choose to come for it. How he carried out his ideas in this direction will be apparent from a few causas célebres of the year.
The case of Atanasio was pending when Victoria came. Atanasio was an Indian boy less than eighteen years of age, a servant in sub-comisario Jimeno's office, who had in 1830 stolen from the warehouse property to the extent of something over $200. The prosecution was conducted by Fernandez del Campo, Padrés, and Ibarra as fiscales; and the last-named demanded, in consideration of the youth and ignorance of the culprit, as well as on account of the carelessness with which the goods had been exposed, a sentence of only two years in the public works. The asesor, Rafael Gomez, after having sent the case back to the fiscal for the correction of certain irregularities, rendered an opinion April 18th, in favor of the death penalty; and by order of the comandante general Atanasio was shot at 11 A. M. on the 26th.[1] Gomez was an able lawyer, and I suppose was technically correct in his advice, though the penalty seems a severe one. Naturally the Californians were shocked; and though an example of severity was doubtless needed, Victoria was not fortunate in his selection. The circumstance that led to the culprit's detection seems to have been his using some military buttons for gambling with his comrades; and the popular version of the whole affair has been that an Indian boy was shot by Victoria for stealing a few buttons.[2]
In May 1831 the warehouse at San Cárlos was robbed on three different occasions, perhaps entered three times the same night, by Simon Aguilar, a Mex-
- ↑ Atanasio, Causa Criminal contra el Indio Atanasio y ejecucion del reo, 1831, MS.
- ↑ Estévan de la Torre, José M. Amador, Jesus Pico, Inocencia Pico de Ávila, José J. Vallejo, Juan B. Alvarado, and others give substantially this version. I have no space for minor variations, most of which are absurdly inaccurate. Osio, Hist. Cal., MS., 165-6, says that Gomez sent a despatch to stay the execution an hour after the boy had been shot; and Vallejo, Hist. Cal., MS., ii. 143, that Atanasio was a servant of Pliego, caused to be condemned by his master without the proper legal forms, and without any specification of the crime.
