to cut them off. I was to be retained in the centre of the party. Ten
miles south of the mission, they encountered eight or ten Americans, a
part of whom retreated into a low ground covered with oaks, the others
returned to the house of Senor Gomez, to alarm their companions. For
over one hour the hundred and thirty Californians surrounded the six or
eight Americans, occasionally giving and receiving shots. During this
period, I was several times requested, then commanded, to go among the
oaks and bring out my countrymen, and offer them their lives on giving
up their rifles and persons. I at last offered to go and call them out,
on condition that they should return to San Juan or go to Monterey,
with their arms; this being refused, I told the commandante to go in
and bring them out himself. While they were consulting how this could
be done, fifty Americans came down on them, which caused an action of
about twenty or thirty minutes. Thirty or forty of the natives leaving
the field at the first fire, they remained drawn off by fives and tens
until the Americans had the field to themselves. Both parties remained
within a mile of each other until dark. Our countrymen lost Captain
Burroughs of St. Louis, Missouri, Captain Foster, and two others, with
two or three wounded. The Californians lost two of their countrymen,
and José Garcia, of Val., Chili, with seven wounded."

The following additional particulars I extract from the "Californian"
newspaper of November 21, 1846, published at Monterey: "Burroughs and
Foster were killed at the first onset. The Americans fired, and then
charged on the enemy with their empty rifles, and ran them off.
However, they still kept rallying, and firing now and then a musket at
the Americans until about eleven o'clock at night, when one of the
Walla-Walla Indians offered his services to come into Monterey and give
Colonel Fremont notice of what was passing. Soon after he started he
was pursued by a party of the enemy. The foremost in pursuit drove a