A portion of the Indians of the eastern part of California have always manifested their hostility to the whites, and have taken numerous occasions to wreak their vengeance upon those whom they consider the invaders of their country. But the pursuit of such a course will only hasten their own destruction. They are in no condition to contend with the whites, and their proper course would be to conciliate those whom they cannot resist. The following account of an exterminating expedition against the Indians is from the Alta Californian of the first of June. To our thinking, the punishment far exceeded the offence, and the officer who gave the order for extermination, is culpable in a high degree. "We have received particulars of the recent slaughter of a large body of Clear Lake Indians by an expedition sent out against them from the United States garrisons at Sonoma and Benecia. The tribe that incurred this terrible punishment, comprises the natives of Sonoma and Napa valleys, and has maintained, in general undisturbed peaceful relations with the white settlers of that section of California. Last summer, however, a stubborn family Indian offered an indignity to the wife of one Kelsey, who had resided in the country some nine years, for which he was taken before a magistrate and sentenced to receive one hundred lashes. After this punishment, on the same day, we are informed Kelsey, sought the wretched offender, and laid him dead at his feet, shooting him in the presence of several gentlemen, who remonstrated with him on the barbarity of the deed. This man Kelsey was afterwards murdered, as was also a brother-in-law, by the Indians of the neighborhood. Since then repeated acts of violence have been visited upon the natives, and our readers will remember the accounts which we published a few months since, of outrages committed in Sonoma and Napa, by a party of desperate white men. The Indians were driven to the mountains, and subsequently made depredatory incursions upon their old masters, driving away cattle, and indulging their natural propensity to steal. Complaints were made,--doubtless the accounts of their conduct highly colored,--to the garrisons of Benecia and Sonoma, and on the 1st of the month an expedition was fitted out against them, composed of a detachment of infantry, and a company of dragoons, under command of Lieutenant Davidson, (seventy-five in all,) with orders to proceed against the Clear Lake Indians, and _exterminate_, if possible, the tribe.