NOTARY PUBLIC.
JOHN MILLS,
For the conveniency of Captains of Vessels, Merchants and others,
HEREBY GIVES NOTICE,
That he keeps his Notary-Office
At his House the North end of Charlotte-street, near the house of Mr. Robert Mills, House Carpenter.
All sorts of LAW PRECEDENTS done with care and expedition.
CHAPTER V
Spanish Rule Returns
When they reoccupied Florida in 1784, the Spaniards had changed but little during their twenty-year absence from the scene. With their return St. Augustine reverted to its former status as an isolated military post, heavily dependent upon outside sources for its supplies and financial support.
Agriculture was neglected and brush soon covered the plantation fields, which the English and their slaves had cleared. Indians again roamed at will through the countryside. On the heels of the departing English they burned Bella Vista, the beautiful country estate of Lieutenant-Governor Moultrie, located a few miles south of St. Augustine in the community now bearing his name.
The population of the capital, which had overflowed into new districts just before the English left, shrank to a fraction of its former size. Only a few score English remained to take the required oath of allegiance to the Spanish Crown. A relatively small number of St. Augustine’s former Spanish residents, or Floridanos, uprooted in 1763, returned from Cuba to claim their former homes. The Minorcan group, including a few Greeks and Italians, made up the major portion of St. Augustine’s civilian inhabitants.
Vacant houses stared blankly along the narrow streets. Some with flat roofs and outside kitchens were relics of the first Spanish period. Others had been remodelled after the English taste with glass window panes, gabled roofs, and chimneys. St. Peter’s Church, in which the English had worshipped, remained unoccupied and soon became a ruin.
Although a Spanish possession, St. Augustine acquired from time to time interesting residents of other nationalities. Juan McQueen, a close friend of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Lafayette, came to the city in 1791 to escape embarrassing debts, and held official positions under the Spanish regime until death closed his colorful career in 1807. John Leslie, the famous English trader, also lived here after the Revolutionary War. The firm of Panton, Leslie and Company enjoyed a monopoly in trading with the Indians of Florida, and supplied St. Augustine with many of its needs on liberal credit.