"The most faithful and reliable guard that I have ever had over the prisoners is himself a prisoner. He had been a lieutenant in the Mexican army, and was sentenced, for a flagrant breach of the peace, to the public works for one year. I determined to make an experiment with this lieutenant; had him brought before me; ordered the ball and chain to be taken from his leg, and placed a double-barrelled gun, loaded and primed, in his hands. "'Take that musket and proceed with the prisoners to the stone quarry; return them to their cells before sunset, and report to me.' "'Your order, Señor Alcalde, shall be faithfully obeyed.' "A constable reconnoitered and found all well. At sunset the lieutenant entered the office, and reported the prisoners in their cells, and all safe. "'Very well, José, now make yourself safe, and that will do.' He accordingly returned to his prison, and from that day to this has been my most faithful and reliable guard." "If there is anything on earth besides religion for which I would die," Colton declares, "it is the right of trial by jury." And he impanelled the first jury ever summoned in California. One-third were Mexicans, one-third Californians, and the other third Americans. The plaintiff spoke in English, the defendant in French, the jury, save the Americans, Spanish--"and the witnesses all the languages known to California." "The inhabitants said it was what they liked--that there could be no bribery in it--that the opinion of twelve honest men should set the case forever at rest. And so it did, though neither party completely triumphed." He gives the credit for the satisfactory termination of this polyglot case to "the tact of Mr. Hartnell, the interpreter, and the absence of young lawyers." When Colton Hall, the first state capitol and the pride to this hour of Old Monterey, was completed, Colton writes: