ans were preparing arrows
for a new attack, and this so scared the gallant officer that he
withdrew his six men. Choquet had to leave with his men, as he dared not
take the responsibility of being away with so many men without the
consent of Rivera; and, to the padre's great sorrow, the work had
to cease.

In March of 1778 Captain Carrillo was sent to chastise hostile Indians
at Pamo who had sent insolent messages to Captain Ortega. Carrillo
surprised the foe, killed two, burned others who took refuge in a hut,
while the others surrendered and were publicly flogged. The four chiefs,
Aachel, Aalcuirin, Aaran, and Taguagui, were captured, taken to San
Diego, and there shot, though the officer had no legal right to condemn
even an Indian to death without the approval of the governor. Ortega's
sentence reads: "Deeming it useful to the service of God, the King, and
the public weal, I sentence them to a violent death by two musket-shots
on the 11th at 9 A.M., the troops to be present at the execution under
arms also all the Christian rancherias subject to the San Diego Mission,
that they may be warned to act righteously."

Ortega then instructed Padres Lasuen and Figuer to prepare the
condemned. "You will co-operate for the good of their souls in the
understanding that if they do not accept the salutary waters of baptism
they die on Saturday morning; and if they do--they die all the same!"
This was the first public execution in California.

In 1780 the new church, built of adobe, strengthened and roofed with
pine timbers, ninety feet long and seventeen feet wide and high, was
completed.

In 1782 fire destroyed the old presidio church.

In 1783 Lasuen made an interesting report on the condition of San Diego.
At the Mission there were church, granary, storehouse, hospital, men's
house, shed for wood and oven, two houses for the padres, larder,
guest-room, and kitchen. These, with the soldiers' barracks, filled
three sides of a square of about one hundred and sixty feet, and on the
fourth side was an adobe wall, nearly ten feet high. There were seven
hundred and forty neophytes at that time under missionary care, though
Lasuen spoke most disparagingly of the location as a Mission site.

In 1824 San Diego registered its largest population, being then
eighteen hundred and twenty-nine.

When Spanish rule ended, and the Mexican empire and republic sent its
first governor, Echeandia, he decided to make San Diego his home; so