same hotel with Freemont.

See illustration for bill which I received while at the hotel with
Colonel Freemont:

[Illustration: HOTEL BILL.]

The colonel asked me one day to speak to Freemont at dinner, and
request him, if convenient, to stop in his office as he came from
dinner, which I did. Stevenson's office was on the plaza, but Freemont
never called.

There was great difficulty about the title to lots at that time. There
were contentions set up, and claims of property from different Mexican
grants, as it became valuable. It was guaranteed by the United States,
at the treaty of Hidalgo, when California was ceded to us, that all
titles that were good under the Mexican government should be recognized
by us. L., the chaplain of Stevenson's regiment, seems to have been the
butt of the boys before the gold was discovered.

They, as a farce, elected him alcalde of San Francisco, which position
is a combination of mayor and judge, as we would understand it, and his
election was declared illegal. Then they elected him for spite. He
served one year. There was a Mexican law that in any village in that
country a person had a right to settle on one hundred veras of land so
many feet, about three hundred, and if he put up any kind of a building
on it, and held undisputed possession for one year, he could go to the
alcalde, and by paying $16, get a good and valid title. When the lots
became so valuable in San Francisco, after the gold was discovered, many
lots based on those kinds of grants became very valuable two or three