“This continual contact with the savages has contracted me a friendship with the Cumanche nation, which is at peace with the Spaniards, and understanding their idiom facilitates me in trading with them to gain my livelihood.
“In the past year, 1798, I arrived in Santa Fé and presented myself to the Sir Governor Don Fernando Chacon. His Lordship informed me that there had come a Frenchman and had shown him a piece of metal of fine gold, assuring him he knew the spot where it was produced, and that it was a peak which the ynfidel nations called Peak of the Gold, where there was such an abundant breeding-place of this precious metal that all the peak and even its surroundings could with propriety be said to be pure gold. That he offered to show the spot if his Lordship would guard him with three hundred men of troops, and this he was bound to grant for the benefit of our monarch. That the distance, he considered, would be a matter of eight or nine days’ journey. The faithful love to our Sovereign animated the Sir Governor, and he supplied the escort which had marched two days before, and his said Lordship informed me that if he had found me in the city he would have made me one of the commanders. This offer inspired me, and I offered to follow after the expedition, and the love with which I have always served my lord, the King, enabled me by the utmost exertion to overtake the expedition, with which I incorporated myself on the third day.
“And journeying on our course, on the ninth day the French guide slipped away from us, leaving us in the plains without knowledge of the road to our desired peak. At the which it was resolved by the leaders of the expedition to return to Santa Fé. But I, not suffering from the short march, separated from the expedition and went on alone to verify the report. And in the rancherias [villages] of the Cumanches, where I was entertained, when I told them the trick and the mockery that the Frenchman had put upon us, they assured me with one accord that the said Frenchman did not know the location of the peak at all, and that he had never been there, for the gold which he took to New Mexico they themselves had given him in exchange for various trinkets of coral, belts and other trifles. But that they knew the peak of gold, that was indeed with an abundance never seen before, and if I would go with them they would show me it, and I could pick up all I wished, and if we met any other nation [of Indians] I should not be harmed if with them, for they were all friends.
“Indeed, most illustrious Sir, only by my fidelity and obedience to my superior could I contain myself not to march to the peak without delay; and I told my friends the Mecos Cumanches, that I was going to seek permission of that Sir Governor of the New Mexico, and with it would return. I arrived in Santa Fé and sought that permission, but it was denied me. But continuing my visits to the Mequeria [I find that] so strong a desire have they formed for the granting of that permission and the development of this treasure, and the facility there is that the Spaniards enjoy it and that their Sovereign make heavy his royal coffers, that I resolved to make a walk of more than seven hundred leagues to seek the aid and encouragement of Your Excellency. [The brave sergeant so fully believed in his Peak of Gold that he actually walked nearly 2,200 miles alone through a most dangerous country to lay the matter before the Viceroy in Mexico.]
“My plan being approved, it is undeniable that the Royal treasury will be swelled by the tithes and dues to the Royal crown; new interest will animate men to follow up the discovery, and there will be civilized (with time and the friendship which is contracted with the nations of the Cumanches, Yutas and Navajosos) more than three hundred leagues of virgin and powerful lands—that being reckoned the distance from the city of Santa Fé to the Peak of Gold. The inhabitants of the internal provinces, who now live under the yoke of the assaults of the hostile Indians, will revive; it will be easier for the Sovereign to guard the frontiers of these his vast dominions. Settlements will be made, and insensibly will follow the conquest and pacification of the ynfidels, who will easily embrace the holy Gospel and come under the faith of Jesus Christ. What results to religion, to the monarch and to his vassals are presented, even by this clumsy narration!
“I do not intend to burden the Royal treasury with the slightest expense, nor do I think to involve the Royal arms in actions which might imperil the troops. My person is declared past its usefulness for the Royal service, and I count myself as a dead man for entering matters of importance. But my military spirit does not falter, and I only desire to manifest, even at the foot of the tomb, my love to my Sovereign. With only one faithful companion I intend to go among my friends, the Cumanches, and, with the protection and guidance of them, to enter and explore the land, silently, without noise or preparation, to force a passage. Quietness, the gray shadows of the night and our own courage are the only preparations I make for the difficult undertaking, and, above all, the divine aid. Having found the desired Peak of Gold, charted the roads to it, made the due surveys, and gathered so much of the precious metal as we can transport without making danger (and under the divine favor), I will present myself again to Your Excellency, and by your Superiority will be taken such steps as the state of the case demands.
“Under which considerations, and the solid arguments which I have expressed, of which Your Excellency can receive full confirmation from the most excellent Señor Don Pedro de Nava, commander-in-chief of the interior provinces, and Don Joseph Casiano Feaomil y Garay, lieutenant-captain of dragoons of San Luís Potosí, I humbly beg of Your Excellency that in use of your Viceroyal powers, you deign to grant me your superior permission to go in search of the Peak of Gold; being kind enough to send to the Señor Don Fernando Chacon, actual Governor of the New Mexico, that he put no difficulty in my path, and giving orders to the captains and chiefs of the friendly nations—Cumanches, Yutas and Navajosos—that they accompany and guide me in this expedition.
“And I respectfully say that my delay in getting to this Capital [the City of Mexico] was because I had to come nearly all the way on foot, my horse having given out in that great distance, and that now I am supported here by alms, such is my great anxiety for the benefit of the monarch, and beg that I be excused for this paper. [He was too poor to buy the stamped and taxed paper on which petitions to the Viceroy must be addressed.]
“For so much I pray Your Excellency’s favor.