nd
was overrun with gold-seekers, who cared nothing for his rights, and
when he attempted to defend his titles in the courts, they were declared
invalid, and his land was taken from him. To crown his disasters, his
homestead was destroyed by fire; finding himself ruined, without land
and without money, he gave up the struggle in despair and returned east,
passing his last years in poverty in a little town in Pennsylvania.

Fremont, meantime, had done a great work for California. The son of a
Frenchman, showing an early aptitude for mathematics, he had secured an
appointment to the United States engineering corps, and, after various
minor expeditions in which he had acquitted himself well, was put in
charge of an expedition for the exploration of the Rocky Mountains. He
was fortunate at the start in securing the services as guide and
interpreter of that famous hunter and plainsman, Kit Carson, whose life
had been passed on the prairies, who knew more Indians and Indian
dialects than any other white man, and who was, to his generation, what
Davy Crockett was to an earlier one. To Carson a great share of the
expedition's success was no doubt due, and it was so successful that in
the following year, Fremont was leading another over the country between
the Rockies and the Pacific. This one was almost lost in the mountains,
and came near perishing of cold and hunger, but, finally, in March,
1844, managed to struggle through to Sutter's Fort.

Fremont found California in a state of unrest amounting almost to
insurrection against Mexican rule, and as the number of white settlers
increased, this feeling grew, until Mexico, becoming alarmed, sent an
armed force to occupy the country. The show of force was the one thing
needed to fire the magazine; the settlers sprang to arms as one man,
and, under Fremont's leadership, defeated the Mexicans and drove them
southward across the border. Soon afterwards, General Kearny marched in
from the east, from his remarkable and bloodless conquest of New Mexico,
with a force sufficient to render it certain that California would
never again be taken by the Mexicans.

On the fourth of July, 1849, Fremont was chosen governor of the new
territory, and in the following year, arranged the treaty by which
California passed permanently to the United States. The new state was
quick to reward him and sent him to the Senate, where he gained
sufficient prominence to receive the nomination of the anti-sla