These officers, after a most careful study of the whole subject, selected Mare Island for the navy-yard, and "Benicia" for the storehouses and arsenals of the army.

The Pacific Mail Steamship Company also selected Benicia as their depot.

Thus was again revived the old struggle for supremacy of these two points as the site of the future city of the Pacific.

Meantime, however, San Francisco had secured the name.

About six hundred ships were anchored there without crews, and could not get away; and there the city was, and had to be.
Nevertheless, General Smith, being disinterested and unprejudiced, decided on Benicia as the point where the city ought to be, and where the army headquarters should be.