to go along as his aide.  Of course this was most agreeable to me.  Two of Stevenson’s companies, with the headquarters and the colonel, were to go also.  They embarked, and early in May we sailed for San Pedro.  Before embarking, the United States line-of-battle-ship Columbus had reached the coast from China with Commodore Biddle, whose rank gave him the supreme command of the navy on the coast.  He was busy in calling in—­“lassooing “—­from the land-service the various naval officers who under Stockton had been doing all sorts of military and civil service on shore.  Knowing that I was to go down the coast with General Kearney, he sent for me and handed me two unsealed parcels addressed to Lieutenant Wilson, United States Navy, and Major Gillespie, United States Marines, at Los Angeles.  These were written orders pretty much in these words:  “On receipt of this order you will repair at once on board the United States ship Lexington at San Pedro, and on reaching Monterey you will report to the undersigned.-James Biddle.”  Of course, I executed my part to the letter, and these officers were duly “lassooed.”  We sailed down the coast with a fair wind, and anchored inside the kelp, abreast of Johnson’s house.  Messages were forthwith dispatched up to Los Angeles, twenty miles off, and preparations for horses made for us to ride up.  We landed, and, as Kearney held to my arm in ascending the steep path up the bluff, he remarked to himself, rather than to me, that it was strange that Fremont did not want to return north by the Lexington on account of sea-sickness, but preferred to go by land over five hundred miles.  The younger officers had been discussing what the general would do with Fremont, who was supposed to be in a state of mutiny.  Some, thought he would be tried and shot, some that he would be carried back in irons; and all agreed that if any one else than Fremont had put on such airs, and had acted as he had done, Kearney would have shown him no mercy, for he was regarded as the strictest sort of a disciplinarian.  We had a pleasant ride across the plain which lies between the seashore and Los Angeles, which we reached in about three hours, the infantry following on foot.  We found Colonel P. St. George Cooke living at the house of a Mr. Pryor, and the company of dragoons, with A. J. Smith, Davidson, Stoneman, and Dr. Griffin, quartered in an adobe-house close by.  Fremont held his court in the only two-story frame-house in the place.  After sometime spent at Pryor’s house, General Kearney ordered me to call on Fremont to notify him of his arrival, and that he desired to see him.  I walked round to the house which had been pointed out to me as his, inquired of a man at the door if the colonel was in, was answered “Yea,” and was conducted to a large room on the second floor, where very soon Fremont came in, and I delivered my message.  As I was on the point of leaving, he inquired where I was going to, and I answered that