he Vigilance Committee
to disperse, etc., and he told us how he had on some occasion, as
far back as 1814, suppressed a mutiny on the Northern frontier. I
did not understand him to make any distinct promise of assistance
that night, but he invited us to accompany him on an inspection of
the arsenal the next day, which we did. On handling some rifled
muskets in the arsenal storehouse he asked me how they would answer
our purpose. I said they were the very things, and that we did not
want cartridge boxes or belts, but that I would have the cartridges
carried in the breeches-pockets, and the caps in the vestpockets.
I knew that there were stored in that arsenal four thousand
muskets, for I recognized the boxes which we had carried out in the
Lexington around Cape Horn in 1846. Afterward we all met at the
quarters of Captain D. R. Jones of the army, and I saw the
Secretary of State, D. F. Douglass, Esq., walk out with General
Wool in earnest conversation, and this Secretary of State afterward
asserted that Wool there and then promised us the arms and
ammunition, provided the Governor would make his proclamation for
the committee to disperse, and that I should afterward call out the
militia, etc. On the way back to the hotel at Benicia, General
Wool, Captain Callendar of the arsenal, and I, were walking side by
side, and I was telling him (General Wool) that I would also need
some ammunition for the thirty-two-pound guns then in position at
Rineon Point, when Wool turned to Callendar and inquired, "Did I
not order those guns to be brought away?" Callendar said "Yes,
general. I made a requisition on the quartermaster for
transportation, but his schooner has been so busy that the guns are
still there." Then said Wool: "Let them remain; we may have use for
them." I therefrom inferred, of course, that it was all agreed to
so far as he was concerned.

Soon after we had reached the hotel, we ordered a buggy, and
Governor Johnson and I drove to Vallejo, six miles, crossed over to
Mare Island, and walked up to the commandant's house, where we
found Commodore Farragut and his family. We stated our business
fairly, but the commodore answered very frankly that he had no
authority, without orders from his department, to take any part in
civil broils; he doubted the wisdom of the attempt; said he had no
ship available except the John Adams, Captain Boutwell, and that
she needed repairs. But he assented at last, to the propos