Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/374

Rh no hope; and the following night, leaving to Andrés Pico the chief command and probably about one hundred men, he set out hastily with a few others for Sonora.

Up to this time nothing had been heard of Frémont's operations during almost. three months. Probably that officer did not wish to take part in the hostilities. Expecting to be governor and seeing before him a prospect of brilliant opportunities, he desired to conciliate the people. Stockton, on learning of the revolt in the south, had ordered him back from the Sacramento, and about October 12 he sailed for Santa Barbara with instructions to march from that place to Los Angeles. Learning on the way, however, that Mervine had been defeated, and that all the horses and cattle had been driven away from Santa Barbara by insurgents, he returned on his own responsibility to the Sacramento, and began to collect not only horses but men. By the end of November he found at his back about four hundred mounted riflemen and at least three guns, the strongest force in California.

The Savannah had been sent north expressly to assist him ;?° but, with little reference to his army commission or his naval obligations, he now proceeded slowly by land to San Luis Obispo, where he fortunately captured Jesús Pico, a cousin of Andrés; and after his prisoner had been sentenced to death for breaking parole, he assumed the authority of pardoning him. Then, for no discoverable reason unless to spare about sixty insurgents, whom he could have scattered in ten minutes, he led his command through the mountains, where it suffered terribly in the stormy weather. At Santa Barbara he took a week for repose; and finally, with a nicety of calculation or felicity of luck that excites wonder, he arrived near the scene of action — three months after receiving orders to go there — precisely as the Americans were entering Los Angeles. Then with his devotee, Jesús Pico, he betook himself to the camp of Andrés, and finally, although he knew that American forces had beaten the Californians and entered Los Angeles, and understood that a superior officer was near, he arranged with the insurgents a capitulation, which Stockton had refused to grant.

This capitulation, the "treaty" of Cahuenga, conceded substantially all the insurgents could have asked. They promised