples who were now jointly to occupy the land, had Larkin been left to complete his task. And although Sloat's coming would have found the work still incomplete, it would, without Captain Fremont's mischievous doings, have been well. enough advanced to insure with almost perfect certainty the peaceful change of flags."

It is then shown that two months before the Bear Flag absurdities Larkin had so far developed his plans as to have the direct assurance of Castro that he would aid the Americans in a plan to declare the country independent of Mexico "in 1847 to 1848." This information is in Larkin's letters to Buchanan, and may be found in the archives of the Department of State.

It is therefore concluded that Fremont had no just cause for his quarrel with Castro; that he could have had no trustworthy information of dangers that threatened the settlers from Castro or the native Californians, for there were no dangers; that Fremont had no secret message from Lieutenant Gillespie authorizing his acts of violence—and that his operations were purely aggressive, "and there will never again be a chance of making it appear otherwise."

Royce, through the courtesy of Hubert Howe Bancroft, had access to the original of the Gillespie dispatch, and, after calmly surveying every phase of the question and reading the proof-sheets of his forthcoming history to General Fremont, the Professor says: "Here, then, to sum it all up, is our country's honor involved in a violation of the laws of nations, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity: a war brought among a peaceful, and, in part, cordially friendly people; anarchy and irregular hostilities threatened and begun without any provocation, and with consequences that were bad enough, as it happened, and that would have been far worse had not regular warfare just then, by a happy accident, announced its robust and soon irresistible presence. The irregular deeds are the immediate work of a gallant, energetic, and able young officer, who thenceforth gets general credit as a faithful secret agent of his government, and heroic defender of his countrymen, as well as savior to us of the territory of California. His reputation gained in this affair nearly makes him president in 1856. The warfare in