Fort George was a quadrangle with bastions at each corner. There were within the fort a powder magazine and barracks for the garrison, besides the chamber above mentioned. The woods north of it, for an eighth of a mile, and within a curve bending around it to the bay, were felled, in order to give play to its guns landward, whilst they could bear upon an enemy in the bay by firing over the town. By a system of signals, intercommunication was kept up with Tartar Point and thence with Red Cliff.
Tartar Point, now the site of the Navy Yard, where a battery and barracks were erected by the British, is the only existing name in this part of West Florida which carries one’s thoughts back to the days of British rule. The name of the point under the second Spanish dominion, which lasted about forty years, was Punta de la Asta Bandera—the Point of the Flagstaff. It seems strange that an English name which had been superseded for that period by a Spanish designation, should after that lapse of time be restored.
The locality of Red Cliff was for a time a puzzle. Such a name for a locality at once induced a search for a suggestive aspect. No red bluff, however, not too far eastward to serve as the site of a work for the defense of the town or harbor, could be found, and yet, no bluff westward of the former could be observed to suit the designation. But at length, a letter in the Canadian archives fixed Barrancas as the locality by stating that there was at about the distance of a half to a quarter of a mile from Red Cliff a powder magazine, built by the Spaniards, capable of holding 500 barrels of powder, which was then being used as the powder depôt of the province, evidently the relic of old San Carlos, destroyed by the French in 1719, and stood on the site of the present Fort Redoubt.
The defenses of Red Cliff consisted of two batteries, “one on the top and the other at the foot of the hill.” There were quarters for the officers and barracks for the soldiers in one building, so constructed as to be proof against musket balls and available as an ample defense against an Indian attack.[[13]]
CHAPTER XI.
Representative Government.
When the governments of West and East Florida were established, as before related, their governors were, severally, vested with authority, their councils consenting and the condition of the provinces being favorable, to call for the election of general assemblies by the people.
In 1773, Governor Chester concluded that the time had arrived when it would be expedient for him to exercise this power. He, accordingly, issued writs authorizing an election, fixing the time it was to be held, the voting precincts, the qualifications of voters, and the number and qualifications of assemblymen to be chosen, as well as the day of the sitting of the general assembly at Pensacola.
But the writs, unhappily, fixed the terms of assemblymen at three years; a provision which proved fatal, not only to this first attempt, but likewise to all future efforts to establish representative government in West Florida. The election was held throughout the province, and the members of a full general assembly elected. But whilst the people went to the polls with alacrity, and hailed with pleasure the advent of popular government, they were opposed to the long tenure fixed by Governor Chester; and so determined was that opposition that they resolved that it should not receive the implied sanction of their votes. They accordingly cast ballots which declared that they were subject to the condition that the representative should hold for one year only. To that condition the governor refused to consent. The people, on the other hand, were equally unyielding in their opposition. Efforts were made, but in vain, to induce a concession by one side or the other; consequently, during the following years of English dominion, as before, the province knew no other civil government than that of the governor and his council.