The war began, as every one knew it must, with forays on the border: the Indians were the first afoot, and were more to be feared than the French. The first movement of the English was made at the south, where, before the first year (1702) of the war was out, the Carolinians struck at the power of Spain in Florida. They sent a little force against St. Augustine, and easily swept the town itself, but stood daunted before the walls of the castle, lacking cannon to reduce it, and came hastily away at sight of two Spanish ships standing into the harbor, leaving their very stores and ammunition behind them in their panic. They had saddled the colony with a debt of six thousand pounds and gained nothing. But they at least kept their own borders safe against the Indians and their own little capital at Charleston safe against reprisals by the Spaniards. The Apalachees, who served the Spaniards on the border, they swept from their forest country in 1703, and made their border quiet by fire and sword, driving hundreds of the tribesmen they did not kill to new seats beyond the Savannah. Three years went by before they were in their turn attacked by a force out of Florida. Upon a day in August, 1706, while the little capital lay stricken with yellow fever, a fleet of five French vessels appeared off the bar at their harbor mouth, bringing Spanish troops from Havana and St. Augustine. There was a quick rally to meet them. Colonial militia went to face their landing parties; gallant Colonel Rhett manned a little flotilla to check them on the water; and they were driven off, leaving two hundred and thirty prisoners and a captured ship behind them. The southern coast could take care of itself. [Illustration: OLD SWEDES CHURCH, WILMINGTON, DELAWARE]