Colonel Daniel with one Carolina detachment came up the St. Johns River and thence overland. Moore with the other came down the coast in eight small vessels. Daniel arrived first and advanced upon St. Augustine by land. Governor Zúñiga had few experienced soldiers, and did not try to save the town. All of its inhabitants were ordered into the fort, which soon sheltered some 1,500 people. Moore soon arrived by sea with a quantity of trench-digging tools and fifteen long ladders for scaling the fort’s walls. But the English had greatly underestimated the Castillo’s strength and found there was little hope of taking it with their few small calibre guns. Colonel Daniel was sent to Jamaica to secure siege guns and bombs. During the siege the Spaniards made two sallies from the fort to destroy their own houses in its vicinity to prevent them being used as cover by the English. A total of 31 houses were thus destroyed as shown by claims later filed by their Spanish owners. Almost two months of siege passed. Within the overcrowded Castillo inhabitants and garrison prayed for relief. The day after Christmas two heavily armed Spanish ships appeared off the inlet bringing aid. Fearing their retreat would be cut off, the Carolinians burned their transports, abandoned their heavy stores, set fire to the town, and withdrew overland to vessels awaiting them at the mouth of the St. Johns River. The Castillo had triumphed in its first test, but the town of St. Augustine was virtually reduced to ashes. Spanish eyewitnesses testified that not a building was left standing except the _Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad_, and some twenty houses of the meaner sort. These were probably scattered dwellings south of the Plaza. Although disgraced by the failure of his expedition, Moore returned to Florida in 1704 with a large number of Indian allies. They overran the weakly garrisoned Indian towns of Apalache and the interior, taking 1,300 Indian prisoners back to Carolina. During this and subsequent invasions practically all of the outlying Franciscan Missions were destroyed. Only those in the immediate vicinity of St. Augustine remained. [Illustration: _Two stout defense lines protected the capital on the north._] _The Capital’s Defenses_ Moore’s siege of St. Augustine in 1702 showed a serious weakness in the capital’s defenses. The enemy were able to occupy and burn the town despite its impregnable Castillo. This led to the gradual construction of a system of outer defenses to protect the town itself from future invasion. First an inner defense line was built extending westward from the Castillo to the San Sebastian River along what is now Orange Street. It eventually consisted of a moat, some fifty or more feet wide and six feet deep. Material from the ditch was used to build a sturdy wall of earth and palm logs. St. Augustine’s City Gate is all that remains of this defense work.