147
Aguayo Expedition and San lose Mission, 17r9-1722
San Antonio. He dispatched messengers to Coahuila and Nuevo Leon to secure, in the meantime, horses, mules, and provisions for the return to the Rio Grande. The old presidio was defenceless and the soldiers' quarters were thatched-roof huts. He had adobe bricks made, selected a new site between the San Pedro and the San Antonio Rivers, two hundred varas from the latter and thirty from the former, and there erected the new presidio, a square structure with four bastions. In a letter written to the king, he declares that the new location is much better and that he placed a garrison of fifty-four soldiers in the new presidio. 11 Establishment of tlze Presidio and Mission at Espiritu Santo. As soon as horses arrived from the Rio Grande, early in l\farch, Aguayo dispatched Captain Gabriel Costales to La Bahia with fifty picked men to reenforce the forty sent previously under the command of Captain Ramon. On March 16, Aguayo set out with forty men for the purpose of personally attending to the construction of an adequate fort and the official estab- lishment of the Presidio and the Mission at La Bahia del Espiritu Santo. Illness prevented him from doing anything the first week, and the Easter season having arrived, he postponed action until after Easter week. On April 6, 1722, the foundations for the new presidio were begun on the very spot where La Salle had built his fort in 1685. Nails, firelocks, and other fragments of guns were dug up as the work proceeded. It took fifteen days to finish the foundations. The fort was an octagon, with a moat all around it and four bastions, to which a tower was to be added for a lookout. Each side was forty-five varas long. But as the time was short, Aguayo could not wait until the building was completed. After officially founding the Mission of Espiritu Santo de Zuniga, he placed Jose Domingo Ramon in command of the reenforced garrison, which consisted of ninety men, and taking his departure, arrived in San Antonio on April 26. During the time he was at La Bahia del Espiritu Santo and after his return to San Antonio, Aguayo was in ill health. During his absence nothing had been done to complete the Presidio of San Antonio. The heavy rains had prevented the men from working and had ruined over thirty thousand adobe bricks which had been made. Aguayo immediately gave orders for twenty-five thousand more to be made and paid forty laborers out of his own pocket to finish as much of the projected fort as possible.
II Aguayo to His Majesty, June 13, 1722, Archh 1 0 tie Sa11/11 Cru:: Je Queritaro, 1716-1749 (Bolton Transcripts, University of Texas).
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