yed timbers, while numbers of useless windows and doorways
were closed up with masonry, leaving the main entrance and another
portal in the rear, where a platform was laid for more convenient
traversings of a cannon.

The low parapet which invariably surmounts the flat roofs or _azoteas_
of Spanish houses, was raised sufficiently to afford a breast-high
protection, and the walls were pierced at the commanding points, with
loop-holes for musketry: this, with a trench between the two buildings,
constituted the defences.

The garrison numbered twenty-five, including the Commander and his four
subordinates. This force, however, was swelled, in a numerical sense, by
about twenty friendly natives, who, in seeking protection under the
pledges conveyed in our proclamations, had timidly volunteered their
services, in case of assault. Still, they were of but little effective
aid, and, with their families, only served to reduce the provisions and
uselessly waste the limited supply of ammunition with which the garrison
had been furnished. The gun, too, was an unwieldy nine-pounder ship's
carronade, mounted upon a clumsy slide, without wheels for easy
transportation, or any of the conveniences necessary for manoeuvering
on land. It was planted in front of the Cuartel, to sweep the avenue
with its fire. The force was divided between the two positions, and with
but forty rounds of ball cartridges in the cartouche boxes, the little
band calmly held their ground.

The Californian partisans who had enrolled themselves for guerrilla
warfare on the Peninsula, were composed of mongrel bodies of deserters
and disbanded soldiers from the Main, together with divers Yachi
Indians, and other disaffected vagabonds, who, having nothing to lose,
and anxious for plunder, either from their own countrymen or their
enemies, were indifferent by what means it was to be obtained.

This force amounted in the aggregate to more than six hundred mounted
men, tolerably well equipped with weapons, and commanded by Pineda,
Mexia, Moreno, Angulo, and Mejares. The last-named individual had been
former Captain of the port of Mazatlan. He was a man of activity and
desperate courage, for which last quality, at a later day, he paid the
penalty with his life.

The passions of these guerrillas had been violently inflamed by the
persuasions and advice administered by a shrewd Mexican priest, named
Gabriel Gonzales, who, fearing probably a loss of clerical influence