Oter Catliolic Heritage in Texas
chatted freely with various persons. He assured everybody that Louisiana would, ere long, be under Spain again. Before the end of the month the rumor had spread to New Orleans, and Governor Claiborne wrote to James Madison, Secretary of State, that he had called upon the Marques de Casa Calvo to inquire from this ranking Spanish official the source of the report. The Marques assured him he knew nothing about it and denied any such intention on the part of Spain. 65 The presence of more troops and of a prominent commander for the Spanish frontier was confirmed by a letter of Barr to Davenport late in September, 1805. Writing to his partner in Nacogdoches from San Antonio, Barr told him he was waiting for the new governor, Colonel Manuel Antonio Cordero, to set out for Nacogdoches. Cordero. who had attained distinction in Coahuila and had seen service abroad, was to take two full companies to the eastern frontier, one of which was to be stationed at Orcoquisac and the other to be divided between Nacogdoches and the abandoned post of Los Adaes. 66 The rumors of Spanish designs on Louisiana and the mobilization of troops in Texas soon gave way to complaints of actual violation of American territory. In November the brothers Gaspard and Lewis Bodin and Andrew Chamar, residents of Natchitoches, made deposition before Judge Sibley that they, while travelling from Natchitoches to Opelousas. had been accosted on September 8 by a group of five Spanish soldiers about fourteen or fifteen miles from their destination. The leader of the party took their best horse. Saying that it was needed for the king's service, he drove away in the direction of Nacogdoches. The next day Francis Rohan, agent for Oliver and Case of Natchitoches, made a similar declaration to Judge Sibley. He stated that he and Joseph Lucas, en route from the Caddo nation to Natchitoches with a train of eighteen horses loaded with some eleven hundred deer skins, stopped at Bayou Pierre (San Pedro Creek) to call on a friend named De Soto. A Spanish guard stationed there arrested Rohan and took his train under custody. The following day the declarant succeeded in escaping, but his horses and pelts were carried on to Nacogdoches.' 7 65Sibley to Secretary of War, August 8, 1805; Claiborne to James Madison, Au- gust 26. State Papers and Publick Documents, I, 355 ; II, 306-307. 66Turner to Wilkinson, September 30, 1805. State Papers and Publick Docu- ments, I, 356. 67Depos!tlons made before John Sibley, Natchitoches, November 2 and 3, 1805. State Papers and P11blick Documents, I, 335-336, and 338-341.
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