The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 17, July 1913 - April, 1914 Page: 346
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The Southwestern Historical Quarterly
conduct of it before the viceroy to Father Ortiz, who, through his
representative, Francisco Xavier Marqu6s, presented the two let-
ters of Fray Mariano, and besought the viceroy's patronage for the
enterprise. This was on or before January 18, and on that day
the matter was referred, in the regular routine of such affairs, to
the royal fiscal, Don Pedro Vedoya.3 Just a month later this
official advised the viceroy to secure, before deciding so, important
a matter, from the governor of Texas, the officials of San Antonio,
and the commissary general of missions, who was then at the Col-
lege at San Fernando, "detailed information regarding the advan-
tages and the need of increasing missions and missionaries in those
places, the nations named in the two letters, the distances
from the presidios of San Antonio de Valero and los Adaes,
and the direction to each." On the same day the viceroy ordered
that Vedoya's advice should be acted upon.4
Before these orders could be complied with, the College pre-
sented a new memorial based on later news from Texas and urg-
ing haste. It told of the additional tribes that had offered to
enter the missions, reported that the site selected was satisfactory,
and asked for the establishment, in addition to missions, of a
presidio of at least fifty soldiers to withstand the warlike Apaches
and to cut off their trade with the French.5
The matter was again sent to, the fiscal, and on March 28 he,
satisfied with the evidence produced and the importance of haste
while the Indians were in the right frame of mind, gave his ap-
proval to the project. He proposed that for the present, until a
larger number of Indians should congregate, two or three mis-
sions should be established and supplied; and that, in order to
avoid additional expense for their maintenance, the garrison of
Boca de Leones and the presidio of Cerralvo, in Nuevo, Le6n,
should be extinguished. To provide defence for the missions and
for the settlement of Spaniards who it was hoped might locate
8Viceroy's decree of this date, endorsed on the memorial of Marquez.
4Dictamen fiscal, Feb. 18, 1746, and viceroy's decree of the same date.
These decrees, the letters of Fray Mariano, and the memorial of Marquez,
constitute "Copia de autos seguidos en el superior govierno."
"The memorial was evidently based on the new autos drawn at San
Antonio after the second visit of the petitioning tribes and drawn with
a knowledge of the decree of February 18, therefore after that date. My
knowledge of the memorial comes from the summary in Erecion de la
Mision de Sn. Xavier.346
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 17, July 1913 - April, 1914, periodical, 1914; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101061/m1/352/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.