Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/432

 CHAPTER XV.

RULE OF GUTIERREZ AND CHICO.

1836.

I TAKE up again the thread of political annals dropped at the end of 1835. In accordance with a prevalent desire of the Californians, Figueroa at his death had separated the political and military commands, intrusting the latter, according to army regulations, to the ranking officer Lieutenant-colonel Nicolas Gutierrez, and the former, according to a Mexican law of somewhat doubtful application to a territory, to Jose Castro, as senior vocal of the diputacion. The only objection had come from the south in behalf of Jose Antonio Estudillo of San Diego, who was really the senior vocal, but was absent from the capital on account of illness. Estudillo was doubtless entitled to the position of gefe politico ad interim, and the prospective honor may have done