Monday, Oct. 19. Some twenty men left the precincts of Monterey, last night, to join the insurgents at the south. They are all men of desperate fortunes, and may find that they have started too late. They who have been duped may perhaps be spared, but the ringleaders are doomed. There is only one resting-place for them in California. He who breaks his solemnly plighted faith, can claim no mercy for the past and no confidence for the future.
Were this frantic insurrection sustained by the slightest probability of success, it would relieve, perhaps, its madness and atrocity. But they who instigated it knew it must end in disaster and blood. They knew its only trophies must be a little plunder, cursed by the crimes through which it had been procured. They threw themselves down this cataract, and will never again reascend its steep wave.
Tuesday, Oct. 20. The mode of cultivating land in California is eminently primitive. In December or January they take a piece of wood in the shape of a ship’s knee, dress it down a little with a dull axe, and spike a piece of iron to the lower point. A pole, by which the oxen draw, runs from the inner bend of the knee to the yoke. This pole has a mortise, about eight inches long, made slanting, and about a foot from the after end; a piece of wood, about two inches by six, runs up through the plough and pole, and is so wedged into the mortise of the pole, as to make the plough run shallow or deep as required. But if the ground happens to be hard the plough will not enter an inch, and if there are roots in the ground it must be lifted over, or it will be invariably broken. Such is a California plough; such a fair specimen of the arts here.
Wednesday, Oct. 21. If late in the season, the Californian rarely prepares the ground by any furrowing attempts. He scatters the seed about the field, and then scratches it in with the thing which he calls a plough. Should this scratching fail of yielding him sixty bushels to the acre, he grumbles. In reaping he cuts so high, to save a little trouble in threshing, which is done here by horses, that he loses one-eighth of his crop; but this eighth serves for seed the next season; and what to him is better still, saves the trouble of sowing. So that his second crop plants itself from the first, and is often nearly as large as its predecessor. Even the third self-planted crop is quite respectable, and would satisfy a New England farmer for his laborious toil; but here it generally goes to the blackbirds.
Thursday, Oct. 22. A mother came to me, to-day, with a request that I would summon before me another woman, who had slandered her daughter. I tried to dissuade her from it—told her that persevering virtue would outlive all scandal. But she said she was a poor widow, and the reputation of her family was all she had to depend on. So I summoned the woman, who confessed her injurious words, but said they had been uttered in passion, and that she now deeply regretted them. On her assurance that she would repair as far as in her power any injury she had done, I dismissed the parties.
Friday, Oct. 23. The merchant ship Vandalia is just in from San Pedro, with intelligence from the seat of war. Capt. Gillespie, it seems, had been obliged to capitulate; but the terms were that he should leave the Pueblo with all the honors of war. He marched out of the town with his flag flying; and, on arriving at San Pedro, embarked on board the Vandalia.
The frigate Savannah soon hove in sight. Her forces under Capt. Mervin, and those from the Vandalia under Capt. Gillespie, started at once for the Pueblo. After a march of fifteen miles, they encamped for the night. But their slumbers were soon disturbed by a shot, which thundered its way into their midst. They seized their arms, but in the darkness of the night nothing could be seen, and nothing heard save the distant tramp of horses. At break of day they renewed their march, but had not proceeded far before they were attacked by a Californian force on horseback, drawing a four-pounder. Their enemy kept out of the range of their muskets, fled as fast as they charged, and, having gained a safe distance, wheeled and played upon them with their four-pounder, charged with grape. Capt. Mervin, finding himself unable to bring the enemy to a general engagement, and having five of his men killed, and a greater number wounded, ordered a retreat, and returned without further molestation on board the Savannah. His defeat lay in the fact that his men were all on foot, and without any artillery to protect them against the longer range of the piece which the enemy had brought into the field.
Saturday, Oct. 24. Col. Fremont having fallen in with the Vandalia, and ascertained from her that no horses could be procured for his men at Santa Barbara, decided on returning in the Sterling to this port. His arrival has been delayed by a succession of light head winds, and dead calms. When within fifty miles of the port, a boat was dispatched, which is just in. Several of his men came in her, who are to start in advance in quest of horses. They will probably have to go as far as the Sacramento, for all the horses in this immediate vicinity have been driven south by the insurgents. I have lost both of mine; but what are two to the hundred and fifty which were driven from the farm of one man. If misery loves company, I have a plenty of that sort of consolation. But the extent of a misfortune depends not so much on what is taken, as what is left. The last surviving child in a family is invested with the affections which encircled the whole.
Sunday, Oct. 25. With us the sound of the church-going bell has been exchanged for the roll of the drum. One of the moral miseries of war is the profanation of the Sabbath which it involves. There is something in military movements which seems to cut the conscience adrift from its moorings on this subject.
Monday, Oct. 26. We shall soon see what the genius of Com. Stockton is equal to in a great emergency. He will arrive at San Pedro without horses, or any means of procuring them. They are all driven off, or under men who seem as if born on the saddle. He will encounter on his march to los Angeles the same flying-artillery which foiled the forces under Capt. Mervin. But he will have several well-mounted pieces; they must be drawn, however, by oxen over a deep sandy road. If the enemy comes within range, he will open and give them a volley of grape. In this way he will reach, recapture the place, and unfurl the stars and stripes. But how he will maintain himself—how he will procure provisions with the country around in the hands of a mounted enemy, remains to be seen. Military genius, however, asserts its fullest force in the greatest emergency. It is like the eagle exulting in peril, and throwing its strong pinions on the mountain storm.