In These Few Ships Consisted
All The Maritime Forces Which Could Have Been Opposed To Foreign
Invasion.
All this Galvez laid before the Junta, there being present the
commandant of the department and the army officers and pilots who
chanced to be there.
It was resolved to send an expedition by sea in the
San Carlos and San Antonio, and orders were made to prepare the ships,
while Galvez proceeded to the peninsula to attend to the gathering of
supplies and provisions. All the missions of Lower California were laid
under contribution of vestments and sacred vessels for the new missions
to be established, also dried fruits, wine, oil, riding horses and mule
herd; for Galvez had decided to supplement the maritime expedition by
one by land, lest the infinite risks and dangers attending a long
sea-voyage should render the attempt abortive. The governor, Don Gaspar
de Portola, volunteered to lead the expedition, and he was named
commander-in-chief. Don Fernando de Rivera y Moncado, captain of the
presidio of Loreto, was appointed second in command. The troops were
composed of forty cavalrymen from the presidio of Loreto in Lower
California, under Rivera, and twenty-five infantrymen of the compania
franca of Catalonia, under Lieutenant Don Pedro Fages. To the presidial
troops were joined thirty Christian Indians from the missions, armed
with bows and arrows. These were intended for the land expedition. The
mission of Santa Maria, the northernmost mission on the peninsula, was
the rendezvous of the land forces, and from Loreto four lighters loaded
with provisions for the land expedition were sent up the gulf to the bay
of San Luis Gonzaga, the nearest point to the mission of Santa Maria,
whither also went by land the troops, muleteers, and vaqueros, with the
herd of every sort. Finding insufficient pasturage for the cattle at
Santa Maria, they advanced to Velicata, some thirty miles distant, and
here was assembled the land expedition. In addition to the officers
named, Don Miguel Costanso, ensign of royal engineers, was ordered to
join the expedition as cosmographer and diarist, and Don Pedro Prat was
appointed physician. To minister to the soldiers and take charge of the
missions to be established in the new land, the following missionary
priests, all of the college of San Fernando in Mexico, were named to
accompany the expedition. Fray Junipero Serra, appointed president of
the missions of Alta California, Fray Juan Crespi, Fray Fernando Parron,
Fray Juan Vizcaino, and Fray Francisco Gomez.
On the 6th of January, 1769, at the port of La Paz, the San Carlos was
loaded and ready for sea. The venerable Father Junipero Serra sang mass
aboard her, and with other devotional exercises blessed the ship and the
standards. The visitador named the Senor San Jose patron of the
expedition, and in a fervent exhortation, kindled the spirits of those
about to sail. These were Don Pedro Fages, with his twenty-five Catalans
of the 1st batallion 2d regiment, Voluntarios de Cataluna, Alferez
Miguel Costanso, Surgeon Don Pedro Prat, and Padre Fernando Parron.
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