About this time the British, having captured Charleston, seized a number of the most influential men of South Carolina, in violation of their parole, and sent them to St. Augustine, where they remained until exchanged in 1781. All of the number, except General Gadsden, accepted a second parole, after arriving at St. Augustine. Gadsden, refusing to receive pledges at the hands of those who had already broken them, was confined for nearly a year in the fort. These prisoners were often threatened with the fate due to defeated rebels, and perhaps were taken to view the gallows at the north-east corner of the court-yard in the fort, said to have been erected by the British.[29] The pressure upon the governor, urging him to permit the enjoyment of the rights of representation granted by the king’s charter, had now become so forcible that, in 1781, a General Assembly was called, consisting of an Upper and a Lower House. The former was probably composed of the crown officers, and the latter of those elected by the freeholders. March 17th, 1781, the first Assembly met. Though Florida had been settled more than two hundred years, never before had the citizens been allowed to assemble and enact a law. The governor, in his address upon the assembling of the two Houses, was inclined to be sarcastic. He announced that the “king and Parliament,” with astonishing “and unprecedented condescension,” relinquished their right of taxation, provided the Legislature made due provision for defraying the expenses of the government, and this when the whole sum raised by taxation did not amount to the salary of the king’s treasurer. The principal source of revenue was said to be from licenses to sell liquors. In 1781 an event occurred most damaging to the material advancement of the province. This was an order from Sir Guy Carleton, H. B. M., Commander-in-chief in America, to General Leslie, in Carolina, to evacuate the province of East Florida with all his troops and such loyalists as wished. The inhabitants at once sent the most urgent protests against this harsh and unreasonable order, appealing to the governor and the king, by whom it was soon after revoked. It was at the hands of an expedition fitted out at St. Augustine that Great Britain obtained possession of the Bahama Islands, which she still holds. In 1783, Colonel Devereux, with two twelve-gun vessels, and a small force of men, made a sudden attack and captured the town of Nassau, with the Spanish garrison and governor.