None of the sanctuaries should have had to be refurnished after the Moore invasion, for the sacred furnishings had spent the siege in the safety of the Castillo. Many of these items were gifts from the king-in a sense, royal alms to the soldiers, who could never have furnished the presidio's parish church "with decency" without royal aid. Although treasury officials Thomas Menendez Marquez and Joachin de Florencia were unable to lay hands on any written authorization, they said in 1693 that it had been their predecessors' practice "from primitive times" to send to New Spain for whatever vestments, vessels, monstrances, and missals the parish priest said he needed, turn them over to the church sacristan, and charge them to His Majesty' s account, as they did for the chapel in the fort (Menendez Marquez and Florencia, 1693). (Bushnell SS)