good citizens could be induced to aid the officers of the law, for they had resolved on a summary infliction of the penalties which justice demanded, but which, as they well knew, were not to be expected from the ordinary course of law in California, where there was no tribunal authorized to inflict the death penalty on a civilian. At dawn on April 7th about fifty of the most prominent citizens met at the house of John Temple and organized a 'junta defensora de la seguridad pública,' of which Victor Prudon was chosen president, making an eloquent address, the original draft of which is in my possession. Manuel Arzaga was made secretary, and Francisco Araujo was put in command of the armed force. During the forenoon, while the organization was being perfected, two messengers were sent in succession to Padre Cabot at San Fernando, whose presence was required on the pretext that a dying Indian needed his spiritual care; but the weather was bad and the padre refused to come.
About two o'clock P. M. a copy of the popular acta, with a demand for the prisoners to be delivered up for execution within an hour, was sent to the alcalde, Manuel Requena.[1] Half an hour later the junta
- ↑ This document is preserved in Los Angeles, Arch., MS., i. 81-91, with other records bearing on the same affair. I quote as follows: 'Salus populi suprema lex est. The subscribing citizens, at the invitation of the rest, justly indignant at the horrible crime committed against Domingo Félix, bearing in mind the frequency of similar crimes in this city, and deeming the principal cause thereof to be the delay in criminal cases through having to await the confirmation of sentences from Mexico, fearing for this unhappy country a state of anarchy where the right of the strongest shall be the only law, and finally believing that immorality has reached such an extreme that public security is menaced and will be lost if the dike of a solemn example is not opposed to the torrent of atrocious perfidy — demand the execution or the delivery to us for immediate execution of the assassin Gervasio Alipas and the faithless María del R. Villa, that abominable monster who cruelly immolated her importunate husband in order to give herself up without fear to her frantic passions, and to pluck by homicide from the slime of turpitude the filthy laurel of her execrable treason (!) ... Let the infernal couple perish. Such is the vow of the people, and we protest in the face of heaven that we will not lay down the arms with which we support the justice of our demand until the assassins have expiated their foul crimes ...Public vengeance demands a prompt example, and it must be given. Still reeks the blood of the
ent and take part in the deliberations, and did so, but he says nothing of the affair in his Hist. Cal. See Popular Tribunals, this series.
