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live peaceably together. Manuel Cota the chief of the San Louis Rey Indians, sent in his resignation to me, he had tried 3 Indians agreeable to his laws for poisoning and killing two of his Captains. I heard the evidence and considered it a clear case of murder, and told him I should not interfere with him in the execution of his laws. The day that they were to be hanged the sheriff of Diego County came and took them from him and turned them loose. Some two years ago there was one of his men took a club and beat his wife's brain out, he had been tried and condemned, and the officer took him and let him go also. Manuel say he cannot understand it or see why it is that the Indians are let go unpunished, he says that he can not see the use of having officers amonng [among] them, it they are not allowed to carry out their own laws. He has never been interfered with untill the last two years, but has always been encouraged to carry out their own laws. Since I have had charge of this in every talk I have had with them, I have told them that it was my duty to protect them in their rights. So that they are not interfered with and assist them in carrying out their own laws, and that so long as they were allowed that priviledge they must support themselves and not expect the Government to do any thing for them.