The test of the Castillo’s strength was not long in coming. Relations
with France had become peaceful, but incursions by the English-led
Indians kept the backcountry inflamed. As tensions increased, Gov. José
de Zúñiga y Cerda looked at the St. Augustine defenses with an
experienced eye. Zúñiga knew, after a military career spanning 28 years,
that strong walls were not enough. The Castillo’s guns were ancient and
obsolete—many of them unserviceable. The powder from México so fouled
the gun barrels that after “four shots, the Ball would not go in the
Cannon.” Arquebuses, muskets, powder, and shot were in short supply.
Once again Captain Ayala sailed directly to Spain to ask for aid. It was
a race against time, for the War of the Spanish Succession with France
and Spain allied against England had broken out. Gov. James Moore of
Carolina lost no time moving against St. Augustine in 1702. If he could
capture the Castillo, he would clap an English lock on the Straits of
Florida and forestall a possible Spanish-French attack on Charleston.
On the way south, Moore’s forces destroyed the Franciscan missions in
the Guale country. At St. Augustine they avoided the Castillo and
occupied the town, whose inhabitants had fled to the fort. South and
west of its walls, where the town approached the fort, the Spaniards
burned many structures that could have hidden the enemy advance.
Moore’s 500 Englishmen and 300 Indians vastly outnumbered the 230
soldiers and 180 Indians and Negroes in the Castillo’s garrison, but
Moore was ill-equipped to besiege the Castillo. He settled down to await
the arrival of more artillery from Jamaica, and thus matters stood when
four Spanish men-of-war arrived and blocked the harbor entrance,
bottling up Moore’s fleet of eight small vessels. Moore burned his
ships, left most of his supplies, and retreated overland to the St.
Johns River. He left St. Augustine in ashes, but the Castillo and its
people survived.
The ease with which the English had taken and held the city for almost
two months made it clear that more defenses were needed. Moreover,
English and Indian obliteration of the missions in Apalache, Timucua,
and Guale had reduced Spanish control to the tiny area directly under
the Castillo guns.
In the next two decades strong earthworks and palisades, buttressed at
strategic points with redoubts, made St. Augustine a walled town, secure
as long as there were enough soldiers to man the walls. But in those
dark days who could be sure of tomorrow? In 1712 came _La Gran
Hambre_—the Great Hunger—when starving people even ate the dogs and
cats.
At last the war ended in 1714. The threat to St. Augustine lessened, but
it was an uneasy kind of peace with many “incidents.” In 1728 Col.
William Palmer of Carolina marched against the presidio. The grim walls
of the fort, the readiness of the heavy guns, and the needle-sharp
points of the yucca plants lining the palisades were a powerful
deterrent. Palmer “refrained” from taking the town. For their part, the
Spaniards fired their guns, but made no sorties.
Palmer’s bold foray to the very gates of St. Augustine foreshadowed a
new move southward by the English, beginning with the settlement of
Savannah in 1732. With his eye on Florida, James Oglethorpe landed at
St. Simons Island in 1736, built Fort Frederica, and nurtured it into a
strong military post. From Frederica he pushed his Georgia boundary
southward all the way to the St. Johns River—a scant 35 miles from St
Augustine.
[Illustration: Mortars have long held an important place in the
family of field artillery because of their ability to throw a
projectile over a barrier. The Spaniards were among the earliest to
use mortars whose trajectory could be varied, thereby making the
mortars even more effective.]
Meanwhile, Castillo de San Marcos began to show signs of being 50 years
old. The capable engineer and frontier diplomat Antonio de Arredondo
came from Havana to inspect Florida’s defenses and make recommendations.
Backed by Arredondo’s expertise, Gov. Manuel de Montiano wrote a frank
letter to the governor of Cuba, who was now responsible for Florida’s
security: “Your Excellency must know that this castle, the only defense
here, has no bombproofs for the protection of the garrison, that the
counterscarp is too low, that there is no covered way, that the curtains
are without demilunes, that there are no other exterior works to give
them time for a long defense; ... we are as bare outside as we are
without life inside, for there are no guns that could last 24 hours and
if there were, we have no artillery-men to serve them.”