228 



OPERATIONS IN TEXAS ALARCON AGUAYO. 



who was unprepared, either with men or provisions to resist the 

 invaders. In the following month the garrison and missionaries 

 of Texas returned hastily to Coahuila, and apprised the viceroy of 

 their flight for safety. But that functionary saw at once the ne- 

 cessity of strengthening the frontier. Levies were, therefore, im- 

 mediately made. Munilions were despatched to the north. And 

 five hundred men, divided into eight companies, marched forthwith 

 to re-establish the garrisons and missions under the command of 

 the Marques San Miguel de Aguayo, the new governor of Florida 

 and Texas. 1 



Notwithstanding the hostilities between France and Spain, and 

 the eager watchfulness of the fleets and privateers of the former 

 nations, the galeons of New Spain, reached Cadiz in 1721, with a 

 freight of eleven millions of dollars ! The years 1722 and 1723 

 were signalized by some outbreaks among the Indians which were 

 successfully quelled by the colonial troops ; and, in October, the 

 Duke of Arion, who had controlled New Spain for six years, was 

 succeeded by the Marques of Casa-Fuerte, a general of artillery. 

 He entered Mexico amid the applauses of the people not only be- 

 cause he was a Creole or native of America, but for the love that 

 was borne him by Philip the Fifth, who well knew the services for 

 which the crown was indebted to so brave a warrior. 



1 It may not be uninteresting or unprofitable to state in this place some of the 

 efforts at positive settlement in Texas which were made by the Spaniards during 

 the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Alarcon, the governor, early in 1718, 

 crossed the Medina, with a large number of soldiers, settlers and mechanics, and 

 founded the town of Bejar, with the fortress of San Antonio, and the mission of San 

 Antonio Valero. Thence he pushed on to the country of the Cenis Indians, where, 

 having strengthened the missionary force, he crossed the river Adayes, which he 

 called the Rio de San Francisco de Sabinas, or the Sabine, and began the founda- 

 tion of a fortress, within a short distance of the French fort, at Natchitoches, named 

 by him the Presido de San Miguel Arcangel de Linares de Adayes. These establish- 

 ments were reinforced during the next year, and another stronghold was erected on 

 the Oreoquisas, probably the San Jacinto, emptying into Galveston bay, west of 

 the mouth of the Trinity. 



The French, who were not unobservant of these Spanish acts of occupation in a 

 country they claimed by virtue of La Salle's discovery and possession in 1684, im- 

 mediately began to establish counter-settlements, on the Mississippi, and in the 

 valley of the Red river. When Alarcon was removed from the government of 

 Texas he was succeeded by the Marques de Aguayo, who made expeditions through 

 the country in 1721 and 1722, during which he considerably increased the Spanish 

 establishments, and, after this period, no attempt was ever made by the French to 

 occupy any spot south-west of Natchitoches. See History of Florida, Louisiana 

 and Texas, by Robert Greenhow. 



