raised on a Sunday, on the occasion of the arrival of the schooner Washington, Captain Thompson, of the Sandwich Islands, but sailing under the American flag.' So writes honest Captain Arthur. He further states that the same flag was afterwards frequently raised at Santa Bárbara, whenever in fact there was a vessel coming into port. These men raised our national ensign, not in bravado, nor for war and conquest, but as honest men, to show that they were American citizens and wanted company. And while the act cannot be regarded as in the light of a claim to sovereignty, it is still interesting as a fact, and as an unconscious indication of manifest destiny."[1]
Charles Lang, an American, with two sailors and two kanakas, was found in a boat near Todos Santos and arrested. He said he had come from the Sandwich Islands in the Alabama, with the intention of settling somewhere in California. The captives were brought to San Diego; and as Lang's effects, including a barrel-organ and two trunks of dry goods, seemed better adapted to smuggling than to colonization, they were confiscated,[2] and sold in June. The case went to Mexico, and afterward to the district judge at Guaymas, with results that are not apparent.
Among the vessels named as making up the fleet of 1829, there was one built at Santa Bárbara, and named the Santa Bárbara. This was a schooner of
- ↑ Boston Advertiser. It is well enough to regard this as the first raising of the stars and stripes, in the absence of definite evidence to the contrary; though such an event is by no means unlikely to have occurred before.
- ↑ Feb. 1829, investigation by Lieut. Ibarra at Echeandía's order. Dept. St. Pap., Ben. Mil., MS., lxix. 10-13, 25; liii. 99. The min. of war sent the case back on June 13th to be referred to the Guaymas judge. June 1st, Bandini ordered to sell the goods. Gov. says: 'After deducting the duties and 10% due me as judge, you will allow me one half as descubridor and promovedor, and one half of the rest as aprehensor; the remainder you will take for having assisted at the taking'! Dept. Rec., MS., vii. 169. Lang seems to have gone to Mazatlan on the Washington. Vallejo, Doc., MS., xxix. 332. Lang was at S. Diego secretly on Dec. 24, 1828, where he met Pattie the trapper, and told him of his smuggling and otter-hunting purposes. He said he had a boat down the coast, and his brig had gone to the Galipagos for tortoise-shell. Pattie concluded to join Lang, but on going down to Todos Santos a few days later, found that he had been arrested. Pattie's Narr., 208-10.
