Our Catlzolic Heritage in Texas
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the Padres gave them a small piece of land to cultivate for themselves and lodged and boarded them at the m 0 issions. In this manner the soldiers who were kept without doing military duty as long as one and two years at times, could be restored to their garrison and made to observe dis- cipline, as the ordinance for the presidios provided. The conditions that existed at San Juan Bautista, he pointed out, were equally true of one hundred and fifty other missions established by Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries along the entire frontier. Although the assignment of two soldiers to all of these missions had been justified in· the beginning to afford the Padres protection and much needed help in reducing the newly congregated Indians, it was now no longer required in view of the progress made by these establishments. He recommended, therefore, that not only the two soldiers stationed at each of the four missions under the protection of the Presidio of San Juan Bautista, but those detailed for similar duty in San Antonio de Bejar, should be withdrawn and ordered back to their respective garri- sons. Aware of the fact that he had advocated the continuance of a guard of two men for each of the missions of Los Adaes and Los Tejas, for which reason it might be said that he was not consistent in his rec- ommendations, he explained that in the latter case it was justified because there were almost no Indians living regularly "bajo campana," and this made the need of the soldiers essential to assist the missionaries in their frequent trips to the ranclzerias and to keep them company in their solitude. 22 Agreeable to the order of the viceroy of August 2, 1728, Rivera incor- porated the voluminous papers and documents he had accumulated in his extensive visita in a general report arranged in three parts: the first, a description of the state in which he had found the presidios; second, the state in which he had left them after his visita; and, third, the changes recommended in each case. It took the industrious and pains- taking inspector a little over four months of constant labor to make his final report, which he turned over to the viceroy on December 7, 1728. "This," he declared, "is all that my solicitude has been able to accom- plish to satisfy, as far as my ability permitted ... the orders of Your Excellency . . . I have been moved in this undertaking by no other motives, in expressing my opinion of each case, than the relief of the presidia! soldiers, the service of the king, and the greater glory of God."
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