ng and a drum beating, and
travelled eight or ten miles, when we camped in a low valley or hollow.
There they caught with the lasso three or four head of cattle belonging
to the nearest rancho, and breakfasted. The whole day their outriders
rode in every direction, on the look-out, to see if the American
company left the mission of San Juan, or Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont
left Monterey; they also rode to all the neighbouring ranches, and
forced the rancheros to join them. At one o'clock, they began their
march with one hundred and thirty men (and two or three hundred extra
horses); they marched in four single files, occupying four positions,
myself under charge of an officer and five or six men in the centre.
Their plan of operation for the night was, to rush into San Juan ten or
fifteen men, who were to retreat, under the expectation that the
Americans would follow them, in which case the whole party outside was
to cut them off. I was to be retained in the centre of the party. Ten
miles south of the mission, they encountered eight or ten Americans, a
part of whom retreated into a low ground covered with oaks, the others
returned to the house of Senor Gomez, to alarm their companions. For
over one hour the hundred and thirty Californians surrounded the six or
eight Americans, occasionally giving and receiving shots. During this
period, I was several times requested, then commanded, to go among the
oaks and bring out my countrymen, and offer them their lives on giving
up their rifles and persons. I at last offered to go and call them out,
on condition that they should return to San Juan or go to Monterey,
with their arms; this being refused, I told the commandante to go in
and bring them out himself. While they were consulting how this could
be done, fifty Americans came down on them, which caused an action of
about twenty or thirty minutes. Thirty or forty of the natives leaving
the field at the first fire, they remained drawn off by fives and tens
until the Americans had the field to themselves. Both parties remained
within a mile of each other until dark. Our countrymen lost Captain
Burroughs of St. Louis, Missouri, Captain Foster, and two others, with
two or three wounded. The Californians lost two of their countrymen,
and Jose Garcia, of Val., Chili, with seven wounded."

The following additional particulars I extract from the "Californian"
newspaper of November 21, 1846, published at Monterey: "Burroughs and
Foster