DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL gave Spanish Naval Captain Don Pedro Angulo + his officers ‘mucho vino y licores’ to drink to find true object of their visit during his wedding

+++  Resplendent strangers in uniform appeared at the patio entrance, asking for ‘el commandante.’  They were Captain Don Pedro Angulo and several of his officers from a Spanish man-o-war, the ‘Aquiles,’ now in need of naval stores and provisions.  They sought official permission from Don Jose, and this the old Spaniard did not hesitate to give.  His daughter Angustias, ten years old at the time, has given us a description of the incident.  ++  In 1878, to Mr. Thomas Savage, Dona Angustias dictated in Spanish a lively account of happenings in her life, from early childhood through two distinguished marriages – first to Don Manuel Jimeno, and then to the American Dr. Ord.  The manuscript, called “Occurencias,” is kept in the Bancroft Library.  ”After speaking privately with my father they were invited to dine, and accepted the invitation.”  The bridegroom, knowing that a squadron from Cadiz had long been expected to aid in the reconquest of Peru, suspected some similar plan for California, now that Spanish authority had been so decisively flouted in South America.  In an attempt to find the true object of this visit, Hartnell and others gave the naval officers ‘much vino y licores’ to drink.  ++  A wedding guest, Don Antonio Osio, declared in his manuscript reminiscences preserved in the Bancroft Library that the captain was a royalist from “Chile’s lower class” who felt shame at speaking colonial Spanish before an obviously distinguished company.  So Angulo launched into execrable French, pretending to be a Frenchman who knew no Spanish, not expecting to  be challenged anywhere so far from Europe, so completely out of the world.  However, the bridegroom, who, according to Senor Osio, “spoke five languages idiomatically and in an educated manner, among them French,” quickly disconcerted the impostor but found out nothing of his true purpose.  Presently too much liquor, added to initial humiliation, made the fellow quarrelsome.  ++  After the first day’s festivities – a large dinner followed by a siesta, then dancing which commenced at sunset and lasted until dawn, with time out occasionally for refreshments – the Spanish captain retired with his officers offshore to the ‘Aquiles.’  The next several days they spent in taking on supplies, for which they never paid the Santa Barbara merchants.  After stowing everything away, Captain Angulo gave orders to set sail. … +++