Occ11pation of tlze Trinity River; r746-r772
acceded to his request and obtained royal approval for Barrios to remain in Texas until 1759, Martos y Navarrete serving as Governor of Coahuila in the meantime. 34 His loss of interest in the civil settlement coincides in point of time exactly with his notification in October, 1757. It is also of interest to note that he used his friend, Bernardo de Miranda, as an excuse for failure and blamed him for the erroneous report as to the suitability of the site selected for the civil settlement. 35 Be that as it may, let us trace briefly the development of the plan for the civil settlement, which Governor Barrios had suggested should be called San Luis de Ronda. The ]tmta of February 4, 1756, had approved the founding of a civil settlement at royal expense in connection with the presidio and mission on the lower Trinity and fixed the number of families at fifty, leaving the details to the viceroy. This official requested Barrios on February 12 to report on the cost of such a plan and the way in which the families could be secured. On receipt of the order in April, the governor dispatched instructions to Bernardo de Miranda, his trusted Jieutenant and friend, who was then in San Antonio, to find out the amount of money the Canary Islanders had been allowed and the details of their settlement, which might serve as a precedent. He appears to have consulted on the matter with others and to have made a careful study before writing to the viceroy on July 22, 1756. In his letter he declared there were several difficulties to be taken into account. First, there was a technicality. The Laws of the Indies in Title VII, Book IV, Law 18, provided that no one with a house and lot in America could be allowed to move to new frontier outposts in order to avoid the danger of depopulation of old settlements. This provision would have to be waived before the desired families could be enlisted. Second, it was not easy to find large families who were willing to move to an exposed frontier. There were several in San Antonio who were disposed to try their luck, even from among the pioneer Canary Islanders, if the legal provision could be suspended. But he doubted that fifty families could be found for the proposed settlement in the entire frontier of northern New Spain. In his opinion, therefore, it would be well to recruit twenty-five Spanish UJnforme del gobernador de Texas sobre diligenclas practlcadas durante su gobierno y las que le han faltado cumplir, October 16, 17 57. Sa,r F,-a11ei.sco 1l G,-a,rd1 Arckiv,, Vol. 7, pp. 19-20; Bolton, Tex<U, 347. Martos y Navarrete took possession of the government of Texas on February 6, 17 59. 35 Opini6n del gobernador sobre no ser apropiado el paraje de Santa Rosa del Alcazar ... October 20, 1757, San Francisco 1l G,-and1 A,-cAiv,, Vol. 7, 10-12.
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