Our Catliolic H e,-itage in Texas
2 34
Fray Bernardino Vallejo, in whose company he went to San Antonio where he arrived on December 21, 1794. He now presented his credentials and asked to be permitted to introduce some merchandise from New Orleans to defray the expense of the expedition. Munoz pointed out the procedure suggested was contrary to law and that he would have to consult Nava at once, but the commandant made a noncommittal reply. Before long, it seems Munoz winked at the violation of the trade regu- lations and Nolan appears to have introduced a considerable amount of goods from Louisiana. 7 By January, 1796, he had returned to New Orleans. The third expe- dition, as he called it, proved much more profitable than his former ventures. He brought back two hundred fifty horses. After selling the best in Natchez, he drove the remainder to Frankfort, Kentucky. The mystery surrounding his activities between 1791 and the close of 1795, except for the glimpses just related, is explicable in part by the relations between him and Governor Munoz, and the fact, which he admits himself, that "a letter from a trader in horses to a General of the Federal armies" would naturally arouse suspicions. 8 Reference to the intrigue of the governor of Louisiana with the agents of the rebellious West and with Wilkinson during these years has been made in the previous chapter. The "accidental" meeting in January, 1797, of Nolan and Ellicott, the American boundary commissioner, has been likewise noted. 9 Leaving Ellicott and Gayoso to iron out their difficulties at Natchez, Nolan seems to have hurried back to New Orleans, where he regaled Governor Carondelet with entertaining, confidential, but not entirely reliable stories, all of which the governor believed, "always more impressed with inconsequential matters than with weighty problems of state." 10 While courting favor with Carondelet to secure permission to embark on a fourth expedition into Texas, he was writing Wilkinson, who now was general-in-chief of the United States Army, that in the event of war he could "cut" his way back and he could be counted upon to aid. 11 The dual game he was playing is revealed in his letter to 7Nava to Munoz, January 15, 1795; Munoz to Carondelet, January 18, 1795; Nava to Munoz, January 27, 1795; Munoz to Commandant at Nacogdoches, March 12, 1795. Bexar Archives. •Nolan to Wilkinson, January 6, and 10, 1796. Wilkinson, Memoirs, II, Appen- dix 2. 9See page 214 of the preceding chapter. lOWhitaker, The Spanish-American Frontier, 1783-1795, I 53. llNolan to Wilkinson, July 21, 1797. Wilkinson, op. cit., II, Appendix 2 .
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