Finding that the Minorcans were unable to receive the full benefit from the teachings of the priests because of their inability to understand the Spanish language, the Vicar-General asked that there might be sent to St. Augustine a priest conversant with the language of this large proportion of his flock. In 1795, agreeably to this request, Friar McAfry Catalan, an Irish priest speaking the Minorcan language, arrived in St. Augustine. The Spanish governor, Don Juan Nepomuseno Quesada, made great efforts to settle the province, and allowed many extraordinary privileges, such as were not enjoyed in any other part of the Spanish dominions. In 1792 Florida was opened to general emigration without exception of country or creed. It was rapidly progressing to importance under this wise policy, when the Spanish Minister, growing jealous of the republican spirit of the new colonists, closed the gates against American citizens about the year 1804. Quesada, however, endeavored to procure a large Irish emigration, and wrote to Las Casas, Governor of Cuba, asking that the government would aid those of Irish nationality and Catholic faith to settle in the province. The governor replied that no settlers should be admitted to Florida unless they paid their own transportation and maintained themselves. He instructed Quesada to afford no other assistance than “lands, protection, good treatment, and no molestation in matters of religion, although there shall be no other public worship but Catholic.” He also referred him to the “Law of the Indies.” By this law lands were granted to new settlers, “making a distinction between gentlemen and peasants.” A peasant’s portion was a town lot fifty by one hundred feet--arable land, capable of producing one hundred fanegas (bushels) of wheat and ten of Indian corn, with as much land as two oxen can plow in a day for the raising of esculent roots; also pasture-land for eight breeding sows, twenty cows, five mares, one hundred sheep, and twenty goats. A gentleman’s portion was a lot in town one hundred by two hundred feet, and, of all the remainder, five times a peasant’s portion. Many grants were made under this law by Governor Quesada, and the patents issued by him are the foundation of many titles of lands in the vicinity of St. Augustine.