The governor’s army amounted to five hundred men, two hundred of them soldiers in uniform, and the remainder half*d stragglers, fond of pillage, but too cowardly to fight for it.  It was agreed that I and my men, being all on horseback, would occupy the prairie, where we would conceal ourselves in an ambush.  The Montereyans and their friends were to make way at the approach of the governor, as if afraid of disclosing the ground; and then, when the whole of the hostile enemy should be in full pursuit, we were to charge them in break and put them to rout.  All happened as was anticipated; We mustered about three hundred and fifteen men, acting under one single impulse, and sanguine as to success.  On came the governor with his heroes.

A queer sight it was, and a noisy set of fellows they were; nevertheless, we could see that they were rather afraid of meeting with opposition, for they stopped at the foot of the hill, and perceiving some eight or ten Montereyans at the top of the pass, they despatched a white flag, to see if it were not possible to make some kind of compromise.  Our friends pretended to be much terrified, and retreated down towards the prairie.  Seeing this, our opponents became very brave.  They marched, galloped, and rushed on without order, till they were fairly in our power; then we gave the war-whoop, which a thousand echoes rendered still more terrible.

We fired not a bullet, we shot not an arrow, yet we obtained a signal victory.  Soldiers and stragglers threw themselves on the ground to escape from death; while the governor, trusting to his horse’s speed, darted away to save himself.  Yet his cowardice cost him his life, for his horse tumbling down, he broke his neck.  Thus perished the only victim of this campaign.

We took the guns and ammunition of our vanquished opponents, leaving them only one fusil for every ten men, with a number of cartridges sufficient to prevent their starving on their return home.  Their leader was buried where he had fallen, and thus ended this mock engagement.  Yet another battle was to be fought, which, though successful, did not terminate in quite so ludicrous a manner.

By this time Fonseca was coasting along the shore, but the south-easterly winds preventing him from making Monterey, he entered the Bay of St. Francisco.  This settlement is very rich, its population being composed of the descendants of English and American merchants, who had acquired a fortune in the Pacific trade; it is called Yerba buena (the good grass), from the beautiful meadows of wild clover which extend around it for hundreds of miles.