DON GASPAR DE PORTOLÁ, COLONEL, GOVERNOR OF LA PUEBLA DE LOS ANGELES IN CENTRAL MEXICO AND ROYAL DEPUTY OF THE CITY AND CASTLES OF LÉRIDA. HIS DEAD IN 1786.
From " Don Gaspar de Portolá, Explorer and Founder of California " Fernando Boneu. Translated and revised by Alan K. Brown. Instituto de Estudios Ilerdense. Lérida. 1983
At Mexico City, their lordships the Viceroy of New Spain the Marquis of Croix and the Visitor-General Jose de Gálvez, received the despatch from Portolá, with such relief and happines that they passed a message to the dean of the cathedral to sound out a peal from his bells, signalling the news to all the city’s people.
Both men, eager to give the news official standing, dispatched Madrid-ward the success, mentioning that the conquest had been achieved under the command of Captain Governor Don Gaspar de Portolá and other sea and land officers. Likewise they ordered the government printers to put out an " Extract of News of Monterrey Harbor of the Mission and Presidio founded there under the appellation of San Carlos ".
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" At the new Presidio and Mission of San Carlos de Monterrey, plentiful goods and provisions have been left. The franciscan Fray Junipero Serra, as President of the Missions and Lieutenant of the Volunteers of Catalonia Don Pedro Fages, as Military Commander of a new establishments ".
It is here, at this moment in which Portolá is receiving his deserved reward of compliments and congratulations from superiors, companions in arms, and the people of Mexico, that I feel it necessary to underline the fact that in all the documents I have examined, I have scarcely come across one word of self-praise for himself or for his deeds, well justified though it would have been, but only praise for the success of the expedition achieved by his men, for the missionaires and for the higher authorities who planned it. All through the march we never find him losing his temper, never failing in his honor or his professional military character, never questioning an order, never giving an order thas was not well thought out and worth giving.
His subordinates’ respect was complete and sincere and the affection with which he treated Father Junipero Serra and the other Franciscans was fully returned.
A letter sent by the Viceroy Croix to the Minister of the Indies Arriaga, on August 25th, 1770, acknowledges the special deserts of Gaspar de Portolá and his fellows " who had so well an actively performed the discharge of the affairs committed to them ".
After a very short time, on January 5th, 1771, His Magesty granted a hard-won promotion to Portolá : "... considering the Services of you Don Gaspar de Portolá, Captain in the Regiment of Dragoons of Spain, and your especial deserts while in the command of the expedition to the Harbor of Monterrey in Californias, I have determined to confer upon you the rank and pay of Lieutenant Colonel...".
In 1774, Portolá returned to Spain, after having been absent from it since 1764. He remained most of the time attached to the staff of the Barcelona garrison, and visiting his family in his own city of Balaguer.
His Magesty King Charles IV, on June 9 , 1776, was to name Don Gaspar de Pňrtolá governor of Puebla de los Angeles, in central Mexico.
With this appointment of governor and four thousand pesos of yearly salary, Portolá was on the way back to the New World. On November 5th, 1777, he was promoted to Colonel.
The term of five years which the King had promised him in the governorship, was fulfilled and extended of another five.
I have found little published on this period of Portolá’s life and have so far sought in vain to complete this part of his history, but perhaps in years to come we may become acquainted with the archives of the City of Puebla, which must surely preserve fascinating information abut the years of Spanish rule in Mexico.
After 10 years in Puebla, a royal decree of August 20, 1785, grants to Portolá a post as Colonel attached to the Numancia Regiment, and lattely, on February 1786, Don Gaspar was named Royal Deputy of the City of Lérida and its Castles.
At that time Portolá was 69. The duties of the Royal Deputy included presiding in person over the municipal sessions, whenever the city’s political and military governor was absent. From August 1786, Portolá ceases to do so by reason of sickness. Though his illness kept him from attending the council sessions, he was not prevented from discharging other duties of his position.
The honored soldier’s health cannot have been very good at this time, for the next reference we have to him is his own will drawn up in Lérida on the 29th of May, 1786.
The greater part of his fortune was left in the hands of the executors with full authority to dispose of it, though always in accordance with the Portolá express desire that it should be applied to works of charity or those befitting such public uses.
"Lérida, October eleventh, seventeen hundred eighty six.
I CERTIFY that the Honorable Municipal Council of this city, having assembled at a half before ten o'clock in the morning of this day at the house inhabited Don Gaspar de Portolá, late Royal Deputy of Lérida, there being present the aldermen for the purpose of accompanying the corpse of the said Royal Deputy and attending his last funeral honors, proceeded to and in fact did, as a body and in due form, accompany the corpse from the said house to the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, the regular parish for the military officers, with sic of the officers who were present in the city surrounding the body and carrying the belt, then, immediately after them, the major of the garrison Don Juan Chartrón, with Captain of the Keys Don Juan Martus and Don Mariano Temple, Ensign of the Catalonia Regiment, at his side; following them, the city, led by the funeral guests and mace-bearers dressed in mourning, and then, immediately behind the chairman,the Adjutant of the garrison, Don Antonio Ferrari, bearing sword in hand, and a small detachment of the Wallon Guards garrisoned in this city, marching with muffled drums. In this fashion the procession proceeded to the said church, where, the council and guest having taking their proper seats, the funeral Mass was begun; and immediately it was noted that the said Major and other officers went our of the church, and shortly afterward a volley of shots was heard, as is the practice in such funerals."
At the end of this brief sickness, Don Gaspar de Portolá died the 10th of October, 1786 in his residence at Lérida. He was buried in the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, which is known today as the parish church of San Pedro.
This document and the description of the funerals honors granted to Portolá, are in the Lérida City Hall Historical Archives. A partial copy of the last one is given.
Among all of the different Portolá’s Expedition chroniclers, there migth easily have been one to have let slip some complaint, happening or circumstance unfavorable to the Commander. Quite to the contrary; there is nothing but regard and respect fot the Captain Portolá both as commander and as personage. One of Serra’s biographers refers to him as " the magnificent Portolá ".
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