Florida -- History -- Spanish colony, 1565-1763 -- Sources; Saint Augustine (Fla.) -- History
By your Royal dispatch of May 25th of last year, 1721, you commanded me
that taking advantage of the suspension of arms and the friendly
relations I had observed with the English of the Carolinas since then;
that your request at the Court of London had been granted. That under
all these circumstances I should go in my official capacity to the
Governor of Carolina and arrange with him to observe strictly the
Treaty, that the vexation among the Indians who were allied to the two
nations should cease. I immediately complied with your order and sent
the Contador, Don Francisco Menendez, accompanied by other officials,
from this Garrison, with the commission of having a firm agreement with
the Governor of Carolina to make the Indians attached to his nation and
to cease aggravating those with us, and thus live in peace and
tranquility, pursuing agriculture. This peace being as important to one
nation as the other, for, should war be declared, there would be no end
to it. To this proposition and others as certified in the accompanying
letter which I take this occasion of sending you, the Governor and
Parliament of the Carolinas replied that they had received no such
orders from the King of Great Britain, but that notwithstanding he would
try to enforce peace during the suspension of arms. Immediately upon the
arrival of Don F. Menendez in the Carolinas he was notified that the
English had constructed a wooden fort on the tongue at the mouth of
Talauje Province on your Majesty’s territory, where, for many years the
Indians and Guajas were settled and by reason of the siege this nation
put on this Garrison, they had retired to where they still are. Don
Francisco Menendez hearing this, considered it wrong for them to
trespass upon your Territory, and so stated it to the Governor, and also
that he feared harm would result from it. The reply given was: that the
King of Great Britain had ordered them to strengthen his dominions with
fortifications in any form they deemed expedient. Under different
pretexts the “Contador” tried to have them show the order, but they
refused to do so, saying it was sufficient that they said they had the
order, and the Governor of Florida had nothing at all to do with it.
From which I infer, your Lordship, that with the arrival of this new
Governor in these colonies, not only will he complete the building of
this Fort and settlement, but that he will also settle all the islands
belonging to this jurisdiction, thus making the Carolinas impregnable
and reducing this Garrison to a more lamentable state than it is in
today on account of its easy access to the Indians who would immediately
come to possess themselves of the ammunition and arms which it is the
very heighth of their ambition to obtain. So Menendez learned that
provision had been made by the English Government to equip this Colony,
and they were awaiting, at any moment, vessels with supplies and arms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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