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.