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Antonio should be requested to make recommendations as to possible sites, keeping in mind the advantages offered both for future development and for the general defence of the province; to estimate the expense of the new settlement; and to suggest means-for defraying it. 2 Croix, who sympathizd with the settlers, followed the recommendations of the Assessor General and requested Governor Ripperda, Captain Cazorla of La Bahia, and the Cabildo of San Antonio to report on the subject in order that the remaining citizens of Los Adaes might be permanently and advantageously settled and that these actions be in accord with the best interest of the king. Although Governor Cabello was already in San Antonio, Governor Ripperda had not turned over the government to him. On January II, 1778, he replied to Croix that the majority of the former settlers of Los Adaes had already left San Antonio and had founded the new settlement of Nuestra Senora del Pilar de Bucareli, where they had been since 1774. Those who were still in San Antonio were not sufficient to found another settlement as suggested. A wiser course would be to send them to Bucareli to reenforce that post, which had been seriously weakened by an epidemic in which seventeen persons had died. Governor Ripperda was unaware of the fact that at this very time Gil Ibarbo and his colony were about to move to the former site of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches. Ignorant of what was transpiring, he emphasized the importance of the new settlement on the Trinity as a trading center and point of contact with the northern tribes, whose friendship was so important, and as a point of observation to check foreign incursions. Having expressed his opinion, he declared that if in spite of the facts indicated, the government desired to found another settlement for the small number of Adaesanos now in San Antonio, there were several suitable sites for that purpose. The best, however, was at the headwaters of the San Marcos, about eighteen leagues northeast of San Antonio. Irrigation was possible, and there were good lands for cultivation and for pastures, extending from the San Marcos to the Guadalupe. In this area there were also abundant buffalo and wild cattle that would contribute a good food supply for the new settlement. But the site was on the main route of the Comanches, who generally came through this region to raid the San Antonio and La Bahia missions.
2 Pedro Galindo to Teodoro de Croix, January 8, 1778. In Ibid., Vol. 51, pp. 394-396.
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