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Governor Moore's Attack on St. Augustine -
By the influence of Governor Moore, the Assembly of South Carolina were induced to authorize an expedition against St. Augustine, which they had been informed was not in a very defensible condition, and might readily be reduced. Many of the settlers in the province of Carolina had lost servants, who had fled to Florida and been harbored and protected by the Spanish authorities, and many others of the inhabitants, doubtless, were quite willing to procure labor by making an inroad upon the Spanish Indians and reducing them to a state of servitude. (1) A rupture had occurred between England and Spain, and Governor Moore, with the motive, as is charged by his enemies, of enriching himself, embraced the opportunity thus afforded of setting on foot an expedition against the Spaniards of Florida. Many of the inhabitants, with the recollection of former injuries sustained from the invasion of the Spaniards, seconded his plans, while others supported the proposal from mercenary motives. The governor assured the people that the conquest of Florida would be an easy undertaking, and that the capture of considerable treasures of gold and silver would reward the enterprise. Some, however, opposed the project, and directed attention to the known strength of the castle at St. Augustine, the great expense certain to be incurred, and the fruitless nature of the enterprise. As is usual in such cases, the bold outnumbered the prudent, and the Provincial Assembly sanctioned the expedition, and voted two thousand pounds for the purpose, a sum which, although it seems insignificant compared with the cost of modern contests, was no inconsiderable amount to be raised by a poor colony of some five or six thousand people burdened with the expenses of a new government. The force deemed sufficient to carry out this enterprise was placed at six hundred provincial militia, to be assisted by an equal number of friendly Indians. They were directed to rendezvous at Port Royal, in September, 1702. The plan of operations contemplated a march by land of one division, and an expedition by sea of the other, in order to effect a combined naval and land attack upon St. Augustine. The land forces were to proceed in boats by the inland passage to the St. John's River, and to ascend that river to the neighborhood of Picolata, whence they were to march across and invest the town in the rear. Colonel Daniel was assigned to the command of this portion of the expedition, the governor himself taking command of the naval force. In the mean time the Spaniards, learning of the proposed attack, had availed themselves of all the means of defense in their power; provisions were stored in the castle, and preparations were made to sustain a long siege. The governor, Don Joseph Cuniga, had moreover succeeded in procuring some reinforcements. The forces under command of Colonel Daniel, notwithstanding their circuitous route, reached St. Augustine in advance of the naval part of the expedition, and immediately attacked and gained possession of die town; the troops and inhabitants retiring to the protection of the castle. Governor Moore, with the vessels, soon after arrived, and invested the fortifications, but, on account of the want of siege-guns of larger caliber, no impression could be made upon the walls of the fort. Colonel Daniel was sent to Jamaica to procure heavier guns. While absent on this mission, two Spanish vessels appeared off the harbor. Alarmed by this circumstance, and fearing that his retreat might be cut off, Governor Moore hastily raised the siege, abandoning or destroying such of his stores and munitions as he was unable to remove. Before withdrawing, he committed the barbarity of burning the town. He was obliged to sacrifice his transports, fearing to encounter the Spanish vessels if he went to sea. Colonel Daniel returned shortly after, having succeeded in obtaining some mortars and heavy guns, and, being ignorant of the withdrawal of Governor Moore, narrowly escaped capture. Governor Moore carried the forces back to Carolina without the loss of a man. (2) The expedition cost the colony of South Carolina some six thousand pounds, and led to the issue of the first paper money ever circulated in America. In the same year the Spaniards had incited the Apalachian Indians to make an attack upon the English settlements in Carolina. The Apalachees had assembled a force of nine hundred warriors, and had commenced their march, when they were encountered by five hundred Creek Indians who were allies of the English and were organized by the Creek traders to repel the attack. The Creeks suspended their blankets in their camp, as though quietly reposing by their camp-fires, and placed themselves in ambush. The Apalachees, confident of an easy victory, rushed forward upon the supposed sleeping camp with great impetuosity, when they fell into the ambush prepared for them by the Creeks, and were routed with great loss. (3) Although unsuccessful in this attack on St. Augustine, Moore appears to have been a man of much energy, and had influence enough to organize another expedition in the latter part of the following year, to attack the Indian towns under the Spanish protection, which were scattered mainly through the region between the Suwanee and Apalachicola Rivers, in what is now known as Middle Florida. After being in the castle for three months, the inhabitants of St. Augustine were enabled, upon the retreat of Moore, to leave the close quarters in which they had been confined, but it was to find their homes destroyed and themselves without shelter until they could rebuild. Aid to some extent was sent from Spain to help them to rebuild, but the prosperity of the unfortunate city must have received a great blow. Urgent representations were made by Governor Cuniga to the home government of the necessity for an increased force and larger means to strengthen the colony against its English neighbors. He pointed out the propriety of placing small garrisons at Apalachee, (4) eighty leagues distant from St. Augustine, at Timuqua, (5) thirty leagues south, and at Guale, (6) eighteen leagues north from St. Augustine. He also proposed to build a strong fort at the town of Ys, (7) and on the coast below Cape Canaveral. (8) The Indians of Apalachee, who for sixty years had been laboring upon the fortifications of St. Augustine, as a punishment for their revolt in 1640, were now, at the solicitation of their chiefs, released under a promise to renew their labors when it should become necessary. Governor Moore, with a small force of militia, some fifty in number, and about one thousand Creek Indians, attacked the Spanish Indian towns with great impetuosity. Entering the province from the direction of the Flint River, he first attacked a town containing fifty warriors, which he reduced after a stout resistance. On the following day, the commander of the principal town. Fort San Luis, with a force of twenty- three Spaniards and four hundred Indians, encountered the English and Creek forces. Don Juan Mexia, the Spanish commander, was killed in the battle, with eight of the Spanish soldiers. The Apalachian Indians lost two hundred of their number. This battle decided the fate of all the Indian towns. The King of Atimiaca, who occupied a strong fort with a garrison of one hundred and thirty men, terrified by the defeat and death of Mexia, and by the terrible slaughter of the Indians on that occasion, offered his submission. Moore then visited all of the other Indian towns, without experiencing further resistance. Five of the towns were fortified, and it is probable th:it had Mexia met the English and Creeks behind his intrenchments he might have repelled their attack and rallied sufficient force to drive them from the province. Moore is said to have destroyed entirely two of the Indian towns, and to have carried away most of the people of seven others, to be held as slaves, leaving only one town undisturbed, which either by its strength or wealth was able to make terms with him. The towns of San Luis (9) and Ayavalla (10) were burnt, with their churches and forts. All of the towns were plundered and robbed of everything of value, including the church plate and the sacred vestments ; and desolation and ruin marked the track of the invaders. There is much discrepancy in the accounts of the strength of the Spanish forces. A note attached to a manuscript map found in the English State Paper Office says, '' On the 15th of January, 1703, was a battle fought between the Carolinians, commanded by Colonel Moore, and the Spaniards, commanded by Don Juan Mexia, wherein eight hundred Spaniards were killed, whereupon the whole country submitted, being destroyed. Fourteen hundred Apalachee Indians removed to the savana towns, under English government." (11) There seems to be also some discrepancy in the dates, some accounts giving the year 1703 and some 1704. Williams's account says that Mexia had a garrison of four hundred men ; if it is meant that he had a Spanish garrison of four hundred men, it is certainly an error, as there were at that time not more than forty or fifty Spanish soldiers in that part of the country, and it is not likely Mexia had more than half of these. The Indian missions in that part of the country were thoroughly broken up, and, it would seem, without excuse or provocation. The remains of these mission stations may be traced at several localities in Florida, and tradition has assigned to them far greater antiquity than they are really entitled to. A fort and chapel were erected together, and were surrounded with earthworks and ditches, with palisades sufficient to withstand an attack from Indians, the only enemies they were likely to require protection from. The outlines of these earthworks may be very distinctly traced at Lake City and elsewhere. It is a sad reflection that the humble chapels, where the worthy fathers were accustomed to assemble congregations of the dusky sons of the forest to be instructed in the knowledge of the true God, and the altars erected to his worship, should have been ruthlessly swept away by the arms of a nation professing itself to be Christian, and by a leader who claimed to be animated by peculiar zeal for the Christian faith, and that from the poor natives of Florida should be thus taken the light of eternal truth, glimmering feebly though it may have been, and that the altars thus thrown down were never more, so far as we know, restored. We have a striking evidence of the manner in which interest sways the conviction of right and wrong, when we read that "the governor received the thanks of the proprietors for his patriotism and courage, who acknowledged that the success of his arms had gained their province a reputation; "and the historian seems to utter a bitter sarcasm on the patriotism attributed by the proprietors to Governor Moore, when he adds, '' but, what was of greater consequence to him, he wiped off the ignominy of the St. Augustine expedition, and procured a number of Indian slaves, whom he employed to cultivate his fields or sold for his own profit and advantage. " (12) The war between Great Britain, France, and Spain still continued to be carried on in Europe, and in the year 1706 an expedition was projected by the French and Spanish to make a descent upon Carolina. Monsieur Le Febvre commanded a French frigate and four sloops, with which he touched at St. Augustine to take on board a Spanish land-force to co-operate in an attack upon Charleston. The Spanish troops having been taken on board, the fleet (13) proceeded to the coast of Carolina, where, by mistake, the frigate entered Sewee Bay, the other four entering Charleston harbor. By the exercise of great prudence and some stratagem, the governor of Carolina was enabled to repel the attack with but slight loss, and eventually captured the frigate with a large number of the allies. The defeat of the French-Spanish expedition was complete, and the attempt at molestation of the colony was not repeated. In 1708, Colonel Barnwell, of South Carolina, made an excursion to the Apalachian province of Florida, by way of the Flint River.(14) After visiting San Luis, and the region occupied by the mission towns, he passed on to the Alachua country and the St. John's River. It was perhaps at this period that Captain T. Nairn, of South Carolina, with a party of Yemassee Indians, penetrated to the headwaters of the St. John's, and the vicinity of Lake Okechobee, and and returned with a number of captives or slaves, as noted on a map of Moll's Atlas of 1719. The year 1714 was signalized by a general outbreak of the Indian tribes in Carolina. This was charged to the instigation of the Spaniards, who, it is said, sent emissaries from Florida to stir up the Indian tribes bordering upon the English settlements to attempt their extermination ; and, as evidence of the complicity of the Spaniards, it is said that the Indians, before commencing hostilities, removed their women and children to Florida, and placed them near to, and under the protection of, the Spanish garrisons. The Indians made a combined and powerful attack upon the English settlements, but were defeated and driven out of the province, retreating south to the Spanish possessions, and were welcomed at St. Augustine " with bells ringing and guns firing, as if they had returned victoriously from the field." (15) Above four hundred of the people of South Carolina lost their lives by this Indian outbreak before the Indians were overcome. In the mean time, considerable progress had been made in establishing French settlements on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Injudicious locations had been made at the outset for these settlements, which had to be afterwards abandoned and better positions sought, and the usual difficulties and obstacles attending new settlements had retarded the rapid progress of French colonization ; but, by the perseverance of those intrusted with the charge of the colonists, and the fostering care of the parent country, which supplied all their wants, even to the furnishing of their wives, the colonists succeeded in establishing themselves permanently, and were soon in a prosperous condition. The settlements at Mobile and Pensacola were in too close proximity to avoid jealousies and collisions, each charging the other with encroachments upon their territory. For a long period all the Spanish plate fleets which were sent from Mexico to Spain pursued the route known as the Bahama channel, passing near the shores of Florida. In 1715, one of these fleets, consisting of fourteen vessels laden with a very large amount of gold and silver, was wrecked on Carysfort reef, and an immense amount of treasure was lost. Much of this was afterwards recovered by the wreckers employed for that purpose, but the knowledge of this recovery coming to the English at Jamaica they sent an expedition to the point where the wreckers were engaged, and robbed them of the amount saved, which was upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The captors no doubt received great credit for this profitable exploit. The Yemassees, who had been driven out of Carolina into Florida, maintained a constant and harassing warfare upon the settlements in Carolina, committing great havoc among the scattered families along the frontiers. The . relation of the horrors of Indian warfare has ever drawn forth the sympathies of mankind. With a strange inconsistency, the most harrowing scenes of suffering occurring under our daily observation pass almost unnoticed, while the captivity and sufferings endured by some sturdy frontiersman or his family call forth all our sympathy and compassion. In every New England household the story of the sufferings of the Williams family, of the Dustans, and of Miss McCrea, excited the most tender emotions of pity. The history of the Southern colonies presents hundreds of such instances. It seems to be well established that the Spanish authorities in Florida instigated and protected these savage allies. A historian of Carolina relates that at this period a scalping-party of Yemassees from Florida penetrated as far as the Euhati lands, where, having surprised John Lent and two of his neighbors, they knocked out their brains with their tomahawks. They then seized Mrs. Barrows and one of her children, and carried them away with them. The child, frightened by the presence of the savages, began to cry, when it was immediately killed in its mother's presence, who was warned to cease her demonstrations of grief or she should share the fate of the child. She was then carried to St. Augustine, where she was delivered to the Spanish governor and thrown into prison, against the remonstrances of one of the Yemassee chiefs, who stated that he had known her a long time and that she was a good woman. The Spaniards, it is said, rejoiced with the Indians for the goodly number of scalps they had brought. Subsequently, Mr. Barrows went to St. Augustine to obtain his wife's release, but was thrown into prison, and died shortly afterwards. She, eventually, was permitted to return to Carolina, and gave an account of the barbarous treatment she had received. She reported that rewards were given to the Indians to incite them to these incursions, and that they were instructed to spare none but Negroes, who were to be brought to St. Augustine. (16) Don Juan de Ayala was at this time governor of East Florida, and Don Gregorio de Salinas governor of Pensacola. Salinas was succeeded in 1717 by Don Juan Pedro Metamoras. The increasing settlements of the French in Louisiana had already occasioned much uneasiness to the governor of Pensacola, and he had represented to the Viceroy in Mexico the importance of strengthening the fortifications of Pensacola. These representations were acted upon, and the requisite instructions given to Don Pedro, the new governor. At the instance of the chief of the Apalachee Indians, the governor of St. Augustine sent Captain Don Jose Primo de Ribera to erect a fort at St. Mark's, in March, 1718, which was named San Marcos de Apalache. During the same year a small fortification was erected at St. Joseph's Bay by the French, and called Fort Creveccsur, which seems to have been a favorite name with the French, although the heart of a Frenchman is not so easily broken as the name would seem to imply. The Spanish governor at Pensacola remonstrated against this occupation of the territory of Spain, and in a few months the fort was evacuated by the French. A Spanish fort was erected at the same place, but afterwards abandoned. Don Antonio de Benavides was appointed to succeed Juan de Ayala as governor at St. Augustine. Monsieur de Bienville, the French commander at Mobile, upon being informed that hostilities existed between France and Spain, fitted out an expedition against Pensacola, and, having sent a large force of Indians by land, embarked with his troops, on board of three vessels, to make a sudden descent, in the hope of capturing the fort by surprise. He landed upon the island of Santa Rosa, where an outpost was situated, the garrison of which he soon overpowered, and some of the French, putting on the Spanish uniform of their captives, awaited the arrival of a detachment sent down to relieve the post, and captured and disarmed them. Taking the boat the Spaniards had brought, the French, still disguised, passed over to the fort, seized the sentinel on duty, and took possession of the guard-house and fort, making the commander a prisoner in his bed, and thus capturing the place without firing a shot. Such is the French account of the matter. The Spanish authorities confirm the statement of the surprise at the outpost at Point Siguenza, which was occupied by an officer and ten men only, but say that the fort was assaulted by four French frigates, which opened fire upon the Castle de San Carlos, and, after five hours of cannonading, the castle, being unable to reply effectively, and having only a garrison of one hundred and sixty effective men and provisions for fifteen days, and having sustained the loss of one man, agreed to capitulate, upon the following terms offered by Governor Metamoras : That the garrison should march out with the honors of war, and retain all private property ; that they should retain one cannon, with three charges of powder; that the should be transported in French vessels to Havana ; and that the town should not be sacked, nor private property molested. (17) The garrison was taken by two French vessels to Havana, where, by the perfidy of the Spanish commander at that place, the vessels were seized and their officers and crews cast into prison. An expedition for its recapture was immediately equipped, at the suggestion of Governor Metamoras. The fort at Pensacola had been garrisoned by De Bienville with a force of some sixty men, under the command of Sieur de Chateaugue. The Spaniards had fitted up the French vessel called the Due de Noailles, and a. Spanish frigate, to retake the fort; and a ruse was adopted by sending in the French ship first, which, on being hailed, ran up the French flag and gave the name of the French captain who had commanded her, and was thereupon allowed to pass into the port. When abreast of the fort, she was joined by her consort, the flag of Spain was displayed, and the garrison summoned to surrender. A brisk cannonade ensued, with but trifling damage to the garrison. In order to gain time, Chateaugue asked for an armistice of four days. The Spanish admiral allowed him two days, and Chateaugue dispatched a messenger to Mobile asking for reinforcements, which De Bienville was unable to send. At the expiration of the armistice, the action was renewed until night, during which most of the garrison deserted, and on the following day the French commander surrendered the fort. (18) The Spanish account of the recapture of the fort places their own force at eight hundred and fifty men and that of the garrison at three hundred and fifty, and says the armistice was for but one day, when the fort surrendered, as well as the vessels lying in the harbor. So difficult is it ever to find an exact agreement in reference to the most simple transactions. The French who were captured were sent to Havana as prisoners of war. The Spanish general proceeded immediately to strengthen the fortifications, and, having sufficiently secured his post from assault, he set out, with the forces under his command, to attack the French settlement on Dauphin Island. Owing to the skill and courage of Bienville, the Spaniards, although superior in point of numbers, were unable to effect a landing, and were forced, by the arrival of five French vessels, to retire to Pensacola. The French, now strongly reinforced, determined to attempt the recapture of Pensacola, and returned there in September, 1719. A force was landed on the Perdido, to assail the town in the rear, and the fleet proceeded to the bar. A difficulty here presented itself in carrying in the flagship, the Hercules, which drew twenty-one feet of water ; but, by the skill of a Canadian pilot, the ship was carried safely in. (19) The French say that upon the appearance of their land forces, accompanied by a large number of Indians, in rear of the fort, the garrison, after a very feeble resistance, retired to a new fort, which they had hastily erected at Point Siguenza, called Principe de Asiurias. The Spanish accounts, however, contend that their troops fought with most heroic bravery until their guns were dismounted at Point Siguenza and their vessels forced to surrender, and that, the French vessels having then entered the port, the castle was forced to surrender, which took place on the i8th of September, 1719. The French accounts of the capture award great credit to the commander at Fort Principe de Asturias for his gallant defense, which was continued until his ammunition failed, while it is said the commander at Fort San Carlos displayed great cowardice. On the following day a Spanish vessel entered the port with supplies and dispatches from the governor of Havana to the governor at Pensacola, the dispatches saying that he was confident the Spanish forces had succeeded in conquering all the places held by the French in that country, and directing him to send all the prisoners to work in the mines, in order to avoid the expense of feeding them. The French, feeling unable to afford the amount of force necessary to hold the place, concluded to destroy the fortifications and public buildings and burn the town, leaving only a few small buildings to shelter a guard who were left in charge of one small battery. Before leaving, the French commander caused the following inscription to be placed upon a tablet erected on the ruins of the fort: ''In the year 1719, upon the 18th day of September, Monsieur Desnade de Champmeslin, commander of the squadron of his Most Christian Majesty, took this place by force of arms, as well also the island of Santa Rosa, by order of the King of France." Returning first to Dauphin Island, the French fleet sailed for France, carrying with them the Spanish garrison of Pensacola as prisoners of war. Thus, after having been thrice assaulted and thrice captured within a period of three months, Pensacola was laid in ashes, and the quiet of desolation allowed to rest over its remains; for there was no longer anything to capture or anything to defend. The town first built by the Spaniards in 1696, and which was thus destroyed in 1719, was built where Fort Barrancas now stands, the fort being placed in the centre. On the opposite point, called Point Siguenza, Fort Principe de Asturias had stood, and was destroyed at the same time as Fort Carlos. When reoccupied in 1722 by the Spaniards, the town was rebuilt on Santa Rosa Island, near where Fort Pickens now stands. This location continued to be occupied until some time between 1743 and 1763, the inhabitants having begun to plant upon the northern side of the bay, and the location upon the island being peculiarly sterile and sandy, the settlement was gradually transferred, so that in 1763 it was laid out in the form of a city, the streets crossing at right angles, making squares four hundred by two hundred feet, with a large common fronting on the bay, about fifteen hundred feet in length by one thousand in breadth.( The present city of Pensacola may be considered to date back its existence to about the year 1750, being nearly two hundred years the junior in age of St. Augustine. After the treaty of peace made in 1722 between France (20) An engraved view of the town as it appeared in 1743 may be seen in Roberts's Florida, London, 1743. Spain, Pensacola was restored to the Spanish crown and a new town built on Santa Rosa Island, as has just been stated. The difficulties between the neighboring provinces of Florida and Carolina had increased. The Spanish authorities at St. Augustine for many years harbored as well as encouraged the desertion of the Negroes from the English settlements, against the continual and earnest remonstrances of the authorities of Carolina. The Spanish governors or officials had connived at, if not actually incited, the plundering incursions of the Yemassees upon the exposed frontiers of the English colony. To guard against these forays, a small fort had been erected on the banks of the Altamaha, called Fort King George. This was considered by the Spaniards an encroachment upon the Spanish territory, and representations were accordingly made to the British crown. A conference of the two governors was thereupon directed to be held, to endeavor to settle amicably the points in dispute between the two provinces. For this purpose Don Francisco Menendez and Don Jose Ribera came to Charleston, in 1725, to confer with Governor Middleton. In reply to their claim that the fort on the Altamaha was within the limits of Florida, Governor Middleton appealed to the chartered limits of Carolina in confirmation of the English claim to that region. This was, of course, no evidence of that claim; but as the Spanish governor could show no actual prior occupation since the days of Menendez, he could hardly gainsay the English claim. On the other hand. Governor Middleton demanded an explanation of the course pursued by the Spanish authorities at St. Augustine in enticing away slaves from the English colonists and offering refuge and protection to criminals and debtors, and refusing to surrender these fugitives. The Spanish commissioners expressed their willingness to surrender the criminals and debtors, but said they were instructed by the Spanish crown not to surrender the fugitive slaves, on account of the great concern their king and master had for their souls, but that compensation would be made to their owners for their value. As might be inferred, no agreement was come to, and these irritating difficulties remained unsettled. The incursions of the Yemassees became afterwards more frequent and injurious to the colonists. Murders were frequent, and every negro that could be reached was carried off. To put a stop to this state of things. Colonel Palmer, an energetic officer, in the year 1727 collected a militia force of some three hundred men, with a body of friendly Indians, made a rapid and unexpected descent upon the Indian and Spanish settlements in Florida, and carried desolation and destruction over the whole province, pushing forward to the very gates of St. Augustine, sparing nothing which was destructible, and driving off all the stock which fell in their way. The Yemassee towns were destroyed, many of the natives killed, and a great number carried off prisoners.(21 This chastisement seems to have repressed further incursions on the part of the Spanish Indians for a time, and a few years of comparative quiet ensued.
(1) The failure of the expedition caused so much controversy between the friends and enemies of Governor Moore that it is not easy to find an impartial account of it by contemporaneous writers. (2) Carroll's Hist. Col. S. C, vol. ii. ; Fairbanks's Hist. St Augustine, (3) MS. Report of Com. S. C. Assembly. St. Papers. (4) St. Mark's. (5) New Smyrna, (6) Melia Island. (7 Indian River. (8 Ensayo Cronologico, p. 322. (9 San Luis was two miles west of Tallahassee. (10) Ayavalla was near the St. Mark's River (11) I am indebted to Professor Rivers, of Columbia, S. C, for a copy of the manuscript map procured by him from the State Paper Office in England It appears to be one of the original manuscript maps from which the map of Florida in Molls' Atlas was compiled. - {Author.) (12) The Atimacian and Apalachian Indians, before Governor Moore's attack, had made some progress in civilization, and received instruction from the Roman Catholic missionaries, being very loyal to the Spanish government. Hewitt, in Carroll's Hist. Col., 203; Ibid,, p. 140. (13) Hewitt, in Carroll's Hist. Col. S. C, p. 140. (14) O on the MS. map before referred to, there is a note saying that the Apalachian region of Florida was destroyed hy Carolinians in 1706. (15 Hewitt, Hist. Col. S. C, vol. i. p. 199. (16 Hewitt, Hist. Coll. S. C, vol. i. p. 213. (17 The Spanish account seems far more to be relied upon than that of the French. It is hardly credible that a force which could be transported in a single guard-boat could surprise a well-equipped fort and garrison and capture the governor in his bed, and, as the frigates were there, it is more probable that a bombardment effected the surrender. (18) The Spanish soldiers were much discontented at not being permitted to plunder the town, and, in order to gratify them, a detachment was sent by water to an Indian town not far distant, where a large number of slaves belonging to the French Company were, and one hundred and sixty of them were captured and given to the troops as plunder. - Ensayo Cronologico, p. 234, (19) The pilot was afterwards rewarded for this service with a patent of nobility. (20) One of these Yemassee towns, called Macariz, was about one mile north of St. Augustine. Table of Contents |
