With the fortification so far along, the Governor could afford to give more attention to other business in the province. There was the matter of Lord Cardross’ Scotch colony at Port Royal, S.C., a new and obnoxious settlement that encouraged the savage raids on the mission Indians. It existed in territory recognized as Spanish even by the English monarch. Out from St. Augustine in the stormy month of September 1686, Cabrera sent Tomás de León with three ships. León completely destroyed the Cardross colony and sailed northward to sack and burn Governor Morton’s plantation on Edisto Island. Then the Spaniards set their course for Charleston. Again, as it had 16 years before, a storm came up to save the hated and feared English colony. León’s vessel, the _Rosario_, was lost, and he along with it. Another of the trio was beached, and the last of the little armada limped slowly back to St. Augustine. Cabrera had his revenge, but the Georgia country remained irrevocably lost to Spain. And the contest for the hinterlands had begun. The traders led the advance from Charleston; Cabrera sent soldiers and missionaries from St. Augustine to western Florida to bolster the Indians against them. For the Spanish, it was a losing fight—an exciting, exasperating struggle of diplomacy and intrigue, trade and cupidity, war and religion, slavery and death. The turn of affairs on the frontier and the threat of reprisal by the Carolinians sent Capt. Juan de Ayala directly to Spain for help, and he came back with 100 soldiers, the money for maintaining them, and even a Negro slave to help cultivate the fields. The single Negro, one of a dozen Ayala had hoped to deliver, was a much-needed addition to the colony, and Captain Ayala was welcomed back to St. Augustine with rejoicing “for his good diligence.” Soon there was more Negro labor for both fields and fortifications. From the Carolina plantations, an occasional Negro slave would slip away, searching his way southward along the waterways. In 1688 a small boat loaded with eight runaways and a baby girl found its way to St. Augustine. The men went to work on the castillo at 4 reales a day and the Governor took the two women into his household for servants. It was a fairly happy arrangement, for the slaves worked well and soon asked to become Catholic. A few months later, William Dunlop came from Charleston in search of them. The Governor, reluctant to surrender these converted slaves, offered to buy them for the Spanish Crown, and to this offer Dunlop agreed, even though the Governor was short of cash and had to promise to pay for them later. To seal the bargain, Dunlop gave the baby girl her freedom.