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Tlze Organization of Mission Life, I722-1728
to this new location, where it could do much more good than at its present site. Determined to tell the viceroy what to do in every instance, he then took up the matter of the escort furnished at Saltillo to convoy the mis- sionaries and the trains of supplies on the way to Texas. In his opinion this guard, which consisted of nine soldiers, was an unnecessary expense. Ordinarily there were not more than five trips made a year. The time consumed in going and coming was not over a month each time. With one thousand pesos a year, a special escort could be hired each time it was needed for the duration of the journey and the royal treasury would save the additional expense of maintaining nine men at Saltillo all the year. He went on and stated that the position of Protector of Indians was unnecessary. This service could be abolished in Saltillo, Nuevo Reyno de Leon, and Mazapil, and the duties of the functionary performed just as well by the Alcalde il1 ayor. "The multiplication of offices," he said, "results only in added expense to the king." He closed his long report, which he said he was making at the request of the viceroy, with the appeal that the commanders of presidios in Texas be instructed to furnish the missionaries the necessary number of sol- diers to accompany them when they set out in quest of new converts or runaways." This long report is significant because in the course of subsequent events, its far-reaching influence over the policies adopted towards the presidios and missions in Texas by viceregal officials, and by Rivera during his inspection three years later, will be evident. In his zeal for the conversion of the Apaches, which he sincerely thought had been thwarted by Captain Flores, the enthusiastic missionary stressed the truth beyond the bounds of common sense and opened the way for evils which were to affect the future development of the missions more than any of those circumstances he described. Many of the recommendations of Rivera, which were to be so strenuously condemned by the College of Queretaro in particular, and which finally resulted in the removal of the three Queretaran missions of East Texas to San Antonio, can be directly traced back to the report of Father Gonzalez. Removal of Captain Flores. Agreeable to these recommendations of the Padre, it seems, the viceroy ordered, on April 6, 1724, Captain Flores
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