377
Establisltment of ilfissions in East Texas, 1689-1693
to be thanked for the great services he had rendered to Goel and the king. 59 The first formal attempt to establish missions in East Texas had thus proved a failure as the result of a series of circumstances beyond the power of the missionaries to remedy. The viceregal officials had sincerely sponsored the plan so enthusiastically conceived and attempted by Father Massanet. The failure of the home government to seco.nd their efforts was in part responsible for the abandonment. Truly has Dunn said: "The first occupation of Texas was an enterprise conceived and executed by the colonial officials of New Spain. The home government, with its energies absorbed in war, had little share in it, save to approve measures after they had already been adopted." 60 But fortunately, the hope of the lzmta General, that the abandonment would only be temporary was to be realized and before a score of years elapsed, a new attempt, destined to prove successful, because it embodied not only the establishment of missions but of presidios as well, was again to be tried.
59 Junta de Hacienda, March 12, 1694, in Ibid., 16-17. 60 Dunn, Spanish a11d French Rivalry, 145.
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