346 



A REVOLT PICO TREATY OF COUENGA. 



quest of California, and was obliged by him to return as his guide, 

 whilst a new messenger was despatched towards the east, with the 

 missives, escorted by the residue of the troop which was deemed 

 useless for further military efforts on the shores of the Pacific. 



But before Kearney reached his destination, a change had come 

 over affairs in California. Castro returned to the charge in Sep- 

 tember with a large Mexican force headed by General Flores, and 

 the town of Los Angeles and the surrounding country having 

 revolted, expelled the American garrison. Four hundred marines 

 who landed from the Savannah under Captain Mervine, were re- 

 pulsed, while the garrison of Santa Barbara, under Lieutenant 

 Talbott had retired before a large body of Californians and Mexi- 

 cans. Fremont, immediately resolving to increase his battalion, 

 raised four hundred and twenty-eight men, chiefly from the emi- 

 grants who moved this year to California. He mounted his troop- 

 ers on horses procured in the vicinity of San Francisco and Sutters 

 Fort, and marched secretly but quickly to San Luis Obispo, where 

 he surprised and captured Don Jesus Pico, the commandant of that 

 military post. Pico having been found in arms had broken his 

 parole, given during the early pacification, and a court-martial 

 sentenced him to be shot ; but Fremont, still steadily pursuing his 

 humane policy towards the Californians, pardoned the popular and 

 influential chieftain, who, from that hour, was his firm friend 

 throughout the subsequent troubles. 



On Christmas day of 1846, amid storm and rain, in which a 

 hundred horses and mules perished, Fremont and his brave bat- 

 talion passed the mountain of Santa Barbara. Skirting the coast 

 through the long maritime pass at Punto Gordo, — protected on 

 one flank by one of the vessels of the navy, and assailed, on the 

 other, by fierce bands of mounted Californians, — they moved 

 onward until they reached the plain of Couenga where the enemy 

 was drawn up with a force equal to their own. Fremont sum- 

 moned the hostile troops to surrender, and after their consent to a 

 parley, went to them with Don Jesus Pico and arranged the terms 

 of the capitulation, by which they bound themselves to deliver their 

 arms to our soldiers and to conform, at home, to the laws of the 

 United States, though no Californians should be compelled to take 

 an oath of allegiance to the United States^ until the war was ended 

 and the treaty either exonerated them or changed their nationality. 



Meanwhile General Kearney, on his westward march from Santa 

 Fe, had reached a place called Warner's Rancho, thirty-three miles 

 from San Diego, where a captured Californian mail for Sonoma 

 apprised him that the southern part of the territory was wrested 



