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the recommendations of Altamira to be carried out. On August 28, the sixteen men from San Juan Bautista arrived in San Antonio, agreeable to orders, with instructions for eighteen to be sent to San Xavier to increase the guard there to forty-eight. It will be remembered that the captain in San Antonio was to appoint the commanding officer. Accord- ingly he named Diego Ramon, lieutenant of the guard at San Xavier, and Asensio del Raso, alferez. It had not been foreseen in Mexico that Governor Barrio would be in San Antonio at the time of the arrival of the new detachment. Captain Urrutia, under the circumstances, should have consulted the governor as his superior before making the appointments. When he failed to do so, it naturally enraged Barrio, who was already suspicious of everything. Alleging that Urrutia had been influenced by Fray Mariano in appointing the two men, who, it was well known, were friends of the friar, Governor Barrio annulled the appointment and named Juan Galvan, his friend and supporter in the recent investigation, in place of Diego Ramon. In his report to the viceroy he bitterly denounced the pride and· intrepidity of Fray Mariano and declared that this friar had attempted to bribe him on his arrival. The refusal to accept his favors had turned him into a relentless enemy. Again Barrio solemnly swore that San Xavier was unsuited for a mission center and he declared that he had found a much better location on the San Marcos River, some twenty-three leagues from San Antonio and forty from San Xavier. The land here could be irrigated much more easily. So certain was he of this fact that he wagered two thousand pesos, to be deducted from his salary, that in a year's time he could dig an irrigation ditch large enough to supply a large mission. 60 Flight of the Cocos. The opposition of the governor and the consequent attitude of the soldiers had the effect that Fray Benito had feared for some time. It seems that prior to March 10, 1748, several Cocos had gathered in Mission San Ildefonso, where they were waiting for the establishment of Mission Candelaria. Subsequent to this date they had abandoned the mission in a body. Just when their flight took place is not clear. In a long and detailed report made by Fray Benito shortly after the second investigation of Governor Barrio, in which he refutes that official's allegations, he begins by declaring that true to his promise made in March regarding Mission Candelaria, he had been obliged to
'°Consul/a of Governor Barrio to the Viceroy, September 11, 1749. Archivo del Colegio (Dunn Transcripts, 1716-1749).
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