The reconquest of Los Angeles took place on January 18th. General Kearny, with Kit Carson as guide, had succeeded in joining Stockton at San Diego, and the united forces, after a two-hours' engagement at San Gabriel and another brief skirmish without the city, entered Los Angeles, while the leaders of the revolt fled to Cahuenga, and surrendered to Frémont, who made generous terms of capitulation with Andres Pico, Flores, and Manuel. This clemency endeared him to the Californians. It became his boast that he could ride unharmed alone from one end of the conquered country to the other. Stockton made him Governor of Los Angeles while the controversy between Kearny and Stockton, as to which was the chief authority in the conduct of affairs in the new country, was in progress. Frémont chose to obey Stockton, with whom he had worked in unison during the Northern conquests and before the arrival of Kearny. Kearny was technically in the right in demanding the submission of Frémont, as the court-martial of the latter (in Washington, at a later day) made evident; but under the circumstances of the quarrel of the two leaders at Los Angeles, Fremont's allegiance to Stockton seems to have been his only manly course. This was an era in which Los Angeles grew from an easy-going Spanish pueblo into a progressive American city. Nowhere have Americans stood more completely in the position of conquerors in a new land. Called upon to improvise hastily a government for a large body of strangers, these citizens showed, together with carelessness and over-hastiness--and an indifference to the rights of strangers, both Indians and Spaniards, of which we cannot be proud--some of our best national traits. From the first, the pioneers were courageous and teachable, and succeeded, after many mistakes, in building up a permanent, well-organized, and progressive municipality. General Frémont was undoubtedly most popular among the Spanish people. His youth enabled him to enter in a large degree into their sports; his clemency in pardoning Flores and the other generals of the rebellion won their applause.