The Consejo de Indias, reinstating Salazar with some misgivings, instructed the newly appointed treasurer Joseph de Prado to conduct a quiet inquiry and inform them secretly whether or not the governor was in any way responsible for the Apalache rebellion. Prado's investigation revealed what he and Salazar had already privately concluded, that the cause of the revolt was burdening and that the one remedy was to buy 50 of the governor's mules for the service of the Crown. Trade or no trade, as the treasurer pointed out, there would always be loads to carry. The Consejo, bowing to necessity, ordered the 50 mules bought from the funds of the situado (Prado, 1654), but by the time the order arrived, the mule farm had shut down. Salazar was dead, an apparent victim of the midcentury yellow fever epidemics (Rebolledo, 1657). (Bushnell SS)