36 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



party of sailors and marines, under Lieutenant Gray. 

 They then proceeded upon their march, and on the 

 12th, arrived at San Diego ; having thus completed a 

 march of eleven hundred miles through an enemy's 

 country, with but one hundred men. The force of 

 General Kearny- having joined that of Commodore 

 Stockton, the expedition against Los Angeles, of 

 which we hlive given an account in this chapter, was 

 successfully consummated, and tranquillity restored in 

 California. General Kearny and Commodore Stock- 

 ton returned to the Ignited States in January, 1847, 

 leaving Colonel Fremont to exercise the office of 

 governor and military commandant of California. No 

 further events of an importance worth recording occur- 

 red till the treaty of peace between th-e United States 

 and Mexico. 



CHAPTER VL 



DISCOVERY OF THE GOLD PLACERS. 



By the treaty concluded between the United States 

 and Mexico, in 1847, the territory of Upper Califor- 

 nia became the property of the United States. Little 

 thought the Mexican government of the value of the 

 land they were ceding, further than its commercial 

 importance ; and, doubtless, little thought the buyers 

 of the territory, that its soil was pregnant with a 

 wealth untold, and that its rivers flowed over golden 

 beds. 



This territory, now belonging to the American 



