Daniel Brinton - Notes on the Floridian Peninsula; its Literary History, Indian Tribes and Antiquities

The next book that comes under our notice we owe to the misfortune of a shipwreck. On the “twenty-third of the seventh month,” 1696, a bark, bound from Jamaica to the flourishing colony of Philadelphia, was wrecked on the Floridian coast, near Santa Lucea, about 27° 8´, north latitude. The crew were treated cruelly by the natives and only saved their lives by pretending to be Spaniards. After various delays and much suffering they prevailed on their captors to conduct them to St. Augustine. Here Laureano de Torres, the governor, received them with much kindness, relieved their necessities, and furnished them with means to return home. Among the passengers was a certain Jonathan Dickinson a Quaker resident in Pennsylvania. On his arrival home, he published a narrative of his adventures, 62 62 God’s Protecting Providence Man’s Surest Help and Defence, In the times of the greatest difficulty and most Imminent danger, Evidenced in the Remarkable Deliverance of divers Persons from the devouring Waves of the Sea, amongst which they suffered Shipwrack, And also from the more cruelly devouring jawes of the inhumane Cannibals of Florida. Faithfully related by one of the Persons concerned therein. Philadelphia, 1699, 1701, and a fourth edition, 1751. London, 1700. German trans. Erstaunliche Geschichte des Schiffbruches den einige Personen im Meerbusen von Florida erlitten, Frankfort, 1784, and perhaps another edition at Leipzic. that attracted sufficient attention to be reprinted in the mother country and translated into German. It is in the form of a diary, introduced by a preface of ten pages filled with moral reflections on the beneficence of God and His ready help in time of peril. The style is cramped and uncouth, but the many facts it contains regarding the customs of the natives and the condition of the settlement give it value in the eyes of the historian and antiquarian. Among bibliopolists the first edition is highly prized as one of the earliest books from the Philadelphia press. The printer, Reinier Jansen, was “an apprentice or young man” of William Bradford, who, in 1688, published a little sheet almanac, the first printed matter in the province. 63 63 Thomas, History of Printing in America, vol. II. p. 25. After his return the author resided in Philadelphia till his death, in 1722, holding at one time the office of Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. He must not be confounded with his better known cotemporary of the same name, staunch Presbyterian, and first president of the College of New Jersey, of much renown in the annals of his time for his fervent sermons and addresses.

The growing importance of the English colonies on the north, and the aggressive and irritable character of their settlers, gave rise at an early period of their existence to bitter feelings between them and their more southern neighbors, manifested by a series of attacks and reprisals on both sides, kept alive almost continually till the cession to England in 1763. So much did the Carolinians think themselves aggrieved, that as early as 1702, Colonel Moore, then governor of the province, made an impotent and ill-advised attempt to destroy St. Augustine; for which valorous undertaking his associates thought he deserved the fools-cap, rather than the laurel crown. An account of his Successes, 64 64 The Successes of the English in America, by the March of Colonel Moore, Governor of South Carolina, and his taking the Spanish Town of St. Augustine near the Gulph of Florida. And by our English Fleete sayling up the River Darian, and marching to the Gold Mines of Santa Cruz de Cana, near Santa Maria. London, 1702; reprinted in an account of the South Sea Trade, London, 1711. Bib. Primor. Amer. or more properly Misfortunes, published in England the same year; is of great rarity and has never come under my notice. Of his subsequent expedition, undertaken in the winter of 1703-4, for the purpose of wiping away the stigma incurred by his dastardly retreat, so-called, from St. Augustine, we have a partial account in a letter from his own pen to Sir Nathaniel Johnson, his successor in the gubernatorial post. It was published the next May in the Boston News, and has been reprinted by Carroll in his Historical Collections. The precise military force in Florida at this time may be learned from the instructions given to Don Josef de Zuñiga, Governor-General in 1703, preserved by Barcia.

Some years afterwards Captain T. Nairns, an Englishman, accompanied a band of Yemassees on a slave hunting expedition to the peninsula. He kept a journal and took draughts on the road, both of which were in the possession of Herman Moll, 65 65 See the note on his New Map of the North Parts of America, London, 1720, headed “Explanation of an Expedition in Florida Neck by Thirty Three Iamasee Indians, Accompany’d by Capt. T. Nairn.” but they were probably never published, nor does this distinguished geographer mention them in any of his writings on his favorite science.

Governor Oglethorpe renewed these hostile demonstrations with vigor. His policy, exciting as it did much odium from one party and some discussion in the mother country, gave occasion to the publication of several pamphlets. Those that more particularly refer to his expedition against the Spanish, are three in number, 66 66 A voyage to Georgia, begun in the year 1735, by Francis Moore; London, 1741; reprinted in the Collection of the Georgia Historical Society, Vol. I. An Impartial Account of the Expedition against St. Augustine under the command of General Oglethorpe; 8vo., London, 1742. ( Rich. ) Journal of an Expedition to the Gates of St. Augustine in Florida, conducted by General Oglethorpe. By G. L. Campbell; 8vo., London, 1744. ( Watts. ) and, together with his own letters to his patrons, the Duke of Newcastle and Earl of Oxford, 67 67 They are in the Rev. George White’s Historical Collections of Georgia, pp. 462, sqq., and in Harris’s Memorials of Oglethorpe. and those of Captain McIntosh, leader of the Highlanders, and for some time a captive in Spain, which are still preserved in manuscript in the Library of the Georgia Historical Society, 68 68 An extract may be found in Fairbank’s History and Antiquities of St. Augustine. furnish abundant information on the English side of the question; while the correspondence of Manuel de Montiano, Captain-General of Florida, extending over the years 1737-40, a part of which has been published by Captain Sprague 69 69 History of the Florida War. Ch. viii. and Mr. Fairbanks, 70 70 History of St. Augustine. Ch. xiv. but the greater portion still remaining inedited in the archives of St. Augustine, offers a full exposition of the views of their opponents.

A very important document bearing on the relations between the rival Spanish and English colonies, is the Report of the Committee appointed by the Commons House of Assembly of Carolina, to examine into the cause of the failure of Oglethorpe’s expedition. In the Introduction 71 71 Statements made in the Introduction to a Report on General Oglethorpe’s Expedition to St. Augustine. In B. R. Carroll’s Hist. Colls. of South Carolina, Vol. II., New York, 1836. Various papers in the State Paper Office, London, mentioned in the valuable list in the first volume of the Colls. of the S. Car. Hist. Soc. (Charleston, 1857) which further illustrate this portion of Floridian history, I have, for obvious reasons, omitted to recapitulate here. are given a minute description of the town, castle and military condition of St. Augustine, and a full exposition of the troubles between the two colonies, from the earliest settlement of the English upon the coast. Coming from the highest source, it deserves entire confidence.