Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/552

534 in their letters expressed a preference for Vallejo. There seems to have been no final decision in the matter. It does not appear that Vallejo's resignation was accepted by the diputacion, or that any other officer attempted to exercise the command. All waited for news from Mexico.

And this news came sooner than looked for, and in an unexpected form. It was an announcement that Cárlos Carrillo had been appointed provisional governor of the department of Californias. It reached Monterey October 30th, and Los Angeles ten days earlier, in letters from Luis del Castillo Negrete and José Antonio Carrillo at La Paz, enclosing certified copies of the appointment to Alvarado and the ayuntamiento, and the original probally to Don Cárlos himself at San Buenaventura. There is not much to be said of the circumstances in Mexico which had led to this appointment. I have no copy of the report which Gutierrez rendered on his arrival in exile, though it is not difficult to conjecture its purport. The Mexican government was too busy with troubles at home to devote much attention to a distant territory, but finally it did go so far as to make preparations for sending 1,000 men under General Iniestra to restore the wayward California to her allegiance. Money and arms, however, were scarce. The fitting-out of the expedition progressed slowly, and before it was completed the Californian congressman, José Antonio Carrillo, devised a method of suspending it altogether,