Pio Pico states that he had the contract at San Gabriel, employing ten vaqueros and thirty Indians, and that he thus killed over five thousand head.

Robinson says that the rascally contractors secretly appropriated two hides for every one they turned over to the Mission.
In 1843, March 29, Micheltorena's order, restoring San Gabriel to the padres, was carried out, and in 1844 the official church report states that nothing is left but its vineyards in a sad condition, and three hundred neophytes.

The final inventory made by the comisionados under Pio Pico is missing, so that we do not know at what the Mission was valued; but June 8, 1846, he sold the whole property to Reid and Workman in payment for past services to the government.

When attacked for his participation in what evidently seemed the fraudulent transfer of the Mission, Pico replies that the sale "did not go through." The United States officers, in August of the same year, dispossessed the "purchasers," and the courts finally decreed the sale invalid.
There are a few portions of the old cactus hedge still remaining, planted by Padre Zalvidea.

Several hundreds of acres of vineyard and garden were thus enclosed for purposes of protection from Indians and roaming bands of horses and cattle.