USA > Florida > Historical sketches of colonial Florida > Part 3
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COLONIAL FLORIDA.
CHAPTER VI.
Sketch of Island Town-Its Destruction-The Third Pen- sacola-The Cession of Florida by Spain to Great Brit- ain-Appearance of Town in 1763-Captain Wills' Re- port-Catholic Church.
Ox February 17, 1720, five months after the destruction of Pensacola, a treaty of peace be- tween France and Spain was signed. But it was not until early in January, 1723, that Bienville, under orders from the French govern- ment, formally restored Pensacola to the Span- iards, or rather its site and surroundings.
Of the first settlement of the Island town there exists no account, but it is probable it began immediately after the destruction of the Pensacola of Arriola. Its origin may be ac- counted for by the natural precaution of Gover- nor Metamoras upon his recapture ofthat place and preparation for a struggle with the French, to remove the non-combatants to a place of
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safety, or rather the safest in the vicinity, and there was none possessing such great ad- vantages as Santa Rosa island. It was a narrow, uninhabited strip of land, separated from the main land in its western portion by three miles of water, rendering a settlement there comparatively free from the danger of sur- prise by the Indians. The deepest water for landing on the bay-side, and a supply of fresh water obtainable by digging wells, would naturally determine the location of the settle- ment; and these conditions were met by a place about two miles from the western point of the island, not far from the present bay- wharf of the life-saving station.
The progress the settlement made in the course of a quarter of a century is presented by the annexed engraving, which is taken from a sketch made in 1743. The artist, Don Serres, who was a resident during that year, came there in the service of the Havana Company in a schooner with a cargo for the town.
He paid New Orleans a visit, and did some profitable trading there with six thousand dollars which he had at his command. He also
1
ERRES. 6-A Bungo.
L
LE
הד דד
A NORTH VIEW OF PENSACOLA ON THE ISLAND OF SANTA ROSA .- DRAWN BY DOM SERRES.
1-The Fort. 2-The Church. 3-The Govenor's House. 4-The Commandant's House.
5-A Well. 6-A Bungo.
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secured a quantity of pitch and turpentine for his Company, as well as two pine spars, each eighty-four feet long, which he sent to Havana in the schooner. This was the beginning of the timber trade of Pensacola, its first. known business transaction with New Orleans, and the last authenticated instance of one of its timber dealers engaging in the elegant pastime of sketching.
In vain has information been sought of its progress during the period between the time Don Serres made the sketch and 1754, which embraced the last eleven years of its existence, for in that year it was destroyed, together with many of its people, by a terrific hurricane. And thus it was that, as the Pensacola of Arriola perished in the conflict of human pas- sions, its offspring was destroyed in a war of the elements.
The survivors, removing to the north shore of the Bay, settled upon a crescent-shaped body of dry land, about the eighth of a mile wide in its widest part, formed by the Bay and a titi swamp, which, extending from the mouth of an estuary on the west, curved landward to a
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marsh just below the outlet of another on the east. These estuaries, though seemingly the outlets of two, were in fact those of one and the same stream flowing through the swamp, and navigable by canoes for some distance from the bay. The bay-shore also curved deeply, the indentation being in fact the remnant of a cove, which, as old maps show, extended to and be- yond the northern edge of the swamp.
That settlement was but a removal of Pensa- cola to its present site, like that by which it was removed to the island. Each settlement, in its order of time, like d'Arriola's town, being a continuation of the Pensacola founded by de Luna in 1559, four years before Menendez founded St. Augustine.
Of the history of the present Pensacola, be- yond its bare existence, from 1754 to 1763, we have no information further than that its in- significance shielded it from the trials and suffer- ings of the seven years war ended by the treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763.
By that treaty Florida became a British colony. On July 6 of that year Captain Wills, in command of the third battery of Royal
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Artillery, then at Havana, forming a part of the British force which had captured the city during the late war, was ordered by General Keppel to proceed with his command to Pensa- cola for the purpose of taking possession of the place. Arriving there on the seventh of August, Captain Wills having presented the order of the king of Spain to the Spanish commander for the surrender of the post, it was promptly obeyed.
It was the duty of Spain under the treaty to remove her troops from Pensacola. Her sub- jects, however, were, under the Ninteenth article, entitled to remain in the full enjoyment of their personal rights, religion and property ; but, re- solving to remove to Mexico, they applied to the Spanish government for transportation, which was promptly promised. Accordingly, on September 2, transports for the removal of the garrison and people arrived; and, on the third, the Spanish troops and the entire popu- lation, to the last man, woman and child, sailed for Vera Cruz, leaving Captain Wills and his command the only occupants of the town.
It is to a report written by him a few days after the Spanish exodus that we owe all the
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information we possess of the character and appearance of the town at that time.
It consisted of "40 huts, thatched with palmetto leaves, and barracks for a small garrison, the whole surrounded by a stockade of pine posts."
The report says: "The country, from the insuperable laziness of the Spaniards, still re- mains uncultivated. The woods are still near the village, and a few paltry gardens show the only improvements. Stock, they have none, being entirely supplied by Mobile, which is pretty well cultivated and produces sufficient for export."
Of the Indians we are presented with the fol- lowing glimpse: "The Indians are numerous around. We had within a few days a visit from about two hundred of five different nations. I was sorry not to have it in my power of making them any presents. I only supplied them with some rum, with which they seemed satisfied, and went.off assuring me of their peaceful in- tentions and promising to come down soon with some of their principal chiefs."
The church, which is so hallowing a feature
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in the sketch of the Island Town, is suggestive of the persevering devotion of the Catholic Faith to the spiritual welfare of her children. In 1559, when de Luna raised his national flag upon the shores of Santa Maria, his spiritual mother raised her cross beside it. With that sacred symbol she followed him in his explora- tions through the limitless wilderness, beginning and ending each day with her holy rites. She returned with Arriola, and, as he built his fort, her children under her pious promptings built her church. As the drum beat the reveille to call the soldier to the activities of life, the notes of her bell reminded him of her presence to admonish and console him. The engraving presents the next effort of her zeal. Afterwards, when the wing of the hurricane and the wild fury of the waves had swept away her island sanctuary, and left her children houseless on a desolate shore, she followed them to that hamlet which has just been described, where, around a rude altar, sheltered by the frail thatch of the palmetto, they enjoyed her con- soling offices. When, in 1763, their national flag fell from the staff and her people went into
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voluntary exile, her cross went with them as their guide and solace. She returned with Galvez, and never for a day since then has she been without her altar and her priest on these shores to perform her rites for the living and the dead. For many years after the establishment of American rule, that altar and that priest were the only means by which the Protestant mother, more obedient to the Divine word than sectarian prejudice, could obey the sacred mandate: "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not."
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COLONIAL FLORIDA.
CHAPTER VII.
British West Florida -- Pensacola the Capital-Government Established-Johnstone first Governor-British Settlers -First Survey of the Town-Star Fort-Public Build- ings-Resignation of Johnstone-His Successor, Mon- teforte Brown.
THE little settlement, mentioned in the last chapter, soon attained an importance in strik- ing contrast with its appearance and condition.
By the treaty of Paris, France had ceded to Great Britain Canada, and that part of Louis- iana east of a line beginning at the source of the Mississippi river and running through its centre to the Iberville river, thence through the middle of this river, lakes Maurepas and Pont- chartrain, to the Gulf. That acquisition, with Florida, extended the British North American empire from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Sea, bringing alike the Seminoles and Esqui- maux under its dominion.
On the seventh of October, 1763, by a royal
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.
proclamation the limits of the governments of East and West Florida were established ; the for- mer extending from the Apalachicola river east- ward; the latter embracing all the territory lately acquired from France and Spain south of the parallel of 31° from the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee river ; and by another exercise of royal authority, in February, 1764, the north- ern boundary was pushed to 32°, 28'. This line was also the southern boundary of the ter- ritory of Illinois, and it brought Mobile and Natchez within the limits of West Florida.
Of that province, so extensive and so rich in natural resources, Pensacola became the estab- lished capital; a natural result of the high esti- mate placed by the British upon the advantages of the harbor. When Lord Bute's ministry was assailed in the House of Commons for having procured Florida, by the surrender of Cuba, which Great Britain had conquered in the war ended by the treaty of Paris, the acquisition of the Bay of Pensacola figures as a prominent feature in the ministerial defense.
The first step towards the establishment of civil government in West Florida was taken
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upon the arrival, in February, 1764, at Pensa- cola, of Commodore George Johnstone of the Royal Navy, who came as the governor of the province; his first official act being a proclama- tion announcing his presence, powers, jurisdic- tion, as well as the laws which were to be in force. There came with him the Twenty-first British regiment as a garrison for the post, and also a number of civilians in search of fortune, or new homes; some as parasites, who are never absent where public money is to be distributed, and others attracted by the charms of the dis- trict, under the delusive misrepresentations of which the immigrant is so often the victim.
In November, 1764, Governor Johnstone, un- der instructions from the British government- which from the first seems to have taken a deep interest in the development of its late acquisi- tions-published a description of the province for the purpose of attracting settlers. Bv efforts like this, a tide of immigration soon be- gan to flow into West Florida, which, during the British dominion of nearly twenty years, it is estimated, brought into it a population of 25,000. In this inflow were observable a large
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number of Africans, imported under official en- couragement, to clear the forests and till the fields of the province; the British conscience being, then, still enthralled by the greedy slave- traders of Bristol, Liverpool and London, was patiently awaiting the advent of Clarkson and Wilberforce, to quicken it into resistance to the cruel traffic.
In the early days of Governor Johnstone's ad- ministration, Pensacola was surveyed and a plan established. The main street was named George, for King George III., and the second street eastward Charlotte, for Queen Charlotte. The area between those streets as far north as what is now Intendencia street was not sur- veved into blocks and lots, but reserved as a public place or park. The lots south of Garden street had an area of 80 feet front and 170 in depth. North of that street they were 192 feet square, known as arpent or Garden lots, and numbered to correspond with those lying south of Garden street, which were, strictly speaking, town lots. In order to furnish each family with a garden spot, each grantee of a town lot was entitled, upon the condition of improvement, to
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receive a conveyance of an arpent lot of the same number as his town lot.
That plan, which was the work of Elias Durnford, appointed, on the twenty-sixth of July, 1764, civil engineer of the province, is still the plan of the old part of Pensacola, with some changes in what was the English park, or public place; and therefore the plan of the town is, strictly speaking, of English origin.
The park, however, though excluded from private ownership, was not intended to be va- cant, but on the contrary, was devoted to pub- lic uses. In the centre of it was a star-shaped stockade fort, designed as a place of refuge for the population in case of an Indian attack. Near it were the officers' quarters, barracks, guard house, ordinance store-house and lab- oratory, two powder magazines, the King's bake-house, cooperage shelter, and government store-house. This park was, therefore, in the early days of Pensacola, the liveliest and busiest part of the town.
The star-shaped fort was, from 1764 until after 1772, the only fortification of the town, as may be inferred from the official report of
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Captain Thomas Sowers, engineer, on the fifth of April of the latter year.
The first street pushed through the crescent- shaped swamp, was George street, involving much labor in building a causeway and cover- ing it with earth. It extended to the elevation, then named Gage Hill, in honor of General Gage, of Boston memory, and who, as the command- er-in-chief of all the royal forces in the British North American colonies, had much to do with Pensacola in its early days. Upon the highest point of this hill was established a lookout from which the approaches of the town land- ward and seaward could be observed.
Governor Johnstone, who was a commodore in the royal navy, in the second year of his ad- ministration, found himself in jarring relations with the military, resulting from circumstances which, at this distance of time, seem to be trifles, but magnified, when they occurred, into im- portance by that jealous sensitiveness which appears to exist always between those two arms of the public service. As might be expected, whisperers, busybodies, and parasites, throng- ing the seat of patronage, ready to catch any
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stray crumo of official favor, aggravated the .conflict, which at last became so bitter and widespread that we find it figuring in the records of the courts-martial of a major, a lieutenant, and even an ensign. Naturally, too, thecolonists at length became partisans of the official strife, thereby contributing to bring about a condition of affairs rendering the governor's further con- tinuance in office so uninviting to himself and so unsatisfactory to the people that, in Decem- ber, 1766, he resigned.
An incident which occurred shortly after his appointment, manifests his impatience of criti- cism-a weakness which may have been the cause of his troubles in Florida. He and Grant, governor of East Florida, were appointed at the same time by the Bute administration, when Scotch appointees to office were so ill-favored by the English. The announcement were made . in the North Briton with a sarcastic allusion to them as a brace of Scotchinen. At this John- stone was so much incensed that he sent to the publishers what was equivalent to a challenge. Moreover, on meeting with a Mr. Brooks, who was connected with the North Briton, John-
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stone insisted on his stating whether he was the author of the article. Brooks refusing to an- swer, Johnstone drew his sword to use on him when by-standers interfered. Brooksinstituted legal proceedings under which the governor was bound to keep the peace.
In after years, Johnstone became a member of Parliament, and attracted much attention by casting, in the House of Commons, one of the only two negative votes on the Boston Harbor Bill, Edmund Burke casting the other. His course on that memorable occasion secured him such consideration with the Americans as to induce the British government to select him as one of the five commissioners who were sent to America in 1778, under Lord North's concilia- tory bill, intended to concede to the colonies all, and even more, than they had demanded at the beginning of the controversy with the Mother country. But the sequel of his mission proved his unfitness for the position. Besides ventur- ing to enter into correspondence with Robert Morris and Francis Dana, he attempted, through a lady, to bribe General Joseph Reed of Pennsyl- vania by an offer of $10,000 and the highest
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office within the gift of the crown in America in the event his efforts at conciliation proving suc- cessful. To that offer Reed made the memorable reply : "I am not worth purchasing, but such as I am the King of Great Britain is not rich enough to do it."
The other commissioners, Mr. Eden, General Clinton, and Lord Carlisle, at least, disavowed all knowledge or connection with Johnstone's course. His conduct became the subject of reso- lutions passed by Congress, in which it was de- clared : "That it is incompatible with the honor of Congress to hold any manner of intercourse with the said George Johnstone, especially to negotiate with him upon affairs in which the cause of liberty is interested."
From that reflection he sought to vindicate himself by an ill-tempered address, which was followed by his resignation from the commis- sion.
Though a Scotchman, he seems in this affair to have acted with more of the impulse of a Frenchman, like Genet, than with the cool delib- eration characteristic of his race. Though he had been a commodore in the British navy, after
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his appointment of governor of West Florida his historical designation is " Governor John- stone."
By virtue of his being lieutenant-governor, Monteforte Brown became Johnstone's succes- sor.
The troops stationed at Pensacola during Governor Johnstone's time were the Thirty-first regiment of infantry and the second battalion of Royal Artillery, under General Taylor. In 1765, these troops suffered from scurvy, as a remedy for which the governor undertook means to provide them with fresh meat, a provision which it would seem a thoughtful and considerate ruler would have employed as a preventive, in- stead of waiting until disease required it as a remedy.
The scourge, however, proved a blessing in the end, as our ills often do, by turning attention to the necessity of securing regular supplies of vegetable food, the acids of which science had determined to be the preventive of scorbutic affections. This led to the clearing, draining and cultivation of large bodies of the Titi Swamp, a process which, once begun, was con-
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tinued throughout the period of English rule, until the town was surrounded by smiling gardens, extending westward almost to Bayou Chico, of which this generation has evidence in the absence of forest from the district and its meadow-like appearance, as well as its intersec- tions of choked up ditches and drains.
In October, 1766, there was an exhibition in Pensacola of the cruelty with which the British soldier was treated in the last century. For absence without leave, James Baker Mattross of the Royal Artillery received 100 lashes under sentence of a court-martial. Harsh as this sen- tence may seem, it was mild and humane com- pared with what was inflicted in other instances at other military posts. Soldiers of the Royal American regiment, stationed at Detroit, were punished for rioting, as follows :* James Wilk- ins, Derby McCaffny, and Sargeant Deck 1000 lashes each, whilst fortunate Corporal Saums escaped with only 500, but who, even in his luck, was yet five times less lucky than the royal artilleryman at Pensacola. These terrible
* Canadian Archives (Haldimand Collection), B. 22, p. 262.
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inflictions provoke inquiry as to the dermal tex- ture of the backs of the British soldiery of the eighteenth century.
With the possibility of such suffering before them, we can appreciate the joy with which Richard Harris of the Thirty-first regiment, charged with stealing chickens, and Lewis Crow on trial for selling liquor, who were tried by court-martial at the same time as Mattross, received their respective findings of not guilty.
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CHAPTER VIII.
General Bouquet-General Haldimand.
EARLY in 1765 General Henry Bouquet hav- ing been assigned to the command of the southern military district of the colonies, of which Pensacola was the headquarters, sailed from Philadelphia in a small schooner for that place. He arrived there in the early spring, and on the following September died .* Of the day and cause of his death nothing seems to be known. Of the fact that his grave was marked by a monument, there is the most conclusive proof.i
Where is that monument ? That time and the elements are responsible for its disappear- ance is improbable. That it is not even a
*Kingford's History of Canada, Vol. V., p. 110.
"A statement of the English grey bricks used in the monument exists in the Canadian archives at Ottawa, dated February 1, 1770. Haldimand Papers, K. 15, p. 84.
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subject of tradition suggests the painful sus- picion that it was willfully destroyed ; a sug- gestion which explains the absence of all memor- ials of the people who must have died in Pensa- cola during the nearly twenty years of the British dominion, and removes from their generation the reproach of having had no respect for the mem- ory and ashes of their departed friends and comrades.
An exodus of the English occurred in 1783, as a future page will show, like that of the Span- iards in 1763 already mentioned. The town was filled by a new and strange population, whose needs for building material were urgent, and their reverence for the dead too feeble, per- haps, to resist the temptation of supplying their wants by plundering tombs deserted by their natural guardians.
Nature, too, conspired with man in the work of desecration. The necropolis of the English was at the western extremity of the town, ex- tending southward and embracing a slight bluff on the Bay. From 1860 to 1870 the water abraded that place, washing out human bones,
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and thus compelled the earth to surrender its dead to the sport of the waves.
. General Bouquet was born at Rolle, in the canton of Berne, Switzerland. That heattained so high a rank is evidence of his merit. His masterly campaign, in 1763, against the Ohio Indians, including the Delawares, the Shawnees, and Mingoes, as related by the classic pen of Dr. Kingsford, in his History of Canada,* is a most interesting and striking chapter of our colonial annals. The result was the removal of a terri- ble scourge from the western borders of Penn- sylvania and Virginia, and the restoration to liberty and to friends of three hundred white men and women by a treaty, the terms of which were left to the discretion of General Bouquet by General Gage. So highly appreci- ated were his skill and courage at the time that both colonies honored him with votes of thanks for his "great services," which were supple- mented by a complimentary letter from the king.
But the royal letter and his promotion were
*Volume V., pp. 93-113.
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only Dead Sea apples. Their result was a voyage in a small vessel to the distant shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where he was to die in a few months in a little garrison town with his laurels yet fresh on his brow, away from the friends and that admiring social circle he had left so recently at Philadelphia. Had he been the son, or cousin, whether first, second or third, would have mattered not, of a minister, he would have won a pension and obtained an enviable appointment.
General Bouquet was not only a distinguished soldier, but he also left behind him another claim to distinction in the thirty volumes of manuscript in the British museum, known as the "Bouquet Collection," which now calendared is available to the historical student.
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