Sayle was about eighty years of age and in feeble health, and died on 4th March, 1671, transferring his authority, as he was empowered to do, on the man of his choice. He selected Joseph West, his able assistant, who had brought the colonists from England under commission as “Governor and Commander in Chief of the Fleet.” Scarcely had the English entrenched themselves when the jealous Spaniards sent a party to attack them; but finding them stronger than they expected, they returned to St. Augustine. The chief reason for not settling at Port Royal, as they were directed to do, was evidently the exposure of that situation to attacks, both from hostile Indians and the Spaniards who instigated them, and who, from their early exploration and settlement, claimed the noble harbor, of which Ribault had said, a century before, the largest ships of France, “yea, the argosies of Venice,” might enter therein.[747] Sayle’s nomination of West, to act with all the authority conferred upon himself, was of force only till the pleasure of the Proprietors could be known. When they were informed of Sayle’s decease, they gave the position of governor to Sir John Yeamans (commission dated August, 1671); continuing West, however, as superintendent of important interests in the colony. He was made governor when Yeamans was displaced (1674); and in December, 1679, their lordships wrote to him, “We are informed that the Oyster Point is not only a more convenient place to build a town on than that formerly pitched on by the first settlers, but that people’s inclinations tend thither; we let you know the Oyster Point is the place we do appoint for the port town, of which you are to take notice and call it Charles Town.” The public offices were removed thither and the council summoned to meet there, and, in 1680, thirty houses were erected. Even before this, some settlers had left old Charles Town and taken up their residence at Oyster Point. Great interest was aroused in all that pertained to the colony by the active exertions and liberal offers of the Proprietors. Every vessel that sailed to Charles Town brought new-comers. The Proprietors’ trading-ship “Blessing” followed the first expedition, its “main end” and chief employment being to transport emigrants from Barbadoes, where Yeamans and Thomas Colleton were to advise and help Captain Halsted in this work of emigration. The “Carolina,” in a return voyage from the same island, had brought sixty-four settlers, and the “John and Thomas” forty-two. In the “Phœnix” from New York a number of German families arrived, who began to build James Town on the Stono River. When Sir John Yeamans came to reside at Charles Town (April, 1672) he brought the first negro slaves into the colony. In 1680, the date of the removal to Oyster Point, the settlers numbered about 1,200; in 1686, they were estimated at 2,500, English, Irish, Scotch, French, and Germans. It is of significance, with respect to the first