In May, 1781, Don Arturo O’Niell was appointed Governor of Spanish West-Florida, and continued to hold the office until 1792. His successor was Enrique White, who was succeeded by Francisco de Paula Gelabert, whose _ad interim_ tenure expired in 1796, by the appointment of Vicente Folch y Juan. The events of any interest which occurred before that year, have been already mentioned in previous chapters. Folch signalized the early part of his administration by causing a town to be laid out, “between a quarter and half a mile” from San Carlos, that fort having been reconstructed between 1781 and 1796.[48] This town was officially known as San Carlos de Barrancas, that being the original application to the locality of the Spanish word _barranca_, signifying broken, in the sense in which the term is applied to a landscape. Folch’s purpose in laying out the town was, to substitute it for Pensacola, as the chief town and capital of the province. Of the real motives which prompted the design no information can be obtained. His scheme was defeated, however, by his inability to procure for it the royal approval; the probable result of an appeal to the King by the inhabitants of Pensacola. He afterwards attempted an important change in the English plan, by laying off into blocks and lots, so much of the park, or public place as is now embraced in the area between Intendencia and Government streets. He also sold many of the lots, which the purchasers proceeded to improve. But, when Intendant Morales visited the town in 1806, he utterly disapproved of Folch’s proceedings, and refused to confirm the titles of the vendees. Morales’ subsequent conduct in the matter, however, shows that in refusing his confirmation he was influenced more by inimical feeling against the governor, than any just sense of public duty, for he himself afterwards granted the lots. This was the beginning of the mutilation of the great public place according to the English plan; a mutilation which was continued from time to time, until there was nothing left but the two small plats of ground known as Seville Square, and that of Ferdinand VII. His administration in one of its earlier years was marked by one event for which his generation is entitled to credit. A ship of 800 tons was built at _Caranaro_, as the cove in which the Marine Railway is now situated was then known. Her name was Pensacola, and during the decade from 1870, she was still in existence, making voyages to and from Spanish ports. This was the first, and thus far, the last private enterprise of the kind by Pensacolians. In 1804, the firm of William Panton & Co., was dissolved by the death of William Panton, who had been, as we have seen, so prominent a figure in the history of Pensacola, both under the British and Spanish rule. The business of the firm was thenceforward carried on under the style of John Forbes & Co.