ed
or Christian portion of the community (gente de razon--people of reason)
did not, he said, number more than four hundred souls, including the
families of the soldiers of the garrison of Loreto and those of the
miners in the south; that if foreigners of any nation were to establish
themselves in the celebrated ports of San Diego and Monterey, they might
fortify themselves there before the government could receive notice
of it. In all the Sea of the South that washes the shores of New Spain
there were no other vessels than the two packet-boats recently built in
San Blas, the San Carlos and the San Antonio, and two others of small
tonnage which served the Jesuit missionaries in their communications
between California and the coast of Sonora. In these few ships consisted
all the maritime forces which could have been opposed to foreign
invasion. All this Galvez laid before the Junta, there being present
the commandant of the department and the army officers and pilots who
chanced to be there. It was resolved to send an expedition by sea in the
San Carlos and San Antonio, and orders were made to prepare the ships,
while Galvez proceeded to the peninsula to attend to the gathering of
supplies and provisions. All the missions of Lower California were laid
under contribution of vestments and sacred vessels for the new missions
to be established, also dried fruits, wine, oil, riding horses and mule
herd; for Galvez had decided to supplement the maritime expedition
by one by land, lest the infinite risks and dangers attending a long
sea-voyage should render the attempt abortive. The governor, Don
Gaspar de Portola, volunteered to lead the expedition, and he was named
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,
whit