stern corner of the Gulf of California,
with his few companions, he captured a number of hamlets and then
grandiloquently proclaimed Lower California an independent state and
himself its president. His next proclamation "annexed" to his territory
the large Mexican state of Sonora, on the mainland opposite the California
Gulf, and for a brief period he posed among the sparse inhabitants as a
ruler. Some reinforcements reached him by water, but another party that
started overland was dispersed by starvation, their food giving out.

Walker now set out with his buccaneering band on a long march of six
hundred miles through a barren and unpeopled country towards his
"possessions" in the interior. The Mexicans did not need any forces to
defeat him. Fatigue and famine did the work for them, desertion decimated
the band of invaders, and the hopeless march up the peninsula ended at San
Diego, where he and his men surrendered to the United States authorities.
Walker was tried at San Francisco in 1854 for violation of the neutrality
laws, but was acquitted.

This pioneer attempt at invasion only whetted Walker's filibustering
appetite. Looking about for "new worlds to conquer," he saw a promising
field in Nicaragua, then torn by internal dissensions. Invited by certain
American speculators or adventurers to lend his aid to the democratic
party of insurrectionists, he did not hesitate, but at once collected a
band of men of his own type and set sail for this new field of labor and
ambition. On the 11th of June, 1855, he landed with his small force of
sixty-two men at Realijo, on the Nicaraguan coast, and was joined there by
about a hundred of the native rebels.

Making his way inland, his first encounter with the government forces took
place at Rivas, where he met a force of four hundred and eighty men. His
native allies fled at the first shots, but the Americans fought with such
valor and energy that the enemy were defeated with a loss of one-third
their number, his loss being only ten. In a second conflict at Virgin Bay
he was equally successful, and on the 15th of October he captured the
important city of Granada.

These few successes gave him such prestige and brought such aid from the
revolutionists that the opposite party was quite ready for peace, and on
the 25th he made a treaty with General Corral, its leader, which made him
fairly master of the country. He declined the office of president, which
was offered him, but ac