Richard L. Campbell

“ General Bouquet was not only a distinguished soldier, but he also left behind him another claim to distinction in the thirty volumes of manuscript in the British museum, known as the “Bouquet Collection,” which now calendared is available to the historical student.
His monument has perished; his bones, perhaps, have been the sport of the unpitying waves; generations have unconsciously trampled on his dust; but, in “the Pantheon of history,” his name and his fame are as fresh as when on these shores he drew his last breath and heaved his last sigh. ”

“ A Canadian pilot, being inspired himself, inspired the commander of the Hercules with confidence in his ability to take her over the bar 47and into the action. With a cheer from her crew and all the canvas she could bear, the gallant ship sped under the guidance of the bold Canadian to the rescue of her consorts.
Speedily her sixty-four guns turned the tide of battle. Whilst her heavy broadside of thirty-two guns soon battered Principe d’ Asturias into silence, her consorts poured their fire into the Spanish fleet, which, now short of powder, struck its colors. ”

“ I have only to add, that we shall meet the commissioners of Congress whenever we shall receive notice, in expectation that every matter of difference will be settled, with that liberality and justice worthy the men who have so gloriously asserted the cause of liberty and independence, and that we shall, in future, consider them as brethren, and defenders of the land. [43]
I am, with much respect, sir,
Your obedient servant,
Alexander McGillivray. Hon. Andrew Pickens.
How politic and graceful the allusion to American independence! Could the alliance with Spain have been touched more artfully? ”

“ The day was naturally one of rejoicing to the Americans, but as naturally one of sadness and in some instances of heart aches to the Spanish population. The advantages of being under the United States government were too great not to be appreciated by owners of real estate and business men generally. But there was a sentimental side to the change. Some of the Spanish garrison had married in Pensacola, and with others the inhabitants had formed social ties, induced by a common language, habits and tastes. ”

“ Great Britain, on the other hand, in yielding to Spain’s demands was false to her faith, false to her traditions, and false to that boasted principle of her constitution that her ægis covers every Englishman, in every land.
Eighteen months is but a fleeting span to a people, when it is but a respite from confiscation and exile, avoidable only by apostasy. ”

“ Aside from the barbarity which marked the warfare instigated by Britain against the Americans in Florida and Alabama during the years 1812-1814, history has cause to lament its fatal consequences to the people who were the cruel instruments by which it was waged. ”

“ For a short time after the New York Treaty he seemed to be losing the confidence of his people, through the machinations of the self-styled General Bowles, who, it will be remembered, assisted with a body of Choctaws, Chickasaws and Creeks, in the defense of Pensacola against Galvez. He was a bold, unprincipled mischief-maker, who would stop at nothing that could be turned to his own advantage; one of those characters who breed suspicion and create confusion for their own profit and consideration. ”

“ In 1763 all the Spanish left the country, and in a common exile mutual consolation was found; but, in 1821, the sorrow was that a part went and a part remained to mingle with a strange people. Mrs. Jackson, in a letter, thus expresses the emotions of the occasion: “Oh! how they burst into tears to see the last ray of hope depart from their devoted city and country—delivering up the keys of the archives—the vessels lying in the harbor in full view to waft them to their distant port.... How did the city sit solitary and mourn. Never did my heart feel more for a people. ”

“ Narvaez, an Hidalgo, born at Valladolid about 1480, was a man capable of conceiving and undertaking great enterprises, but too rash and ill-starred for their successful execution, possessing the ambition and avarice which impelled the Spanish adventurers to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico during the sixteenth century, with whom Indian life was but a trifling sacrifice for a pearl or an ounce of gold. ”

“ Within a few hundred yards of the trail, and near the north side of the bridge, there is a cave one-fourth of a mile in length, with many 253lateral grottoes, its roof pendant with glittering stalactites and its floor covered with lime-stones moulded in varied and eccentric forms. Panic-stricken by Jackson’s campaign in East Florida, the Indians on the west of the Appalachicola river, when he began his westward march, made this cave a place of refuge, and were there quietly concealed when his troops unconsciously marched over their subterranean retreat. ”

“ That a man should have been selected so eminently qualified to execute such a singular task, affords the highest evidence of the capacity of the mind that made the selection. Such ability, is, indeed, after all, the surest test of the capacity of a ruler.
Though a band of the Creeks, as already mentioned, assisted the British at the time of Galvez’s operations against Pensacola, it is remarkable, that neither McGillivray, who was a colonel in the British army, nor Milfort, the Great War Chief, seem to have taken any part in the contest. ”

“ To Reding, a Swiss in the service of Spain, was due the glory of the event, which excited profound attention throughout Europe, and 214made a deep and sinister impression on the French.
Of the “catastrophe” Napoleon, who was at Bordeaux when he heard of it, said: “That an army should be beaten, is nothing; it is the daily fate of war and is easily repaired; but that an army should submit to a dishonorable capitulation is a stain upon the glory of our arms which can never be effaced. Wounds inflicted on honor are incurable. ”

“ Don Tristram, against whom history makes no accusations of cruelty or bloodshed during his expeditions into the interior, or his stay at Santa Maria, and who, animated by the spirit of legitimate colonization, sought only to found a new settlement, invites respect, if not admiration, as a character distinct and apart from the gold-seeking cut-throat adventurers that Spain sent in shoals to the Gulf shores during the sixteenth century. ”

“ The interest of history consists not in the mere knowledge or contemplation of events as isolated facts, but in studying their interrelations, and following their threads of connection through all the meshes of cause and effect. It is, therefore, an interesting reflection that the settlement of Arriola may not have been the absolute, though it was the apparent, cause of the consequences above pointed out. Behind it, in the shadow of a century and a 35third, may perchance be discerned the ultimate and final cause of those consequences in the settlement of de Luna. ”

“ He is hardly well within the nation before a grand council is called at Coweta, on the Chattahoochee, over which he was to preside, and formally assume the hegemony of the Ho-tal-gee.
To a thoughtful mind there is a pathos in this scene which appeals to every generous nature! It comes like the despairing appeal of infancy to manhood for help! It is the ignorance of the savage stretching out its supplicating hands to the white man’s wisdom as his only refuge. ”

“ As to the Americans, it was of little consequence to Spain that General Clinton’s forces would be strengthened by the reinforcement of the Florida troops, albeit at a conjuncture when every available man was required to sustain Britain’s tottering North American empire. For though Spain became an ally of France in order to place herself in a position to claim a fragment of that empire when it fell, yet her purpose was to attain that end with the least possible inconvenience or sacrifice to herself. ”

“ Of the sympathy of Pensacola with the great patriotic movement in the 206mother country, there exists memorials in the names of some of its streets, and its chief public square.
It was in the fervor of that sympathy that the square received the name of the exiled monarch; a token of loyalty, of which, however, he proved himself unworthy by his conduct after his restoration to the throne. Never had a monarch a better opportunity of making his reign happy and illustrious, and never did one under such conditions make it a source of greater shame to himself, and misery to his people. ”

“ But few of those in the Fort escaped. All the dead were scalped, except those who were saved from that outrage, by undergoing the process of cremation in the buildings in which they had taken refuge, and which were fired by the enemy to overcome their defenders. Their bloody work finished, the Indians rested and feasted, at the scene of the massacre, smoking their pipes, and trimming and drying the scalps they had taken. Afterwards, these horrid trophies of victory, strung on sticks, were taken to the British agents at Pensacola, who paid for them the promised bounty. ”

“ In the centre of the fortress was the council chamber of the province and the repository of its archives, where the office duties of the governor and the military commander were performed, where audience was given to Indian chiefs and delegations, and where really centered the government of West Florida, according to its English boundaries.
In that chamber on one occasion could have been seen a man in the prime of life, partly in Indian dress, in earnest conversation with Governor Chester and William Panton, the millionaire and merchant prince of the Floridas. ”

“ The Indian trade that existed between the Creeks and the Atlantic coast, which has already been mentioned, was an inviting field to cupidity and enterprise, and many were the young adventurers from the old world who engaged in it soon after their landing at Charleston or Savannah. Some of them, too, fascinated by the wild life of the forest, made themselves homes in the Creek nation, and found wives amongst the Creek maidens, who in form, feature and habits, were superior to those of other tribes. ”

“ A few days after Maldonado’s departure a captured Indian so beguiled Soto with tales of gold to be found far to the northeast of Apalachee, where he then was, that banishing all thoughts of Puerta d’ Anchusi from his mind, he began that circuitous march which carried him into South Carolina, northern Georgia, and Alabama, where he wandered in search of treasure until disappointment, wasted forces, and needed supplies again turned his march southward, and his thoughts to his rendezvous with Maldonado. ”

“ As in idea we go into the camp at Mauvilla, on the morning when the word of command was given for a westward march, we see depicted on the war-worn visages of that iron band naught but gloom and disappointment, as, constrained by the stern will of one man, they obediently fall into ranks without a murmur, much less a sign of revolt. ”

“ Very extraordinary events or striking objects only are the subjects of the traditions of savage tribes; and what event can be imagined more extraordinary and impressive to the savage mind than to be brought suddenly in contact, for the first time, with the white man under all the circumstances and conditions of de Luna’s settlement? It was one not likely to pass out of tradition in the lapse of one hundred and thirty-three years, for two long lives only would be required for its transmission. The settlers would be, in Indian terminology, a tribe ”

“ This state of things naturally excited the suspicion of the United States, that McGillivray was co-operating with Panton and Olivier. Of any active co-operation by him, however, there is no evidence, as there is none of his active opposition to their machinations. He was too sagacious a man, and had the good of his people too much at heart to engage in the latter. The boundary line fixed by the treaty, had from the first, been exceedingly objectionable to the Creeks, so much so, that even the influence of their Grand Chief had failed to reconcile them to it. ”

“ To the accession of Philip V., a Bourbon prince, to the Spanish crown, whilst Louis XIV. reigned in France, must be attributed the strangely peaceful settlement of the Perdido as the boundary line between Louisiana and Florida. For the politic, if not natural, harmony existing between two kings belonging to the same royal family, a grandfather and a grandson, both the objects of jealousy and suspicion to the other nations of Europe, necessarily inspired a like feeling in their respective colonial officers. ”

“ Soto, however, still ambitious of emulating the achievements of Cortez and Pizzaro, looked upon Puerta d’ Anchusi as only a base of supply and refuge for temporary repose, from which again to set out in search of his goal. But very different were the views of his followers. By eaves-dropping on a dark night behind their tents, he learned that to them Puerta d’ Anchusi was not to be a haven of temporary rest only, but the first stage of their journey homeward, where Soto and his fortunes were to be abandoned. ”

“ On the night of the twenty-fifth, batteries were established in favorable positions within three hundred and eighty-five yards of the fort, though the work was interrupted by the Spanish guns. Before the American batteries replied, Jackson, in his anxiety to spare the effusion of blood, sent Masot, under a flag of truce, another demand to surrender, accompanied by a representation of the futility, if not the folly, of further resistance. The refusal of the demand was followed by the batteries and the fort opening upon each other. ”

“ Such a man, conscious of his rectitude and good intentions towards the province, evinced by his readiness to afford it the privilege of representative government, somewhat at the expense of his own authority, would naturally feel that the condition attached to the ballots, and adhered to with much insistance, manifested such a want of confidence in him as to justify his distrust of the people. ”

“ The treacherous Americans, who call themselves free, have attacked her like assassins while she was fallen. But the day of retribution is fast approaching.... As to the Indians, you are to exhibit to them the most exact discipline, being patterns to these children of nature. You will teach and instruct them, in doing which you will manifest the utmost patience, and you will correct them when they deserve it. ”

“ It was by him the captive King sent the instructions to the Junta which was to exercise the sovereignty of the Spanish people during the exile of their monarch. Having performed that duty, Palafox went to Zaragoza, to join in the uprising of Aragon, of which it was the capital. Despite his lack of years and experience, his commanding presence led the Aragonese, full of patriotic ardor and warlike impulse, to choose him as their leader, and proclaim him Captain General of Aragon. ”