COAST OF FLORIDA.
Fac-simile of the plan in An Impartial Account of the late Expedition against St. Augustine under General Oglethorpe. London, 1742.
HARBOR AND TOWN OF ST. AUGUSTINE.
[Fac-simile of part of the map in An Impartial Account of the late Expedition against St. Augustine under General Oglethorpe, occasioned by the suppression of the Report of the General Assembly of South Carolina, with an exact plan of St. Augustine and the adjacent coast of Florida, showing the disposition of our Forces. London, 1742.—Ed.]
Collecting his regiment, summoning to his assistance forces from South Carolina, and calling in his Indian allies, in May, 1740, with a mixed army of rather more than two thousand men, he moved upon the capital of Florida. In this expedition Sir Yelverton Peyton, with the British vessels of war,—the “Flamborough,” the “Phœnix,” the “Squirrel,” the “Tartar,” the “Spence,” and the “Wolf,”—was to participate. The castle of St. Augustine consisted of a fort built of soft stone. Its curtain was sixty yards in length, its parapet nine feet thick, and its rampart twenty feet high, “casemated underneath for lodgings, and arched over and newly made bombproof.” Its armament consisted of fifty cannon, sixteen of brass, and among them some twenty-four pounders. For some time had the garrison been working upon a covered way, but this was still in an unfinished condition. The town was protected by a line of intrenchments, with ten salient angles, in each of which field-pieces were mounted. In January, 1740, the Spanish forces in Florida, exclusive of Indians and one company of militia, were estimated at nine hundred and sixty-five men of all arms. As foreshadowed in his dispatch of the 27th of March, 1740, it was the intention of General Oglethorpe to advance directly upon St. Augustine, and attack by sea and land the town and the island in its front. Both, he believed, could be taken “sword in hand.” Conceiving that the castle would be too small to afford convenient shelter for the two thousand one hundred men, women, and children of the town, he regarded the capitulation of the fortress as not improbable. Should it refuse to surrender, he proposed to shower upon it “Granado-shells from the Coehorns and Mortars,” and other projectiles. If it should not yield under the bombardment, he was resolved to open trenches and reduce it by a regular siege. The result was a disastrous failure. This miscarriage may be fairly attributed,—first, to the delay in inaugurating the movement, caused mainly, if not entirely, by the tardiness on the part of the South Carolina authorities in contributing the troops, munitions, and provisions for which requisition had been made; in the second place, to the reinforcement of men and supplies from Havana introduced into St. Augustine just before the English expedition set out, thereby repairing the inequality previously existing between the opposing forces; again, to the injudicious movements against Forts Francis de Papa and Diego, which put the Spaniards upon the alert, encouraged concentration on their part, and foreshadowed an immediate demonstration in force against their stronghold; and to the inability on the part of the fleet to participate in the assault previously planned, and which was to have been vigorously undertaken so soon as General Oglethorpe with his land forces came into position before the walls of St. Augustine. Finally, the subsequent surprise and destruction of Colonel Palmer’s command, thereby enabling the enemy to communicate with and draw supplies from the interior; the lack of heavy ordnance with which to reduce the castle from the batteries planted on Anastasia island; the impossibility of bringing up the larger war vessels that they might participate in the bombardment; the inefficiency of Colonel Vanderdussen’s command; the impatience and disappointment of the Indian allies, who anticipated early capture and liberal spoils; as well as hot suns, heavy dews, a debilitating climate, sickness among the troops, and the arrival of men, munitions of war, and provisions from Havana through the Matanzas River,—all conspired to render futile whatever hopes at the outset had been entertained for a successful prosecution of the siege.
Although this attempt—so formidable in its character when we consider the limited resources at command, and so full of daring when we contemplate the circumstances under which it was prosecuted—resulted in disappointment, its effects were not without decided advantage to Georgia and her sister colonies. For two years the Spaniards remained on the defensive. During that time General Oglethorpe enjoyed an opportunity for strengthening his fortifications and increasing his army; so that when the counter blow was delivered by his adversary, he was the better prepared not only to parry it, but also to punish the uplifted arm.