Rivera's Inspection and Removal of il1issions to San Antonio 255
of the sons of Saint Francis. The civil officials should be instructed to cooperate with the Padres in reducing the natives to mission life, in order that their work might not be wasted. 55 The just request was granted by the king in June, 1729, and the corresponding instructions issued to the treasury to defray the expenses of t~e twelve missionaries which were to be taken by Father Fray Matias Saenz de San Antonio to the College of the Holy Cross of Queretaro, for the purpose of helping to take care of the missions maintained by that College on the Rio Grande and in Texas. The officials of the treasury were requested to make an estimate of the cost of equipping them, paying their expenses to the port of embarkation, during their stay there, and on the trip to Mexico. They reported that for the twelve Padres, Father Matias Saenz de San Antonio, and a lay brother who made up the party, it would take two hundred sixty-four thousand five hundred twenty-six nzaravedis to furnish them supplies, clothing, and other necessities for the journey. This may sound like a fabulous sum, but a maravcdi is equivalent to one-sixth of a cent, so that the estimated cost was only slightly over four hundred dollars. In addition to this sum, the ofncials declared that it was customary to allow ten pesos to each religious who went to America by order of the king. To this must be added the expenses incurred by each missionary in going from his respective monastery to either Sevilla or Cadiz, for which they were generally given seven reales a day, provided they traveled eight leagues. After they arrived at the port of embarkation, they received two reales for each day they waited for the ship that was taking them to New Spain. The officials of the royal treasury explained that they were not able to estimate the cost of transportation, as that would depend on the special arrangement that was made with the shipmaster in whose ship they sailed. 56 The details of the journey are not known, nor has a list been found of the names of the brave Franciscans who came so willingly to carry on the work in far-away Texas and on the Rio Grande. But in a letter of Father Mezquia, the new Guardian of the College of the Holy Cross of Queretaro to the viceroy, written in August, 1731, he said that the new missionaries had arrived in the fleet that had come from Spain in Novem- ber of the previous year. The cost of transportation for the Franciscan 55 /bid. 56 Informe de la Contaduria de Junio de 1729. A. G. I., A udiencia de Jllexico, 62-2-29 (:punn Transcripts).
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