It was the San Antonio, just in time to
prevent the abandonment of San Diego. She brought abundant supplies, and
Portola prepared for a second expedition in search of the Port of
Monterey. Captain Vila of the San Carlos declared, when the details of
the search were related to him, that the place where they erected the
second cross was the long-lost Port of Monterey.
On April 16th the San Antonio sailed for Monterey, carrying Junipero,
Costanso, Prat, and a cargo of stores for the new mission. On the 17th,
Portola set out by land with Fages, twelve Catalan volunteers, seven
soldados de cuera, Crespi, two muleteers, and five natives. At San Diego
was left Vila with his mate and five sailors on the San Carlos, Fathers
Parron and Gomez, with Sergeant Ortega and eight soldados de cuera as
guard, and Rivera arrived in July with over eighty mules laden with
supplies, and one hundred and sixty head of cattle.
Portola followed the same route that he took on the retreat from
Monterey, and on May 24th arrived at the Ensenada Grande under Punta de
Pinos, near the cross they had erected, December 10th. Selecting a place
for the camp, Portola took Fages, Crespi, and a soldier for guard, and
went to the cross to see if any vessel had visited the spot. They found
around the cross a ring of arrows stuck in the ground, some of which
were decked with feathers; others had fish and meat attached to them,
while at the foot of the cross was a small pile of shell-fish. As
Portola, Fages, and Crespi walked along the beach and looked out over
the bay and noted its calm and placid waters, with its swimming seals
and spouting whales, they broke forth with one voice, "This is the Port
of Monterey which we have sought. It is exactly as reported by Sebastian
Vizcaino and Cabrera Bueno."[39]
Remembering the good water at the camp on the Rio del Carmelo, Portola
ordered the expedition to Carmelo Bay by direct line, while he, with
Fages and Crespi, proceeded around the Point of Pines. They found it
well covered with pine trees, many of them large enough for masts of a
ship. They also came upon a grove of cypress at a point beyond (Cypress
Point), and arrived at camp after a walk of four good leagues. Here they
awaited the arrival of the San Antonio.
On May 31st the paquebot was sighted near Point Pinos. The soldiers made
signals, to which the ship replied with her guns, and before night had
dropped her anchor in Monterey Bay, which was pronounced by the sailors
to be a most famous port.
On the 3d of June, 1770, under a shelter of branches near the oak where,
in 1602, Vizcaino's Carmelite friars had celebrated mass, Don Gaspar de
Portola, with his officers, soldiers, and people of the land expedition,
Fray Junipero Serra and Fray Juan Crespi, Don Juan Perez, captain of the
San Antonio, Don Miguel del Pino, his second in command, together with
the crew, assembled to establish a presidio and mission. The father
president chanted the mass and preached from the Gospel, while the
musical deficiency was made good by repeated discharges from the guns of
the San Antonio and volleys from the muskets of the soldiers. At the
conclusion of the religious ceremonies, Don Gaspar de Portola, governor
of the Californias, took possession of the country in the name of his
majesty Don Carlos III, King of Spain, and the presidio and mission of
San Carlos de Borromeo de Monterey were founded and established, the
first presidio and second mission in California.
In accord with the orders of the visitador-general, Portola now
delivered to Lieutenant Fages, as comandante of California, the command
of the new establishments, sailed on the San Antonio, July 9th, for San
Blas, and California knew him no more.
[1] Sierra de Santa Lucia.
[2] Audiencia, the highest judicial body.
[3] The system of encomienda conferred feudal rights upon the
discoverers. The Indians became vassals of Spanish lords.
[4] Vizcaino says he set out on the discovery of the coast of the South
Sea with two ships, a lancha, and a barcoluengo. A lancha was a small
vessel having no deck and but one mast, and propelled by sweeps. Vanegas
calls the vessel a fragata. A barcoluengo, or barcolongo, was a long
open boat.
[5] The second voyage of Vizcaino is of particular interest to
Californians for the reason that the names given by him to the various
geographical features of the coast still remain. The particulars of the
first voyage are taken largely from the publications of the Southern
California Historical Society of documents in the Sutro collection.
[6] Sutro Col. Pub. Southern California Hist. Socy.
[7] Prof. George Davidson identifies the Rio de los Reyes as Rogue River
in 42deg. 25'.
[8] About Cape San Quintin, the latitude of their northernmost mission.
[9] Instruccion qua ha de observer el Teniente de Infanteria. Dn Pedro
Pages, 5 enero de 1769. Provincial State Papers; i, 38.9, Ms. Spanish
Archives of California.
[10] So-called from the cuera, a leathern jacket worn by them as a
defensive armor.
[11] Out West. March-July, 1902.
[12] Pancakes.
[13] Dead Men's Point. The name has disappeared from the modern maps,
but is found on all of the old ones. It is the foot of H street where
the cars for the Coronado ferry turn on to the wharf.
[14] I am well aware that this claim will be disputed by one whose study
of original documents and power of analysis make him perhaps the
greatest authority on early California History; but I am nevertheless
prepared to maintain my position.
