Here, beneath two pyramids, together in one bed repose the ashes of one hundred and seven men--the gallant Major Dade and his intrepid warriors--a sacrifice to the vengeance of the brave and warlike Seminole, who with the Indian agent were the first fruits of the terrible threat of Osceola, who having indignantly rejected all overtures on the part of the government to leave the graves of his fathers, on closing his intercourse with the government agent, being refused the right of purchasing powder, thus addressed himself to Gen. Thompson: “Am I a negro? a slave? My skin is dark, but not black. I am an Indian--a Seminole. The [Illustration: MILITARY BURIAL GROUND, ST. AUGUSTINE E.F.] white man shall not make me black! I will make the white man red with blood; and then blacken him in the sun and rain, where the wolf shall smell his bones, and the buzzard live upon his flesh!”[2] The extreme point of the peninsula, south, on which the city is located, is occupied with the outlines of an ancient breastwork, in a ruinous condition, and the United States Arsenal buildings. On the whole, it will be seen, from the facts above stated, that this city is not without its interest to the antiquary and to the historian. If not old Spain in miniature, it is a chip of the block of the old in the new world, a relic of the past interwoven with the texture of the present age. CHAPTER II. HISTORY--EARLY SETTLEMENT. This city is by forty years the oldest town within the limits of the United States of America. It was the offspring of the religious bigotry, fanaticism, and jealousy, of a barbarous but heroic age. On the 8th of September, 1565, at noonday, on the celebration of a religious festival in honor of Mary, the virgin goddess of Papal homage and superstitious reverence, a creature of the Spanish government, Pedro Melendez by name, who had recently crossed from the old world, entered this harbor, debarked, and taking formal possession of the country, proclaimed Philip II king of North America, had the service of Mass performed, and the foundations of the town immediately laid. THE ORIGINAL FOUNDER. Pedro Melendez was a man of blood. His bigotry had been nourished, says the historian, in the wars against the Protestants of Holland. He had also acquired wealth and notoriety in the conquests of Spanish America. But there he had been guilty of such excesses, and pursued a course of such rapacity, that his conduct had provoked inquiry. It ended in his arrest and conviction. The king confirmed sentence against him. To recover the favor of his sovereign, retrieve his character, if not to atone for his crimes, Melendez devised the scheme of conquering, colonizing, and converting to the faith of Papacy, the Province of Florida. He agreed also to import five hundred negro slaves.