Permanent Occupation of Texas, I7I5-I7I6
39
pay in advance, payable at San Luis Potosi, where Domingo Ramon was to present a list of the men, whose pay was to start from the day on which their names were entered on the books at San Luis. The officers of the treasury there were to discount from the total pay of the soldiers 4,962 pesos paid by the royal treasury in Mexico City to Domingo Ramon to help him defray the expenses and buy part of the equipment for the soldiers. Orders were likewise issued to the governors and commanders along the route to be followed, instructing them to supply Ramon with horses or any other thing necessary for the expedition. All the corre- sponding orders in keeping with the wishes of the viceroy were duly issued the first day of October. 11 St. Denis must have ingratiated himself well into the favor of the vice- roy to have been appointed Conductor de Viveres of the projected expe- dition, second in rank only to Ramon and with the same pay. But then, it was not only St. Denis who received money from the Spanish gov- ernment. Medar J alot, as will be noted, was also allowed one hundred pesos "for services rendered." Unfortunately the documents available give no information as to the life of St. Denis in Mexico. We do not know when he was released after his declaration on June 22, 1715, nor whether he was consulted any further by the viceroy between that time and the day of his appointment. He seems, however, to have kept himself well informed about what was happening, for on September 7, he wrote to the Governor of Louisiana to notify him that the viceroy was about to send a party to establish a mission among the Tejas. At this time the viceroy had not decided on the number of missions. This may explain St. Denis' failure to specify that there would be four missions established by the expedition. He asked that a brigantine be sent to occupy "the Bay of Espiritu Santo, San Luis, or San Bernardo with two purposes in view: one, in·order to control all the Indian nations between Mobile and the said bay; the other to make certain to have a depot easily accessible by sea or land wherein to keep our merchandise, near to Coahuila and Nuevo Reyno de Leon." 12 He is further alleged to have declared in this letter that it would be necessary for the king of France to demand that the boundary of Louisiana be fixed at the Rio Grande. 13 It is interesting to 11 Decreto del Virey sobre nombramiento de cavo y sueldo de presidiales para la entrada a Texas. S011 Francisco el Gra11de Archive, VIII, 53-54. 12 Resumen de las noticias que desde el afio de 1688 . . . se an tenido. . . . Pro- vincias lnternas, 181, p. 165. 13 Clark, op. cit., VI, 19.
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