commander-in-chief.  Don Fernando de Rivera y Moncado, captain of the presidio of Loreto, was appointed second in command.  The troops were composed of forty cavalrymen from the presidio of Loreto in Lower California, under Rivera, and twenty-five infantrymen of the compania franca of Catalonia, under Lieutenant Don Pedro Fages.  To the presidial troops were joined thirty Christian Indians from the missions, armed with bows and arrows.  These were intended for the land expedition.  The mission of Santa Maria, the northernmost mission on the peninsula, was the rendezvous of the land forces, and from Loreto four lighters loaded with provisions for the land expedition were sent up the gulf to the bay of San Luis Gonzaga, the nearest point to the mission of Santa Maria, whither also went by land the troops, muleteers, and vaqueros, with the herd of every sort.  Finding insufficient pasturage for the cattle at Santa Maria, they advanced to Velicata, some thirty miles distant, and here was assembled the land expedition.  In addition to the officers named, Don Miguel Costanso, ensign of royal engineers, was ordered to join the expedition as cosmographer and diarist, and Don Pedro Prat was appointed physician.  To minister to the soldiers and take charge of the missions to be established in the new land, the following missionary priests, all of the college of San Fernando in Mexico, were named to accompany the expedition.  Fray Junipero Serra, appointed president of the missions of Alta California, Fray Juan Crespi, Fray Fernando Parron, Fray Juan Vizcaino, and Fray Francisco Gomez.

On the 6th of January, 1769, at the port of La Paz, the San Carlos was loaded and ready for sea.  The venerable Father Junipero Serra sang mass aboard her, and with other devotional exercises blessed the ship and the standards.  The visitador named the Senor San Jose patron of the expedition, and in a fervent exhortation, kindled the spirits of those about to sail.  These were Don Pedro Fages, with his twenty-five Catalans of the 1st batallion 2d regiment, Voluntarios de Cataluna, Alferez Miguel Costanso, Surgeon Don Pedro Prat, and Padre Fernando Parron.  The ship was commanded by Don Vicente Vila, lieutenant of the royal navy; the mate was Don Jorge Estorace, and twenty-three sailors, two boys, four cooks, and two blacksmiths made up the rest of the ship’s company — sixty-two in all.  They embarked on the night of January 9th and sailed on the 10th.  Galvez appointed Fages gefe de las armas — chief of the military expedition at sea, and instructed him to retain command of the soldiers on land until the arrival of the governor at Monterey[9].  On the 15th of February, Father Junipero performed like offices for the San Antonio, and she sailed the same day under command of Don Juan Perez, “of the navigation of the Philippines,” carrying Frays Vizcaino and Gomez, some carpenters, blacksmiths, and cooks, that, with the sailors, made some ninety persons, all told, on both ships.  The rendezvous was San Diego bay, where all were to meet.