The Spaniards in Florida

"I listed seventy men, all in Highland dress, and marched to the siege, and was ordered to scout nigh St. Augustine and molest the enemy, while the general and the rest of his little army went to an island where we could have no succor of them. I punctually obeyed my orders, until seven hundred Spaniards sallied out from the garrison, an hour before daylight. They did not surprise us, for we were all under arms, ready to receive them, which we did briskly, keeping a constant firing for a quarter of an hour, when they prest on with numbers; was obliged to take our swords until the most of us were shot and cut to pieces. You are to observe we had but eighty men; and the engagement was in view of the rest of our army, but they could not come to our assistance, by being in the foresaid island, under the enemy's guns. They had twenty prisoners, a few got off, the rest killed; as we were well informed by some of themselves, they had three hundred killed on the spot,29 besides several wounded. We were all stripped naked of clothes, brought to St. Augustine, where we remained three months in close confinement."30

This officer was Capt. John McIntosh; and his son, Brig. Gen. McIntosh, then a youth of fourteen, was present in the engagement, and escaped without injury. The family of the McIntoshes have always been conspicuous in the history of Georgia.

The large number of persons collected within the walls of the castle, and under the protection of its battlements, soon gave rise to serious apprehensions on the part of the besieged, of being reduced by starvation to the necessity of a speedy surrender. The batteries of Oglethorpe were planted at so great a distance that he could produce but little effect by his shot or shells upon the castle, although he rendered the city itself untenable. The heat of the season and the exposure, to which the Provincial militia were unaccustomed, soon produced considerable sickness and discouragement in the invading force, and affected Oglethorpe himself.

The Spanish governor sent most urgent messages to the governor of the island of Cuba, which were transmitted by runners along the coast, and thence by small vessels across to Havana. In one of these letters he says, "My greatest anxiety is for provisions; and if they do not come, there is no doubt of our dying by the hands of hunger." In another, he says, "I assure your Lordship, that it is impossible to express the confusion of the place; for we have no protection except the fort, and all the rest is open field. The families have abandoned their houses, and come to put themselves under the guns, which is pitiable; though nothing gives me anxiety but the want of provisions; and if your Lordship for want of competent force cannot send relief, we all must perish."31

With the exception of the Fort Moosa affair, the hostilities were confined to the exchange of shots between the castle and the batteries. Considerable discrepancy exists between the Spanish and English accounts, as to the period when the garrison was relieved: it was the communication of the fact of relief having been received, which formed the ostensible ground of abandoning the siege by Oglethorpe; but the Spanish governor asserts that these provision vessels did not arrive until the siege was raised. The real fact, I am inclined to think, is that the provision vessels arrived at Mosquito, a harbor sixty miles below, where they were to await orders from Gov. Monteano, as to the mode of getting discharged,32 and that the information of their arrival, being known at St. Augustine, was communicated to the English, and thus induced their raising the siege; in fact, the hope of starving out the garrison was the only hope left to Oglethorpe; his strength was insufficient for an assault, and his means inadequate to reduce the castle, which was well manned and well provided with means of defense.

It was in truth a hopeless task, under the circumstances, for Oglethorpe to persevere; and it is no impeachment of his courage or his generalship, that he was unable to take a fortress of really very respectable strength.

The siege continued from the 13th June to the 20th July, a period of thirty-eight days. The bombardment was kept up twenty days, but owing to the lightness of the guns and the long range, but little effect was produced on the strong walls of the castle. Its spongy, infrangible walls received the balls from the batteries like a cotton bale, or sand battery, almost without making an impression; this may be seen on examination, since the marks remain to this day, as they were left at the end of the siege, one hundred and seventeen years ago.

The prosecution of the siege having become impracticable, preparations were made for retiring; and Oglethorpe, as a pardonable and characteristic protest against the assumption of his acting from any coercion, with drums beating and banners displayed, crossed over to the main land, and marched in full view of the castle, to his encampment three miles distant, situated probably at the point now known as Pass Navarro.

Great credit and respect have been deservedly awarded to Governor Monteano, for the courage, skill, and perseverance with which he sustained the siege.

It is well known that the English general had, in a few months, an ample opportunity of showing to his opponent that his skill in defending his own territory under the most disadvantageous circumstances, was equal to that of the accomplished Monteano himself. The defense of Frederica, and signal defeat of the Spanish forces at Fort Simons, will ever challenge for Oglethorpe the highest credit for the most sterling qualities of a good general and a great man.

Two years subsequently, Oglethorpe again advanced into Florida, appeared before the gates of St. Augustine, and endeavored to induce the garrison to march out to meet him; but they kept within their walls, and Oglethorpe in one of his despatches says, in the irritation caused by their prudence, "that they were so meek there was no provoking them." As in this incursion he had no object in view but a devastation of the country, and harrassing the enemy, he shortly withdrew his forces.

A committee of the South Carolina House of Commons, in a report upon the Oglethorpe expedition, thus speaks of St. Augustine, evidently smarting under the disappointment of their recent defeat.

"July 1st, 1741."

"St. Augustine, in the possession of the crown of Spain, is well known to be situated but little distance from hence, in latitude thirty degrees, in Florida, the next territory to us. It is maintained by his Catholic Majesty, partly to preserve his claim to Florida, and partly that it may be of service to the plate-fleets when coming through the gulf, by showing lights to them along the coast, and by being ready to give assistance when any of them are cast away there-about. The castle, by the largest account, doth not cover more than one acre of ground, but is allowed on all hands to be a place of great strength, and hath been usually garrisoned with about three or four hundred men of the King's regular troops. The town is not very large, and but indifferently fortified. The inhabitants, many of which are mulattoes of savage dispositions, are all in the king's pay; also being registered from their birth, and a severe penalty laid on any master of a vessel that shall attempt to carry any of them off. These are formed into a militia, and have been generally computed to be near about the same number as the regular troops. Thus relying wholly on the king's pay for their subsistence, their thoughts never turned to trade or even agriculture, but depending on foreign supplies for the most common necessaries of life, they spent their time in universal, perpetual idleness. From such a state, mischievous inclinations naturally spring up in such a people; and having leisure and opportunity, ever since they had a neighbor the fruits of whose industry excited their desires and envy, they have not failed to carry those inclinations into action as often as they could, without the least regard to peace or war subsisting between the two crowns of Great Britain and Spain, or to stipulations agreed upon between the two governments."33

Among the principal grievances set forth in this report, was the carrying off and enticing and harboring their slaves, of which a number of instances are enumerated; and they attributed the negro insurrection which occurred in South Carolina, in 1739, to the connivance and agency of the Spanish authorities at St. Augustine; and they proceed in a climax of indignation to hurl their denunciation at the supposed authors of their misfortunes, in the following terms: "With indignation we looked at St. Augustine (like another Sallee!) That den of thieves and ruffians! receptacle of debtors, servants and slaves! bane of industry and society! and revolved in our minds all the injuries this province had received from thence, ever since its first settlement. That they had from first to last, in times of profoundest peace, both publickly and privately, by themselves, Indians, and Negroes, in every shape molested us, not without some instances of uncommon cruelty."34

It is very certain there was on each side, enough supposed causes of provocation to induce a far from amiable state of feeling between these neighboring colonies.

CHAPTER XV.

COMPLETION OF THE CASTLE – DESCRIPTIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE A CENTURY AGO – ENGLISH OCCUPATION OF FLORIDA. 1755 – 1763 – 1788

Don Alonzo Fernandez de Herrera was appointed governor of Florida in 1755, and completed the exterior works and finish of the fort. It is this governor who erected the tablet over its main entrance, with the Spanish coat of arms sculptured in alto relievo, with the following inscription beneath: —

REYNANDO EN ESPANA EL SENRDON FERNANDO SEXTO Y SIENDOGOVOR Y CAPN DE ESA CD SAN AUGN DELA FLORIDA Y SUS PROVA. EL MARISCALDE CAMPO DN ALONZO FERNDO HEREDAASI CONCLUIO ESTE CASTILLO EL ANOD 1756 DIRIGENDO LAS OBRAS ELCAP. INGNRO DN PEDRO DE BROZASY GARAY

Don Ferdinand the Sixth, being king of Spain, and the Field Marshal, Don Alonzo Fernando Hereda, being Governor and Captain General of this place, St. Augustine, of Florida, and its province. This fort was finished in the year 1756. The works were directed by the Captain Engineer, Don Pedro de Brazos y Garay.

I am not sure but that the boastful governor might with equal propriety and truth have put a similar inscription at the city gate, claiming the town also as a finished city.

The first fort erected was called San Juan de Pinos, and probably the same name attached to the present fort at the commencement of its erection; when it acquired the name of St. Mark, I have not discovered. The Apalachian Indians were employed upon it for more than sixty years, and to their efforts are probably due the evidences of immense labor in the construction of the ditch, the ramparts and glacis, and the approaches; while the huge mass of stone contained in its solid walls, must have required the labor of hundreds of persons for many long years, in procuring and cutting the stone in the quarries on the island, transporting it to the water, and across the bay, and fashioning and raising them to their places. Besides the Indians employed, some labor was constantly bestowed by the garrison; and, for a considerable period, convicts were brought hither from Mexico to carry on the public works. During the works of extension and repair effected by Monteano, previous to the siege by Oglethorpe, he employed upon it one hundred and forty of these Mexican convicts. The southwestern bastion is said to have been completed by Monteano. The bastions bore the names respectively of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. James, &c.

The whole work remains now as it was in 1756, with the exception of the water battery, which was reconstructed by the government of the United States in 1842-3. The complement of its guns is one hundred, and its full garrison establishment requires one thousand men. It is built upon the plan of Vauban, and is considered by military men as a very creditable work; its strength and efficiency have been well tested in the old times; for it has never been taken, although twice besieged, and several times attacked. Its frowning battlements and sepulchral vaults will long stand after we and those of our day shall be numbered with that long past, of which it is itself a memorial; of its legends connected with the dark chambers and prison vaults, the chains, the instruments of torture, the skeletons walled in, its closed and hidden recesses – of Coacouchee's escape, and many another tale, there is much to say; but it is better said within its grim walls, where the eye and the imagination can go together, in weaving a web of mystery and awe over its sad associations, to the music of the grating bolt, the echoing tread, and the clanking chain.

Of the city itself, we have the following description in 1754: —

"It is built on a little bay, at the foot of a hill shaded by trees, and forms an oblong square, divided into four streets, and has two full streets, which cut each other at right angles. The houses are well built, and regular. They have only one church, which is called after the city. St. John's Fort, standing about a mile north of it, is a strong, irregular fortification, well mounted with cannon, and capable of making a long defense."

I am inclined to think that the mile between the fort and the city, and the hill at the foot of which, he says, the city was built, existed only in the focus of the writer's spectacles.

The Provinces of Florida were ceded by treaty to England in the year 1763, and the Spanish inhabitants very generally left the country, which had then been under Spanish rule for near two hundred years; and certainly in no portion of this country had less progress been made. Beyond the walls occupied by its garrison, little had been attempted or accomplished in these two hundred years. This was in part, perhaps, attributable to the circumstances of the country – the frequent hostility of the Indians, and the want of that mutual support given by neighborhoods, which in Florida are less practicable than elsewhere; but it was still more owing to the character of the Spanish inhabitants, who were more soldiers than civilians, and more townsmen than agriculturists; at all events, at the cession of Florida to Great Britain, the number of inhabitants was not over five thousand.

Of the period of the English occupation of Florida, we have very full accounts. It was a primary object with the British government, to colonize and settle it; and inducements to emigrants were strongly put forth, in various publications. The work of Roberts was the first of these, and was followed in a few years by those of Bartram, Stork, and Romans. The works of both Roberts and Stork, contain plans and minute descriptions of St. Augustine. The plan of the town in Stork, represents every building, lot, garden, and flower-bed in the place, and gives a very accurate view of its general appearance.

The descriptions vary somewhat. Roberts, who published his work the year of the cession, 1763, shows in connection with his plan of the town, an Indian village on the point south of the city, at the powder-house, and another just north of the city. The one to the north has a church. A negro fort is shown about a mile to the northward. Oglethorpe's landing place is shown on Anastasia Island, and a small fort on the main land south of the city. The depth of water on the bar is marked as being at low water, eight feet.

Roberts describes the city as "running along the shore at the foot of a pleasant hill, adorned with trees; its form is oblong, divided by four regular streets, crossing each other at right angles; down by the sea side, about three-fourths of a mile south of the town, standeth the church, and a monastery of St. Augustine. The best built part of the town is on the north side, leading to the castle, which is called St. John's Fort. It is a square building of soft stone, fortified with whole bastions, having a rampart of twenty feet high, with a parapet nine feet high, and it is casemated. The town is fortified with bastions, and with cannon. On the north and south, without the walls of the city, are the Indian towns."

The next plan we have, is in the work by Dr. Stork, the third edition of which was published in 1769. He gives a beautiful plan of the place. Shows the fort as it now exists, with its various outworks; three churches are designated, one on the public square at its southwest corner; another on St. George street, on the lot on the west side, south of Green lane, and a Dutch church near where the Roman Catholic cemetery now exists. From the size of the plan, it does not embrace the Indian village. The present United States Court-house was the governor's official residence, and is represented as having attached to it a beautiful garden. The Franciscan house or convent is shown where the barracks are now, but different in the form of the buildings. With the exception of the disappearance of a part of one street then existing, there appears very little change from the present plan of the town and buildings.

He describes the fort as being finished "according to the modern taste of military architecture," and as making a very handsome appearance, and "that it might justly be deemed the prettiest fort in the king's dominion." He omits the pleasant hill from his description, and says "the town is situated near the glacis of the fort; the streets are regularly laid out, and built narrow for the purposes of shade. It is above half a mile in length, regularly fortified with bastions, half-bastions, and a ditch; that it had also several rows of the Spanish bayonet along the ditch, which formed so close a chevaux de frize, with their pointed leaves, as to be impenetrable; the southern bastions were built of stone. In the middle of the town is a spacious square, called the parade, open towards the harbor; at the bottom of the square is the governor's house, the apartments of which are spacious and suitable; suited to the climate, with high windows, a balcony in front, and galleries on both sides; to the back of the house is joined a tower, called in America a look-out, from which there is an extensive prospect towards the sea, as well as inland. There are two churches within the walls of the town, the parish church, a plain building, and another belonging to the convent of Franciscan Friars, which is converted into barracks for the garrison. The houses are built of free-stone, commonly two stories high, two rooms upon a floor, with large windows and balconies; before the entry of most of the houses, runs a portico of stone arches. The roofs are commonly flat. The Spaniards consulted convenience more than taste in their buildings. The number of houses within the town and lines, when the Spaniards left it, was about nine hundred; many of them, especially in the suburbs, being built of wood, are now gone to decay. The inhabitants were of all colors, whites, negroes, mulattoes, Indians, &c. At the evacuation of St. Augustine, the population was five thousand seven hundred, including the garrison of two thousand five hundred men. Half a mile from the town to the west, is a line with a broad ditch and bastions, running from the St. Sebastian creek to St. Marks river. A mile further is another fortified line with some redoubts, forming a second communication between a stoccata fort upon St. Sebastian river, and Fort Moosa, upon St. Marks river.

"Within the first line near the town, was a small settlement of Germans, who had a church of their own. Upon the St. Marks river, within the second line, was also an Indian town, with a church built of freestone; what is very remarkable, it is in good taste, though built by the Indians."

The two lines of defense here spoken of, may still be traced. The nearest one is less than one-fourth of a mile from the city gate, and the other at the well-known place called the stockades, the stakes driven to form which, still distinctly mark the place; and the ditch and embankment can be traced for a considerable distance through the grounds attached to my residence.

A letter-writer, who dates at St. Augustine, May, 1774, says, "This town is now truly become a heap of ruins, a fit receptacle for the wretches of inhabitants." (Rather a dyspeptic description, in all probability.)

A bridge was built across the Sebastian river by the English, "but the great depth of the water, joined to the instability of the bottom, did not suffer it to remain long, and a ferry is now established in its room; the keeper of the ferry has fifty pounds per annum allowed him, and the inhabitants pay nothing for crossing, except after dark."

The English constructed large buildings for barracks, characterised by Romans "as such stupendous piles of buildings, which were large enough to contain five regiments, when it is a matter of great doubt whether there will ever be a necessity to keep one whole regiment here. The material for this great barracks was brought from New York, and far inferior to those found on the spot; yet the freight alone amounted to more than their value when landed. It makes us almost believe," says the elaborate Romans, "that all this show is in vain, or at most, that the English were so much in dread of musquitoes, that they thought a large army requisite to drive off these formidable foes. To be serious," says he, "this fort and barracks add not a little to the beauty of the prospect; but most men would think that the money spent on this useless parade, would have been better laid out on roads and fences through the province; or, if it must be in forts, why not at Pensacola?"

There is a manuscript work of John Gerard Williams de Brahm, existing in the library of Harvard University, which contains some particulars of interest, relative to Florida at the period of the English occupation.

He states the number of inhabitants of East Florida, which in those days meant mostly St. Augustine, from 1663 to 1771, as follows: householders, besides women, &c., two hundred and eighty-eight; imported by Mr. Turnbull from Minorca, &c., one thousand four hundred; negroes, upwards of nine hundred. Of these, white heads of families, one hundred and forty-four were married, which is just one-half; thirty-one are storekeepers and traders; three haberdashers, fifteen innkeepers, forty-five artificers and mechanics, one hundred and ten planters, four hunters, six cow-keepers, eleven overseers, twelve draftsmen in employ of government, besides mathematicians; fifty-eight had left the province; twenty-eight dead, of whom four were killed acting as constables, two hanged for pirating. Among the names of those then residing in East Florida are mentioned Sir Charles Burdett, William Drayton, Esq., planter, Chief Justice; Rev. John Forbes, parson, Judge of Admiralty and Councillor; Rev. N. Fraser, parson at Musquito; Governor James Grant, Hon. John Moultrie, planter and lieutenant Governor; William Stork, Esq., historian; Andrew Turnbull, Esq., H. M. Counselor; Bernard Romans, draftsman, &c.; William Bartram, planter; James Moultrie, Esq.

He says, The light house on Anastasia Island had been constructed and built of mason-work by the Spaniards; and, in 1769, by order of General Haldimand, it was raised sixty feet higher in carpenter's work, had a cannon planted on the top, which is fired the very moment the flag is hoisted, for a signal to the town and pilots that a vessel is off. The light house has two flag-staffs, one to the south and one to the north; on either of which the flag is hoisted, viz., to the south if the vessel comes from thence, and the north if the vessel comes that way.

"The town is situated in a healthy zone, is surrounded with salt water marshes, not at all prejudicial to health; their evaporations are swept away in the day time by the easterly winds, and in the night season by the westerly winds trading back to the eastward. At the time when the Spaniards left the town, all the gardens were well stocked with fruit trees, viz., figs, guavas, plantain, pomegranates, lemons, limes, citrons, shadock, bergamot, China and Seville oranges, the latter full of fruit throughout the whole winter season; and the pot-herbs, though suspended in their vegetation, were seldom destroyed by cold. The town is three-quarters of a mile in length, but not quite a quarter wide; had four churches ornamently built with stone in the Spanish taste, of which one within and one without the town still exist. One is pulled down; that is the German church, but the steeple is preserved as an ornament to the town; and the other, viz., the convent church and convent in town is taken in the body of the barracks. All houses are built of masonry; their entrances are shaded by piazzas, supported by Tuscan pillars or pilasters, against the south sun. The houses have to the east windows projecting sixteen or eighteen inches into the street, very wide, and proportionally high. On the west side, their windows are commonly very small, and no opening of any kind to the north, on which side they have double walls six or eight feet asunder, forming a kind of gallery, which answers for cellars and pantries. Before most of the entrances were arbors of vines, producing plenty and very good grapes. No house has any chimney for a fire place; the Spaniards made use of stone urns, filled them with coals left in their kitchens in the afternoon, and set them at sunset in their bed-rooms, to defend themselves against those winter seasons, which required such care. The governor's residence has both sides piazzas, viz., a double one to the south, and a single one to the north; also a Belvidere and a grand portico decorated with Doric pillars and entablatures. On the north end of the town is a casemated fort, with four bastions, a ravelin, counterscarp, and a glacis built with quarried shell-stones, and constructed according to the rudiments of Marechal de Vauban. This fort commands the road of the bay, the town, its environs, and both Tolomako stream and Mantanzas creek. The soil in the gardens and environs of the town is chiefly sandy and marshy. The Spaniards seem to have had a notion of manuring their land with shells one foot deep.