Ottr CatllOlic Heritage in Texas
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of a defense on all four points of the compass. There was not a breastwork or bastion to give the small force the least advantage over the attacking or besieging party. The artillery consisted of four old swivel guns. One of these could not be fired, the remaining three had no sights, and although they had been recently mounted on ill-shaped and insecure carriages, there was no ammunition with which to serve them, since not a single cannon ball had been found in the presidio. Of the supply of extra arms sent by the viceroy shortly after the destruction of San Saba to be distributed to the settlers for defense in case of an emergency, there were only eighteen guns, twelve swords, and thirty-four lances in the guardroom of the presidio. The remainder had foolishly been issued to the settlers by Governor Martos y Navarrete without making the required arrangement for their return. The result was that many of the settlers being unscrupulous, had exchanged the new guns and equipment for useless ones and they were now as poorly armed to aid the garrison as before. In the guardroom he had found also one hundred and six pounds of powder and three hundred and five pounds of lead. Turning next to the Villa de San Fernando, Menchaca declares, there were about one hundred men, including the very aged, the sick, the infirm, the vagrants, and those who resided within a radius of from twenty to twenty-five leagues (about sixty miles). Consequently not more than twenty-five at the most could be mustered to help the garrison in case of an emergency. But since the effective number of soldiers for the defense of the Villa was only five, besides the sergeant and the captain, it meant that counting all the civilian reenforcement, the presidio would have a maximum of thirty men to repel the enemy. The other fifteen soldiers were assigned to the missions and could not be counted upon for the defense of the settlement. In the list of the settlers that accompanies the report there is much information about the old pioneers. Vicente Alvarez Travieso, member of the city council, lived most of the time in his ranch called Las Mulas, located some twenty leagues from San Antonio. Andres Hernandez, another old-timer, lived in his ranch on Cibolo Creek, as did also Juan Jose Flores and Miguel Guerra. At Las Mulas, as a neighbor of Alvarez Travieso, lived Martin Lorenzo, not one of the original Canary Islanders, hut a later arrival. Poor Jose Curbelo, one of the founders, was now blind and paralytic. Manuel de Nis, another of the founders, was now so old that he had to be carried to church every day to hear Mass. Old Juan Jose
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