Plans for tlie Reorganization of t/1e Frontier
237
attacks upon this post during the last year. He recommended that a reasonable number of horses be kept within the enclosure of the presidio to enable the garrison to make sallies upon the enemy and to avoid the necessity of having to wait until horses were brought from the distant pastures to pursue the insolent attackers. 41 From San Saba Rubi went to San Antonio. He was shocked at the conditions he found in the garrison of this, the most important settlement in Texas. When the twenty-two men wen! mustered for inspection by Captain Luis Antonio Menchaca, they made a strange and colorful but most unmilitary appearance. Each one wore his own selected colors and insignia without attention to regulations or style. Various shades of red predominated, while silk handkerchiefs and lace and silver buttons, con- trasted woefully with the poor quality of the cloth and the wretchedness of the wearers. Captain Menchaca was instructed that in the future the uniforms of the men must be simplified in style and made according to official pattern and proper sizes, that no metal ornaments were to be used other than the buttons prescribed by the regulations, and that red facings were to be confined to the coat collars and not to exceed a span in length. The sale of silver and gold trinkets, ribbons, silk goods, and other luxuries was strictly prohibited. Their lavish use of ornaments was n.:sponsible in part for the indebtedness of the garrison and the penury of the soldiers. The pistols and rifles were found to be of various calibers and makes, but worst of all one-third of them were useless. A gunsmith should be brought to this presidio to repair their arms and keep them in condition. The horses were so jaded that they were unfit for work. The presidio was anything but a defensible fort and should be made into a decent fortification as ·soon as possible. The parish priest of the Villa de San Fernando was the chaplain of the troops and received four hundred pttsos a year for his· services. In summing up the situation, Rubi declared that ti-le lack of discipline and military instruction of the garrison was due t-o the employment of the majority of the men on mission duty. The missions he found to be in a prosperous state, capable of defending themselves without the aid of the garrison. The wretched condition of the soldiers he attributed to the exhorbitant prices charged for the supplies, furnished, the poor quality of the goods sent by the purchasing- agent of the captain in Saltillo, Manuel Antonio Bustillo, and to the reprehensible practice of the soldiers, exchanging their property and gambling-. It is strange to note the purchase of soap listed as an expensin• luxury indulged
48 Inspectlon of San Saba by Rubi, July-Augu:-t, ti6;. In Ibid. . pp. 180-.Ho.
Powered by FlippingBook