Portola followed the same route that he took on the retreat from Monterey, and on May 24th arrived at the Ensenada Grande under Punta de Pinos, near the cross they had erected, December 10th.  Selecting a place for the camp, Portola took Fages, Crespi, and a soldier for guard, and went to the cross to see if any vessel had visited the spot.  They found around the cross a ring of arrows stuck in the ground, some of which were decked with feathers; others had fish and meat attached to them, while at the foot of the cross was a small pile of shell-fish.  As Portola, Fages, and Crespi walked along the beach and looked out over the bay and noted its calm and placid waters, with its swimming seals and spouting whales, they broke forth with one voice, “This is the Port of Monterey which we have sought.  It is exactly as reported by Sebastian Vizcaino and Cabrera Bueno."[39]

Remembering the good water at the camp on the Rio del Carmelo, Portola ordered the expedition to Carmelo Bay by direct line, while he, with Fages and Crespi, proceeded around the Point of Pines.  They found it well covered with pine trees, many of them large enough for masts of a ship.  They also came upon a grove of cypress at a point beyond (Cypress Point), and arrived at camp after a walk of four good leagues.  Here they awaited the arrival of the San Antonio.

On May 31st the paquebot was sighted near Point Pinos.  The soldiers made signals, to which the ship replied with her guns, and before night had dropped her anchor in Monterey Bay, which was pronounced by the sailors to be a most famous port.

On the 3d of June, 1770, under a shelter of branches near the oak where, in 1602, Vizcaino’s Carmelite friars had celebrated mass, Don Gaspar de Portola, with his officers, soldiers, and people of the land expedition, Fray Junipero Serra and Fray Juan Crespi, Don Juan Perez, captain of the San Antonio, Don Miguel del Pino, his second in command, together with the crew, assembled to establish a presidio and mission.  The father president chanted the mass and preached from the Gospel, while the musical deficiency was made good by repeated discharges from the guns of the San Antonio and volleys from the muskets of the soldiers.  At the conclusion of the religious ceremonies, Don Gaspar de Portola, governor of the Californias, took possession of the country in the name of his majesty Don Carlos III, King of Spain, and the presidio and mission of San Carlos de Borromeo de Monterey were founded and established, the first presidio and second mission in California.

In accord with the orders of the visitador-general, Portola now delivered to Lieutenant Fages, as comandante of California, the command of the new establishments, sailed on the San Antonio, July 9th, for San Blas, and California knew him no more.

[1] Sierra de Santa Lucia.

[2] Audiencia, the highest judicial body.

[3] The system of encomienda conferred feudal rights upon the discoverers.  The Indians became vassals of Spanish lords.