90 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
After all had passed this ordeal, a Botany Bay Convict, by 
the name of Garner, was called in evidence on behalf of the 
government. His testimony removed all lingering doubts. 
He established the unqualified guilt of all. Graham, in par¬ 
ticular, who had been preferred over him as commander of 
the foreign riflemen in Alvarado’s revolution, and whom he 
had previously attempted to kill, he declared to have formed a 
scheme of ambition, which, had it not been discovered, would 
have dug the grave of every Spaniard in California ! ! This 
man’s testimony was written out and signed by his murderous 
hand. It may be in due time a blister on his perjured soul. 
The reported confessions of each prisoner were reduced to 
writing in the Spanish language. They contained, as I after¬ 
ward learned in Mexico, things never said, accounts of acts 
never performed, and bequests of property to their persecu¬ 
tors, their jailers, and to those, who, on several occasions, 
thrust sabres at their hearts when nearly helpless in the dun¬ 
geons of Monterey, which I need not say were never made. 
Few of them could read Spanish, and none were permitted to 
peruse these documents. They were compelled to sign them, 
as poor Morris was, by threats of instant death if they refused. 
Thus ended the trial of one hundred and sixty-odd Americans 
and Britons, before a court of Californian Arabs ! What its 
judgment would be was the painful question in every mind ! 
A few of them had been sent to their places of residence with¬ 
out arms, or anjr intimation whether it would be the sublime 
pleasure of the villains that they should live or die: the greater 
part were remanded to the prisons. And again, while they 
sat, stood, and laid on the mud floors of their cells, and clanked 
their fetters and handcuffs, they sang u Hail Columbia,” 
and u Rule Britannia,” as another night of wo passed 
away ! That spectre fleet and its commander were the only 
hope between them and death. On this they leaned ! 
On the morning of the twenty-third the drums beat at 
early dawn, and the whole military force paraded before the 
dungeons. An imposing display was that. The clanking of 
