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Our Catholic H critage in T c:ras
it was detained for lack of an escort, the captain of that presidio having refused to furnish the necessary soldiers. Franquis, who could be fair at times, and who appears to have been much more friendly to the Zacatecan than the Queretaran missionaries for some unexplainable reason, immediately wrote a peremptory order to Captain Eca y i\'ft'1squiz at San Juan Bautista to expedite the early departure of the supply train, reminding him that the royal orders required that provisions and supplies for the missions should suffer no delay. He closed his order with a characteristic threat, that if an escort was not furnished as ordered, regardless of circumstances, he would take measures to have his instruc- tions obeyed. 25 In 1740, Fray Benito Fernandez de Santa Ana, president of the Queretaran missions in San Antonio, presented a formal complaint to Captain Joseph de Urrutia against the captain of La Bahia. He complained that the guards sent for the missions were practically useless. Such inefficient persons were a handicap to the work of conversion and the propagation of the faith, for they could neither defend the missions nor accompany the missionaries when they had to go in search of runaways, nor could they help instruct the nati\·es in their tasks. At this time four soldiers from La Bahia were in San Antonio. He requested that from these. two be detailed to Mission Concepcion to replace Juan Muro, who had been sick for the last six months and was practically an invalid, and Santiago Moya, who had no horses nor arms and was useless. He explained that he had repeatedly complained in vain to Captain Costales and that if something was not done, he would take the matter up with the viceroy. 26 Complaint against poor guards from La BaMa. Urrutia lost no time in acceding to this just demand. He immediately ordered Lieutenant Diego Ramon, now in San Antonio, to pick out the two best men from the four he had brought and assign them to Mission Concepcion. He further instructed him to see that the men left were fully armed and equipped. Ramon remonstrated that he had no authority to assign men to the missions, that this was the prerogative of his captain, that Urrutia could, if he wanted, detail the men on his own authority. Urrutia then assumed the responsibility and ordered 2scovernor Franquls to Captain Eca y Musquiz; July 1 S, 17 37. Franquis to Fray Andres Aragon, July 16, 1737. A. G. M., Historia, vol. 524, pt. 3, pp. 7 48-7 49, 734-735. 26Father Benito Fernandez de Santa Ana to Captain Joseph Urrutia, May 31, 1740. Arclzivo del Colegio de la Santa Cruz, 1716-1749. (Dunn Transcripts.)
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