While the Spaniards were still in doubt as to the strength of Oglethorpe's forces some English ships arrived off the coast. This decided the Spaniards to leave, and they burned the barracks at St. Simons and took to their ships in such haste that they left behind some of their cannon and provisions. Hearing that ships had been sighted Oglethorpe sent an officer in a boat with a letter to their commander. But when the officer embarked he found no ships were to be seen. Later the general learned that one of the vessels sighted came from South Carolina, and that the officer in command had orders to see if the Spanish fleet had taken possession of the fort at St. Simons, and if it had to sail back to Charleston at once. Here was further proof that the plucky governor of Georgia could expect little assistance from the sister colony on the north. By now some of the Spanish ships were out at sea, and others had landed their soldiers at St. Andrews in a temporary camp. A couple of days later twenty-eight of their ships sailed up to Fort William and called upon the garrison to surrender. The English officer there answered that he would not surrender the fort and defied the Spaniards to take it. The latter tried; they landed men, who were driven off by the guns of soldiers hidden in the sand-dunes, their ships fired on the fort, but were disabled by the return-fire of the Georgia batteries. After a battle of three hours the Spaniards withdrew from the scene and returned to their base at St. Augustine. With a few ships and eight hundred men Oglethorpe had defeated a Spanish fleet of fifty-six vessels and an army of more than 5,000 soldiers. Small wonder that the people of his province couldn't find praise enough for their leader! George Whitefield, a famous clergyman of Savannah, wrote of this war against the Spanish Dons, "The deliverance of Georgia from the Spaniards is such as cannot be paralleled but by some instances out of the Old Testament. The Spaniards had intended to attack Carolina, but wanting water, they put into Georgia, and so would take that colony on their way. They were wonderfully repelled, and sent away before our ships were seen."