ADMINISTRATION OF LIEUT.-GOVERNOR MOULTRIE.--DEMAND OF THE PEOPLE
FOR THE RIGHTS OF ENGLISHMEN.--GOVERNOR TONYN BURNING THE EFFIGIES
OF ADAMS AND HANCOCK.--COLONIAL INSURGENTS CONFINED IN THE
FORT.--ASSEMBLING OF THE FIRST LEGISLATURE.--COMMERCE OF ST.
AUGUSTINE UNDER THE ENGLISH.--RECESSION OF THE PROVINCE TO SPAIN.
Governor Grant’s administration lasted until 1771, when he returned to
England suffering in health. Upon his departure the province was under
the authority of Hon. John Moultrie, the lieut.-governor, for a period
of three years. The spirit of liberty, which was making itself felt
throughout the British provinces at the North at this time, was here in
Florida exciting in the breasts of those born under the British flag a
determination to demand the rights granted by the Magna Charta. Urged by
leading men in the council, the grand jury made presentments setting
forth the rights of the inhabitants of the province to a representative
government. These presentments the lieut.-governor disregarded, but
finally yielded so far as to consent to the formation of a legislature
which should be elected and meet every three years. The freeholders were
inflexible in their determination to have annual sessions of their
representatives, and continued without representation rather than to
yield. The chief justice, William Drayton, a gentleman of talents and
great professional knowledge, being unwilling to yield to the
pretensions of the lieut.-governor, was suspended from his office, and
the Rev. John Forbes, an assistant judge, was appointed to the vacancy
by Lieut.-Governor Moultrie. It was charged against Mr. Forbes that his
sympathies were with the Americans of the northern colonies. The
confirmation of his appointment was therefore rejected and a chief
justice sent from England.
In March, 1774, a new governor arrived from England. This gentleman was
Colonel Patrick Tonyn, a _protegé_ of Lord Marchmont, and very zealous
for the royal cause. He at once issued a proclamation inviting the
inhabitants of the provinces to the North, who were attached to the
crown, to remove with their property to Florida. This invitation was
accepted by a considerable number of royalists. In 1776 Governor Tonyn
issued another proclamation inviting the inhabitants of the towns on the
St. Johns, and of the Musquitoes, to assemble and co-operate with the
king’s troops in resisting the “perfidious insinuations” of the
neighboring colonists, and to prevent any more men from joining their
“traitorous neighbors.” This was met by a counter proclamation by
President Batton Gwinnet, of Georgia, who encouraged the belief that the
God of “armies had appeared so remarkably in favor of liberty, that the
period could not be far distant when the enemies of America would be
clothed with everlasting shame and dishonor.” Governor Tonyn issued
commissions to privateers, and held a council of the Indians to secure
their alliance against the patriots of the neighboring colonies.
Upon the receipt of news of the Declaration of Independence of the
American colonies, the royalists showed their zeal for the king by
burning the effigies of John Hancock and Samuel Adams on the plaza,
near where the constitutional monument now stands. In 1775 some
privateers from Carolina captured the brig _Betsy_ off the bar, and
unloaded her in sight of the garrison, giving to the captain a bill
signed “Clement Lamprière,” and drawn on Miles Brewton, at Charleston,
for one thousand pounds sterling. The cargo consisted of one hundred and
eleven barrels of powder sent from London, and the capture was a great
mortification to the new governor.
During the early years of the struggle between the American colonies and
the mother country, St. Augustine was the British point of rendezvous
and an asylum for the royalists. From Georgia and Carolina there were
said to have been seven thousand royalists and slaves who moved to
Florida during these years. So hazardous to the colonial interests had
the British possession of St. Augustine become, that Governor Houston,
of Georgia, urged upon General Howe to attack the place in the spring of
1778. This expedition was never undertaken, though Colonel Fuser, of the
Sixtieth Regiment, issued a proclamation on June 27th, 1778, commanding
all those who had not entered the militia to join him, as “the rebels
might be expected every instant.”
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.