Subject: Contest with Spaniards, pp 81-83 From: Steven J. Coker Date: November 22, 1998 RAMSAY'S HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA From ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT IN 1670 TO THE YEAR 1808. by David Ramsay, M.D. Preface dated "Charleston, December 31st, 1808" Published in 1858, by W.J. Duffie, Newberry, S.C. Reprinted in 1959, by The Reprint Company, Spartanburg, S.C. THE MILITARY HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, FROM 1670 TO 1776. CHAPTER V - SECTION I, pp 81-83 Contest with Spaniards. »»»»»»»•««««««« [...continued] This invasion of Florida was soon retaliated. The Spaniads had not yet relinquished their claim to the southern extreme of the British colonies. They therefore prepared an armament to expel the English settlers from Georgia. There is reason to believe that if they had succeeded against that infant province, Carolina would have become the scene of their next operations. To accomplish these purposes an armament was prepared at the Havanna; two thousand forces, commanded by Don Antonio de Rodondo, embarked from that port under convoy of a strong squadron and arrived at St. Augustine in May. Oglethorpe, on receiving intelligence of their arrival in Florida, sent advices of it to Governor Glen of Carolina and made all possible preparations for a vigorous resistance. With his regiment, a few rangers, highlanders, and Indians, he fixed his headquarters at Frederica and waited in expectation of a reinforcement from Carolina. About the last of June the Spanish fleet, amounting to thirty-two sail and carrying above three thousand men under the command of Don Manuel de Monteano, came to anchor off St. Simon's bar. After sounding the channel, the Don passed through Jekyl sound, received a fire from Oglethorpe at fort Simon's, and proceeded up the Alatamaha beyond the reach of his guns. There the enemy landed and erected a battery with twenty eighteen-pounders mounted on it. Oglethorpe judging his situation at fort Simon's to be dangerous, spiked the guns, burst the bombs and cohorns, destroyed the stores, and retreated to Frederica. With a force amounting to little more than seven hundred men, exclusively of Indians, he could not hope to act but on the defensive until the arrival of reinforcements From Carolina. He however, employed his Indians, and occasionally his highlanders, in scouring the woods - harrassing the outposts of the enemy, and throwing impediments in their way. In the attempts of the Spanish to penetrate through the woods and morasses to reach Frederica, several rencounters took place; in one of which they lost a Captain and two Lieutenants killed, and above one hundred of their men were taken prisoners. Oglethorpe learning by an English prisoner who escaped from the Spanish camp that a difference subsisted between the troops from Cuba and those from St. Augustine occasioning a separate encampment, resolved to attack the enemy while thus divided. He marched out in the night with the intention of surprising the enemy. Having advanced within two miles of the Spanish camp he halted his troops, and went himself with a select corps to reconnoitre the enemy's situation. While he was endeavoring to conceal his approach, a French soldier discharged his musket and ran into the Spanish lines. The General returned to Frederica, and endeavored to effect by stratagem what could not be achieved by surprise. Apprehensive that the deserter would discover to the enemy his weakness, he wrote to him a letter; desiring him to acquaint the Spaniards with the defenceless state of Frederica, and the ease with which his small garrison might be cut to pieces. He pressed him to bring forward the Spaniards to an attack; but if he could not prevail thus far, to use all his art and influence to persuade them to stay at least three days more at fort Simons; for within that time he should have a reinforcement of two thousand land forces, with six British ships of war. The letter concluded with a caution to the deserter against dropping the least hint of Admiral Vernon's meditated attack upon St. Augustine; and with assurance that for his service, he would be amply rewarded by the British King. Oglethorpe gave it to the Spanish prisoner; who for a small reward, together with his liberty, promised to deliver it to the French deserter. On his arrival at the Spanish camp, he gave the letter, as Oglethorpe expected, to the Commander-in-Chief, who instantly put the deserter in irons. This letter perplexed and confounded the Spaniards; some suspecting it to be a stratagem to prevent an attack on Frederica, and others believing it to contain serious instructions to direct the conduct of a spy. While the Spanish officers were deliberating what measures to adopt, an incident, not within the calculation of military skill or the control of human power, decided their counsels. Three ships of force, which the Governor of South Carolina had sent to Oglethorpe's aid, appeared off the coast. The agreement of this discovery with the contents of the letter, convinced the Spanish Commander of its real intention. The whole army seized with an instant panic, set fire to the fort and precipitately embarked ; leaving several cannon, with a quantity of provisions and military stores. Thus in the moment of threatened conquest, the infant colony was providentially saved. Though the Spaniards threatened to renew the invasion, yet we do not find that after this repulse they ever made any attempt by force of arms to gain possession of Georgia or Carolina. For the seventy-two years which had passed away since the settlement of South Carolina, there had been repeated reciprocal invasions of the contiguous Spanish and British provinces. Though hostilities occasionally ceased, bickerings were always kept alive from the constant irritation of unneighborly, injurious acts; till by the peace of Paris in 1763, the two Floridas were ceded by Spain to Great Britain. From that period, till the commencement of the revolutionary war, the inhabitants of Florida and those of Georgia and Carolina being all subjects of the same King, lived in harmony with each other. No sooner had the American war began, than the former scenes of plunder and devastation recommenced between the contiguous provinces. The Floridas by remaining a part of the British empire, while Georgia and Carolina became free States, were set in opposition to each other. Hostilities, as is usual among the borderers of contending governments, were rendered more fierce from the circumstance of contiguity. Throughout the war parties from each reciprocally plundered and harrassed the other; ostensibly on one side for the advancement of British, and on the other of American interests; but in both cases for the private emolument of the actors in these disgraceful scenes. Florida also afforded an entrance through which British agents furnished supplies to the Indian tribes adjacent to the new formed American States, and by which they encouraged the former to destroy the latter. Such will ever be the case in the event of war between the sovereigns of Florida, and the citizens of America. Happy are the people whose territories are encircled by obvious natural boundaries, easily distinguished but not easily passed. 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