Escandon was authorized to extend his operations over a distance of more than a hundred leagues from south to north, and sixty or eighty from east to west, the boundaries being designated on the east by the gulf; south by the jurisdictions of Pánuco and Tampico, Villa de Valles, Sierra Gorda, and Huasteca; west by Guadalcázar, Venado, Charcas, Nuevo Leon, and part of Coahuila, and north by this latter province and the boundary of Texas. The territory comprised within these limits received the appellation of Nuevo Santander. Most extensive preparations for the expedition were made in the city of Querétaro; and the prestige of Escandon was so great that from all parts of the country Spanish families hastened to join his fortunes, and many an adventurous soldier enlisted under his banner. Enthusiasm ran high, till finally the expeditionary forces numbered seven hundred and fifty, while the number of prospective settlers, consisting of Spaniards and converted Indians, exceeded two thousand five hundred families. That these numbers are not exaggerated is shown by the settlements founded by Escandon, and by subsequent official statistics.
The expedition set forth from Querétaro early in December 1748, passing through the towns of Pozos, San Luis de la Paz, Santa Maria del Rio, San Luis Potosi, and thence to Tula,[1] where it was joined by a number of Spanish families. Various attempts seem to have been made since 1714 to form new settlements in this vicinity, attended apparently with little success. At one of these, Palmillas, Escandon appointed a military governor, and continuing his march in a north-easterly direction, founded on December 25th the town of Llera with sixty-seven families. Turning northward on January 1, 1749, Güemes was
- ↑ This place, then in the jurisdiction of Charcas, was at the time quite a flourishing colony.
audiencia at Mexico in 1748 granted the funds, and in 1749 the king ordered an additional sum to be paid to complete the enterprise. Revilla Gigedo, in Instruc. Vireyes, 37-8.
