Explorations llnd Settlements A long tl1e Rio Grande
209
In Ii60, Fray Francisco de San Buenaventura, Bishop of Durango, visited the presidio while engaged in the inspection of his diocese. He declared that it was thirty-eight leagues from MoncloYa and that it was located on a very fertile and well watered valley. The only thing it Jacked was a sufficient number of settlers, as there were only some fifty or sixty families living there at that time. In the vicinity a number of ranches had been established. II the settlers living on these places were included, the Presidio del Sacramento could be said to have one thousand and eight persons. The houses were miserable and wretched, mostly jacales, built of straw and mud and thatched with palms, and the fort proper was a flimsy affair which offered little or no protection.u ·when in I i67 the Marquis of Rubi made his inspection, the Presidio del Sacramento had fifty-one men, including its captain, who was no other than Diego Ortiz Parrilla, who had been absent since 1763 with permission from the viceroy. Captain Lorenzo Cancio had been appointed ad interim to replace Ortiz Parrilla. Rubi remarked that although the presidio had been originally ordered erected near the juncture of the San Diego River and the Rio Grande, it had been moved to Santa Rosa by a special order issued on l\fay 12, 1739. There were two hundred and ten horses in fairly good condition. The garrison, however, left much to be desired. Most of the men had no clothes to speak of and over half of their guns were useless. When on April 10, 1768, he made his formal recommendations con- cerning this post, he pointed out that the presidio was on the San Diego River, but too far from the Rio Grande to be of much service - in restraining the Apaches. He recommended that it should be moved to the banks of the Rio Grande and placed a few miles above the juncture of the San Diego and the Rio Grande, at the crossing known as San Vicente, which was on the highway or route generally followed from Villa Nueva de San Fernando in Coahuila to the Presidio de San Saba in Texas. This crossing must have been at or near the present site of Del Rio, since Rubi gives the distance from San Juan Bautista to the crossing as fifty-five leagues along the river. 13 UA. G. I., Audiencia de Guadalajara, 103-6-27 (Dunn Transcripts, 1757-1766), 54-58. 13Appointment of Lorenzo Cancio. A. G. /., Audi,mcia de Guadalajara, 104-6-13 (Dunn Transcripts, 1757-1766), 147; Inspection of Rubi, July 2, 1767, A.G./., Aud. de Guad., 104-6-13 (Dunn Tr., 1767), 131-135; Rubi, Die/amen, A.G./., Aud. de Guad., 104-6-13, (Dunn Tr., 1768-1772) 29-30.
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