The History of Saint Augustine, Florida

by William W. Dewhurst

The inhabitants of the province, while willing to fight for the king, still demanded the establishment of a representative government. Governor Tonyn, in a letter to Lord George St. German, Secretary of State, says: “I perceive the cry for a provincial legislature to remedy local inconveniences is as loud as ever, and suggestions are thrown out that, without it, people’s property is not secure, and that they must live in a country where they can enjoy to their utmost extent the advantages of the British Constitution and laws formed with their consent. But mention the expediency, propriety, reasonableness, justice, and gratitude of imposing taxes for the expenses of the government, they are all silent, or so exceedingly poor as not to be able to pay the least farthing.”

In 1780 Governor Tonyn repaired both lines of defense about the town, strengthened the fortifications, and added several new works. The inhabitants complained bitterly that the burdens of the public defense fell upon them, as their negroes were kept for several months employed upon the king’s works. The governor seems to have considered that loyalty to the king was not to be expected from his new subjects in Florida, or at least was to be found only among Protestants. Writing of the militia, he says: “There are several Minorcans, and I have my doubts as to their loyalty, being of Spanish and French extraction, and of the Roman Catholic religion.”

About this time the British, having captured Charleston, seized a number of the most influential men of South Carolina, in violation of their parole, and sent them to St. Augustine, where they remained until exchanged in 1781. All of the number, except General Gadsden, accepted a second parole, after arriving at St. Augustine. Gadsden, refusing to receive pledges at the hands of those who had already broken them, was confined for nearly a year in the fort. These prisoners were often threatened with the fate due to defeated rebels, and perhaps were taken to view the gallows at the north-east corner of the court-yard in the fort, said to have been erected by the British.[29]

The pressure upon the governor, urging him to permit the enjoyment of the rights of representation granted by the king’s charter, had now become so forcible that, in 1781, a General Assembly was called, consisting of an Upper and a Lower House. The former was probably composed of the crown officers, and the latter of those elected by the freeholders.

March 17th, 1781, the first Assembly met. Though Florida had been settled more than two hundred years, never before had the citizens been allowed to assemble and enact a law. The governor, in his address upon the assembling of the two Houses, was inclined to be sarcastic. He announced that the “king and Parliament,” with astonishing “and unprecedented condescension,” relinquished their right of taxation, provided the Legislature made due provision for defraying the expenses of the government, and this when the whole sum raised by taxation did not amount to the salary of the king’s treasurer. The principal source of revenue was said to be from licenses to sell liquors.

In 1781 an event occurred most damaging to the material advancement of the province. This was an order from Sir Guy Carleton, H. B. M., Commander-in-chief in America, to General Leslie, in Carolina, to evacuate the province of East Florida with all his troops and such loyalists as wished. The inhabitants at once sent the most urgent protests against this harsh and unreasonable order, appealing to the governor and the king, by whom it was soon after revoked.

It was at the hands of an expedition fitted out at St. Augustine that Great Britain obtained possession of the Bahama Islands, which she still holds. In 1783, Colonel Devereux, with two twelve-gun vessels, and a small force of men, made a sudden attack and captured the town of Nassau, with the Spanish garrison and governor.

During the latter part of the British possession the exports of rum, sugar, molasses, indigo, and lumber had become considerable. As early as 1770 the records of the Custom-House showed the entry of fifty schooners and sloops from the northern provinces and the West Indies, beside several square-rigged vessels from London and Liverpool. In 1771 the imports were: 54 pipes of Madeira wine, 170 puncheons of rum, 1,660 barrels of flour, 1,000 barrels of beef and pork, 339 firkins of butter, and 11,000 pounds of loaf sugar. These cargoes were brought in twenty-nine vessels, of which five were from London. There were also imported about 1,000 negroes, of whom 119 were from Africa.

The average annual expenses of East Florida, while under the British flag, were £122,660 sterling, without including the pay of the army or navy. In 1778, a period of the greatest prosperity reached under the British flag, the whole value of the exports was only £48,000 sterling, or a little more than one-third of the expenses of the province.

Through the exertions of the Anglo-Saxon settlers, who had brought to the province their advanced ideas of government, agriculture, and commerce, Florida was just entering upon a career of prosperity, when it was again ceded to Spain. These constant changes, necessitating the transfer of property to the subjects of the ruling sovereign, would, of themselves, have prevented any considerable improvement in the material wealth of the province; but the treaty between Great Britain and Spain so far neglected to provide for the interests of the British subjects who had settled in Florida, that the only stipulation relating to them was one allowing them the privilege of removing within eighteen months from the time of the ratification. Whatever real property was not sold to Spanish subjects, at the end of this period, was to become the property of the Spanish Crown. Under the British there had settled in the town of St. Augustine a large number of half-pay officers of the British Government, who, with others possessing certain incomes, had greatly improved the place. It is said that those conversant with the place in 1784, spoke highly of the beauty of the gardens, the neatness of the houses, and the air of cheerfulness and comfort that seemed during the preceding period to have been thrown over the town. Florida was literally deserted by its British subjects upon the change of flags. Vignoles says: “Perhaps no such other general emigration of the inhabitants of a country, amicably transferred to another government, ever occurred.” Among the British subjects, who remained and transferred their allegiance to Spain, were several families whose descendants are still living in Florida.