"Some years ago when I was in Monterey, my friend, David Spence, showed me a book entitled “History of California,” written by an author of recognized merit by the name of Franklin Tuthill, and called my attention to that part of the gentlemans narrative where he expresses the assurance that the guerrilla men whom Captain Fremont sent in pursuit of the Californian, Joaquin de la Torre, took nine field pieces from the latter. I could not help but be surprised when I read such a story, for I know for a fact that Captain de la Torre had only thirty cavalrymen under his command who as their only weapons carried a lance, carbine, saber and pistol. I think that Mr. Tuthill would have done better if, instead of inventing the capture of nine cannon, he had devoted a few lines to describing the vandal-like manner in which the “Bear” soldiers sacked the Olompalí Rancho and maltreated the eighty year old Damaso Rodriguez... whom they beat so badly as to cause his death in the presence of his daughters and granddaughters. Filled with dismay, they gathered into their arms the body of the venerable old man who had fallen as a victim of the thirst for blood that was the prime mover of the guerrilla men headed by Mr. Ford."
More by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
See allResonant Thoughts
"When we read in Bharata's classical book of the twenty-two microtones in ancient Indian octaves, of innumerable scales and modes, and of seventeen melodic patterns and their pentatonic and hexatonic a…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"I don’t believe in identity politics in literature—or in life much, either. Indeed the current scholarly en…"
— Maureen Corrigan"An Interview with Caitlin R. Kiernan by Geoffrey H. Goodwin at Bookslut"
— Caitlín R. Kiernan"A writer is in the end not his books, but his myth. And that myth is in the keeping of others."
— V. S. Naipaul"Many things I am experiencing I already remember."
— Karl Kraus"They can't ban or burn Larkin's books. What they can embark on is the more genteel process of literary demo…"
— Martin Amis"After reading and considering the works of Babhravya and other ancient authors, and thinking over the meani…"
— Vātsyāyana
