The British looked for some aid from the Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians. It was a body of the latter which drove the Spanish scouts across the Perdido shortly after the capture of Mobile. The three tribes were loyal to their white allies, even when the latter were no longer able to furnish them with their customary supplies. The Spaniards, on the other hand, with everything to offer them, utterly failed to shake their British loyalty. As illustrative of their devotion, it is related when the Waldecks landed at Pensacola, the Indians, inferring from their strange language that they were enemies, inclined to attack them. They had the prudence, however, to call upon Governor Chester for an explanation. After he had satisfactorily answered the question “whether the men of strange speech were the friends or foes of their Great White Brother on the other side of the big water,” they manifested great joy and honored the strangers with a salute from their rifles. When, however, the advance on Pensacola by the Spaniards was abandoned in the spring of 1780, and thence up to the following December General Campbell found his savage allies rather an encumbrance than a benefit. That time was devoted to strengthening Fort George and the defenses of the harbor, a labor in which no reward could induce them to assist. The exciting occupation of taking Spanish scalps, for which £3[31] were paid, however, was one in which they could render a barbarous service to the British. The Indians were under the command of a Marylander, formerly an ensign in the British army, who, whilst stationed at Pensacola, had been cashiered for misconduct. He afterwards went to the Creek Nation, where he married the daughter of a chief. Though vainly styling himself General William Augustus Bowles, he was content to accept restoration to his rank of ensign as a reward for the service, which, at the head of his band of Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws, he was expected to render to the British during Galvez’s operations in West Florida. In the latter months of 1780, Pensacola and the garrison of Fort George were on the point of starvation. All the resources of the British government seem to have been required for the great struggle of 1781 on the Atlantic coast, and Galvez’s conquest had cut off the customary supplies from the rich country lying between Mobile Bay and the Mississippi. Field-preacher Stuernagel says in his journal: “This morning we drank water and ate a piece of bread with it. At mid-day we had just nothing to drink but water. Our evening meal consists of a pipe of tobacco and a glass of water. A ham was sold for seven dollars. A pound of tobacco cost four dollars. A pound of coffee one dollar. The men have long been without rum. From hard service, and such want, diseases were more and more engendered.”[32]