On the 18th of January General Kearny, with the dragoons, left for San Diego.  There was understood to be a difference between General Kearny and Commodore Stockton, and General Kearny and Colonel Fremont, in regard to their respective powers and duties; which, as the whole subject has subsequently undergone a thorough investigation, and the result made public, it is unnecessary for me to allude to more particularly.  I did not converse with General Kearny while he was at Los Angeles, and consequently possessed no other knowledge of his views and intentions, or of the powers with which he had been invested by the President, than what I derived from report.

On the 19th, Commodore Stockton and suite, with a small escort, left for San Diego.  Soon after his departure the battalion was paraded, and the appointment of Colonel Fremont as governor of California, and Colonel W.H.  Russell, as secretary of state, by Commodore Stockton, was read to them by Colonel Russell.  It was announced, also, that, although Colonel Fremont had accepted the office of chief civil magistrate of California, he would still retain his military office, and command the battalion as heretofore.

Commodore Shubrick, however, arrived at Monterey on the 23rd of January, in the U.S. ship Independence, and, ranking above Commodore Stockton, assumed the chief command, as appears by the date of a general order published at Monterey, and written on board the United States ship Independence, on February 1st, thanking the volunteers for their services, and announcing the restoration of order.  For I should state that an insurrection, headed by Don Francisco Sanchez, had broken out in the upper portion of California some time towards the last of December, which had been put down by a detachment of marines and volunteers.  The insurgents had committed some outrages, and among other acts had taken prisoner Lieutenant W.A.  Bartlett, acting Alcalde of San Francisco, with some other Americans.  An account of the suppression of this affair I find in the “Californian” newspaper of February 6th, 1847, from which it appears, “that a party of one hundred and one men, commanded by Captain Ward Marston, of the United States marines, marched from San Francisco on the 29th December in search of the enemy, whom they discovered on the 2nd of January, about one hundred in number, on the plains of Santa Clara, under the command of Francisco Sanchez.  An attack was immediately ordered.  The enemy was forced to retire, which they were able to do in safety, after some resistance, in consequence of their superior horses.  The affair lasted about an hour, during which time we had one marine slightly wounded in the head, one volunteer of Captain Weber’s command in the leg; and the enemy had one horse killed, and some of their forces supposed to be killed or wounded.  In the evening the enemy sent in a flag of truce, with a communication, requesting an interview with the commanding officer of the expedition the next day,