The governors of the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina sent letters to Oglethorpe thanking him for his valiant defense of the southern seaboard and expressing their gratitude to God that Georgia had a commander so well fitted to protect her borders. The governor of South Carolina and most of his officers had done little or nothing to help their neighbor, but the people of that colony thoroughly disapproved of this failure to be of assistance and a number of them sent a message to Oglethorpe in which they said, "If the Spaniards had succeeded in their attempts they would have destroyed us, laid our province waste and desolate, and filled our habitations with blood and slaughter.... We are very sensible of the great protection and safety we have so long enjoyed by having your Excellency to the southward of us; had you been cut off, we must, of course, have fallen." Even after this defeat, however, the Spaniards of Florida continued from time to time to molest the Georgia borders. A party of rangers was killed by Spanish soldiers, the settlement at Mount Venture was burned by Yamasee Spanish Indians. Oglethorpe had to be on the watch constantly lest the French or the Spanish should raid his territory. And the English government, though he wrote them time and again, neglected to send him proper reinforcements. In the spring of 1743 the general was again camped on the St. Johns River. He heard that a Spanish army was marching against him, and he resolved to attack them before they should attack him. His Indian allies stole up on the enemy, and surprising them, drove them back in confusion. The Spaniards took shelter behind one of their forts, and Oglethorpe could not manage to draw them out to battle. He marched his men back to Frederica, and there by Indian scouts, by sentry-boats, kept an eye on the Spaniards, ready to spring out to meet them should they renew their raids at any time. His soldiers never faltered in their obedience to the general's orders; his Indian allies, though they were often tempted, never forsook their allegiance to him. The Spaniards tried many times to buy the red men over to their side. Similli, a chief of the Creeks, went to St. Augustine to see what was being done there. The Spaniards offered to pay him a large sum of money for every English prisoner he would bring them, and showed him a sword and scarlet clothes they had given a chief of the Yamasees. They said of Oglethorpe, "He is poor, he can give you nothing; it is foolish for you to go back to him." The Creek chief answered, "We love him. It is true he does not give us silver, but he gives us everything we want that he has. He has given me the coat off his back and the blanket from under him." In return for his loyalty to his English friend the Spaniards drove the Indian from St. Augustine at the point of the sword.