North-west coast of Ame- rica on business " proceeded down the river to Saint Francisco, off which port a United Stntcr.' ship-of-wai was lying, ready to seize upon the place at a moment's warning. The American commander, Gillespie tells us, " with great kindness, promptness, and ener<jy, furnished me with all the suppKes he could spare from his vessel, as also having supplied Captain Fremont with a small sum of money." What these supplies were we are not told, but may readily imagine, especially as they were sent in the ship's barge, under the command of a heuten- ant. Gillespie accompanied the supplies up the river, and on the 13th rejoined Fremont. He found that the insurrection had already commenced, the settlers rising, as he says, " to save themselves and their crops from de- struction."
On the 16th, Captain Merritt, one of the settlers, "ar- rived with a small escort, bringing with him General Yal- lejo, Colonel Salvador Vallejo, and Colonel Prudon, pri- soners ; a party of forty of the settlers having surprised and taken Sonoma, the first military garrison in that part of the country." Thus we see a war against the Califor- nians was commenced after the arriival of Fremont, and without one single act of hostility having been committed against them. Of course, we have assertions in abundance of the intentions of General Castro, the commanding offi- cer, while the result proved his utter inability even to defend himself. Fremont and his party zealously coope- rated in the war, and were presently masters of that part of the country. The force at his disposal was a battalion of 224 men, and on the 5th July he raised the standard of the Republic of California.
On a calm review of the facts before us, it is impossible to resist the conviction, that Fremont was given to under- stand, but in a way not to compromit the Government, that the abandonment of his exploration in Oregon for the purpose of exciting and aiding an insurrection in California, would not expose him to censure. On no other supposition would it be possible for him to escape the personal application of the