Our C at/10/ic Heritage in Texas
two narrow paths called roads, and even there it was shared with the natives, from whose thieving activities Spaniards were not entirely free. In this vast area there was not a settlement or semblance of one, nor hope of any being established, until one reached Nacogdoches. There a lonely mission, aided by a few soldiers and an occasional Indian, eked a miserable existence with hope in Providence undimmed. Twenty leagues beyond in the direction of Los Adaes was Mission Nuestra Senora de los Dolores de los Ais, where two holy men prayed and hoped for the conversion of the natives who never came. Still beyond was Los Adaes, twenty-six leagues farther. There a company of soldiers, who cost the king over twenty-seven thousand -pesos a year, but resembled a band of starving beggars, marked the limits of the so-called dominions of the king. Two more religious faithfully toiled there with but scant reward, and thirty wretched families struggled in vain to shelter their nakedness and appease hunger. What could be gained by prolonging their agony in an empty gesture of a dubious tenure, which only the tolerance of the natives and the indifference of the French permitted to endure? To the south, about one hundred twenty leagues, on the banks of the Trinity, upon a desolate slope that barely rose above the level of the encompassing lakes and marshes, and which the sea threatened to engulf any day, driven by the fury of tropical storms, stood the presidio com- monly called Orcoquisac. Why such a place had ever been chosen as a site for a settlement was beyond human understanding. But there lived now thirty-one men and their families, comforted by the presence of the unselfish missionaries, the first serving their king and the second their God. In this uninviting and inaccessible location the unfortunate wretches were frequently forced to live for months on weeds and roots until supplies arrived. "Permit me, then," exclaims Rubi, "to ask in all justice if by suppressing the presidios of Los Adaes and Orcoquisac, the king loses in reality any part of his dominions?" He strongly urged their immediate abandonment and the withdrawal of Spanish forces and settlers to the real frontiers of the king's domain, which were marked by the two outposts of San Antonio and La Bahia. 63 Recommendations co11ccrning Bahia. While this presidio was twenty leagues from the coast, there were reasons why it should not be moved closer. Chief among these considerations were the unhealthy climate and the character of the country. Although the Guadalupe River had been 63Rubi, Digttamen, April 10, 1768. A.G./., Audie,rcia de Guadalajara, 104-6-13 (Dunn Tr., 1768-1772), pp. 48-51.
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