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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 atmis?, co..tly 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 the time, had been converted to romanism, and reduced to laborers & cultivators of the soil. Aquays petitioned the King that four hundred immigrants might be sent to San Antonio de Bejar: that two hundred of the immigrants should be liberated from the indians of Tascala?, the remainder from Galicia in Spain & the Canary islands, conferring the rank of hidalquia upon such families who as wanted embark on the imdent? King. Of the four hundred families, it appears that only sixteen reached their destination & those from the Canaries, the? expense of when? hanifntatias? amounted to 72.000 dollars, which was mainly defrayed by the indefatigible Arayo.

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