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A About 1716-18 The Marquis de Aquayo offered his services & fortune to the King of Spain to prevent the French colonizing Texas; France then being at war with Spain. To the Marquis was intrusted the regulating of the different settlements around the frontier of the colonies, correctly considering the place an excellent trading station, both for the people dwelling along the Rio Grande, and the populous tribes of northern indians, numbers of whom, by this time, had been converted to romanism, & reduced to laborers & cultivators of the soil. Aquayo petitioned the King that four hundred immigrants might be sent to San Antonio de Bejar: that two hundred of the immigrants should be selected from the indians of Tlascala, the remainder from Galicia in Spain & the Canary islands, conferring the rank of hidalguia upon such families as would embark on the undertaking. Of the four hundred families, it appears that only sixteen reached their destination & those from the Canaries, the expense of whose transplantation amounted to 72.000 dollars, which was mainly defrayed by the indefatigible Aquayo.

 His attempt having so far failed it is said that the Marquis besought that the prisons of Mexico be emptied of their inmates, who were sent to supply the deficiency     B

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