Intelligence of the insurrection having reached Commodore Stockton at San Francisco and Lieutenant-Colonel Frémont at Sacramento, both took immediate steps to check its progress and to punish the offenders. In conformity with the Commodore's orders Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont hastened to San Francisco, whence he embarked, with one hundred sixty men, on the ship Sterling, for Santa Barbara, to which port the frigate Savannah (Captain Mervine) had previously been ordered; while, on the same day, the Commodore in person sailed for the same port in the Congress. The latter vessel reached San Pedro on October 6th, and at sunrise on the 7th Captain Mervine landed with his seamen and marines; and after being joined by Captain Gillespie and his brave-hearted little party, he found himself at the head of three hundred ten men, "as brave and as valiant as ever were led to battle upon any field." At eight o'clock the party commenced its march toward Los Angeles, Captain Gillespie being in advance, and when the column reached the hills of Palo Verde the insurgents showed themselves and opened a fire with their _escopetas_. The march was rapid; and the jolly tars, unused to such extended journeys, appear to have suffered from its effects; in consequence of which, although the enemy gradually fell back before the advancing column, between one and two o'clock, when near the Rancho de los Domingos, fourteen miles from San Pedro, it became necessary to halt and encamp for the night. As may have been expected, the sailors and marines were ashore, and the strict discipline which "the deck" had inculcated appears to have been left on board the frigate. As a necessary consequence the camp displayed but little of the order which such a locality should have insured; and many and marvellous were the adventures of that night; while, on the other hand, the enemy profited by the delay, by the moral effect of the disorder with which the march had been conducted, and by the entire absence of any artillery.