The proclamation of Governor Grant, and the accounts which had gone abroad of the advantages of the province, and the liberal policy adopted by the British in the treatment of colonists, induced some wealthy planters from the Carolinas to remove to Florida, and several noblemen of England also solicited grants of land in the province. Among the noblemen who secured grants of land in Florida were Lords Hawke, Egmont, Grenville, and Hillsborough, Sir William Duncan, and Dennys Rolle, the father of Lord Rolle. Sir William Duncan was a partner with Dr. Turnbull in importing a large number of Europeans for the cultivation of their lands south of St. Augustine, on the Halifax River. The persons whom these two gentlemen then induced to come to Florida are the ancestors of a large majority of the resident population of St. Augustine at the present day. In the early accounts of the place I am satisfied that gross injustice was done to these people in a reckless condemnation of the whole community. I have myself heard their descendants unreasonably censured, and their characters severely criticised. These unfavorable opinions were doubtless generated by the unfortunate position in which these immigrants found themselves. Friendless in a strange land, speaking a different language from the remainder of the inhabitants, and of a different religious belief, it was but natural that they should mingle but little with the English residents, especially after they had experienced such unjust treatment at the hands of one of the most influential of the principal men of the colony. The reader will understand the position of these Minorcans and Greeks, and the feelings they must have entertained toward the great men of the colony, after reading Romans’s account of the hardships they were forced to undergo, and the difficulty they had in breaking their onerous contract. Romans says: “The situation of the town, or settlement, made by Dr. Turnbull is called New Smyrna from the place of the doctor’s lady’s nativity. About fifteen hundred people, men, women, and children, were deluded away from their native country, where they lived at home in the plentiful corn-fields and vineyards of Greece and Italy, to this place, where, instead of plenty, they found want in the last degree; instead of promised fields, a dreary wilderness; instead of a grateful, fertile soil, a barren, arid sand, and in addition to their misery were obliged to indent themselves, their wives and children for many years to a man who had the most sanguine expectations of transplanting bashawship from the Levant. The better to effect his purpose, he granted them a pitiful portion of land for ten years upon the plan of the feudal system. This being improved, and just rendered fit for cultivation, at the end of that term it again reverts to the original grantor, and the grantee may, if he chooses, begin a new state of vassalage for ten years more. Many