Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/515

Rh treaty, since it is made merely to prevent bloodshed in California. Next day Sepúlveda wrote that every man capable of bearing arms should be sent to the front, as the people of Monterey were approaching and had replied to his messages that on the 19th they would be within gunshot on the plain of San Fernando.

Alvarado, with his army of 110 men and two pieces of artillery, had left San Buenaventura on the 17th, and after a day's march in the rain had halted for the night at Cayeguas rancho, whence he despatched the message cited above, and where he had a conference with Osio and others sent by Sepúlveda, a conference resulting in nothing beyond an agreement to hold another nearer San Fernando on the 19th. Next day Alvarado advanced to the Calabazas rancho, where, or perhaps at Encino, he met Sepúlveda and Osio on the 19th. The comisionados had meanwhile reported at San Fernando the inferiority of Alvarado's force, thus arousing a somewhat warlike spirit, if we may credit Osio's statement; but they had also