“At the time the Spaniards left the town, all the gardens were well stocked with fruit trees, viz.: figs, guavas, plantain, pomegranates, lemons, limes, citrons, shadock, bergamot, China and Seville oranges, the latter full of fruit throughout the whole winter season. The town is three quarters of a mile in length, but not a quarter wide; had four churches ornamentally built with stone in the Spanish taste, of which one within and one without the town exist. One is pulled down; that is the German church, but the steeple is preserved as an ornament to the town; and the other, viz., the convent-church and convent in town, is taken in the body of the barracks. All the houses are built of masonry; their entrances are shaded by piazzas, supported by Tuscan pillars or pilasters against the south sun. The houses have to the east windows projecting sixteen or eighteen inches into the street, very wide and proportionally high. On the west side, their windows are commonly very small, and no opening of any kind on the north, on which side they have double walls six or eight feet asunder, forming a kind of gallery which answers for cellars and pantries. Before most of the entrances were arbors of vines, producing plenty and very good grapes. No house has any chimney or fireplace; the Spaniards made use of stone urns, filled them with coals left in their kitchens in the afternoon, and set them at sunset in their bedrooms to defend themselves against those winter seasons which required such care. The governor’s residence has on both sides piazzas, viz., a double one on the south, and a single one to the north; also a Belvidere and a grand portico decorated with Doric pillars and entablatures. On the north end of the town is a casemated fort, with four bastions, a ravelin, counterscarp, and a glacis built with quarried shell-stones, and constructed according to the rudiments of Marechal de Vauban. This fort commands the road of the bay, the town, its environs, and both Tolomato Stream and Matanzas Creek. The soil in the gardens and environs of the town is chiefly sandy and marshy. The Spaniards seem to have had a notion of manuring their land with shells one foot deep.” In 1770, according to De Brahm, the inhabitants of St. Augustine and vicinity numbered 288 householders exclusive of women and children, of whom 31 were storekeepers and traders; 3 haberdashers, 15 innkeepers, 45 artificers and mechanics, 110 planters, 4 hunters, 6 cow-keepers, 11 overseers, 12 draftsmen in the employ of the government, besides mathematicians; 58 had left the province, and 28 had died, of whom 4 were killed acting as constables, and two hanged for piracy.[19]