478 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



return with credit, under the stipulations of the 

 armistice. He brings "with him no other authority 

 for his return, and says he desires to Hve peaceably, 

 and attend to his private affairs. He denies ever 

 having said that he came back with powers to resume 

 his gubernatorial functions, and that he rebuked such 

 of his friends as he had seen for their last attempt at 

 a revolution, and advises that they remain quiet and 

 obey the laws, as no part of the people of the con- 

 quered Mexican territory have been treated as kindly 

 as the Californians have been by the American au- 

 thorities. He thanked me for my personal kindness 

 to his family and countrymen in general, and said if 

 I would permit him he would go to San Fernando, 

 from whence he would answer that part of my order 

 which required a written communication from him. I 

 gave him permission to leave, and offered him an 

 escort, which he thanked me for, but declined. Don 

 Pio Pico is abotit five feet seven inches high, corpu- 

 lent, very dark, with strongly-marked African fea- 

 tures ; he is, no doubt, an amiable, kind hearted man, 

 who has ever been the tool of knaves ; he does not 

 appear to possess more intelligence than the rancheros 

 generally do ; he can sign his name, but I am in- 

 formed he cannot write a connected letter ; hence, as 

 he informed me, he w^ould be compelled to send for 

 his former secretary before he could answer my order 

 or communicate with you, which he advised me he 

 intended doing. I have promised to take charge of 

 and forward any communication he may choose to 

 make you. He left town on Wednesday morning very 

 early, as obscurely as he had entered it ; and those 

 who advised him to assume the bombastic tone he did 

 upon his first arrival, have done him irreparable injury, 



