CHAPTER I. EARLY RELATIONS WITH SPAIN. FLO 'LORIDA — the land of the fountain of youth, of fabled riches, of unrivaled beauty, was the central figure of the romance and tradition of the sixteenth century. But her history was more a tragedy than a song. Here explorers, brave knights, soldiers of fortune, lured by the siren songs of wealth and the hope of glory, suffered and died and the world knew them no more. Here were armies sacrificed to satiate the vengeance of European monarchs- massacred by savage redskins or other vengeful enemies, with every refinement of cruelty that an ingenious mind could conceive or an experienced hand execute. Here Spanish and French and English all contributed something to the horror-laden history of colonial conquest, each in turn learning the awful penalties of the law of retribution. Army after army buried itself in these swamps and forests their bones left to bleach in the woods after being torn asunder by wild beasts or cruel natives to whom the whites had brought only the gospel of hate. And in these primeval forests, in a fruitless endeavor to explore the world of fabled romance, many a brave cavalier found the grave of his ambition. Bound by the thraldom of stupid traditions, they pursued the fateful errand of death and failure; no city of gold was their reward, no treasure-mine offered remuneration; only misery and death and the immunities of a forgotten grave. But these expeditions were not of exploration and avarice alone; they were also of holy mission; for the adventurer and priest were companions, the one seeking the reward of gold, the other the nobler reward of souls won to Christianity. But their methods were much the same; fire and sword served them in place of argument and conviction. The beautiful picture of self-sacrificing priests gone into a wild country to carry salvation to an unfortunate race, was not without its darker shadows. For they brought the inquisition with its horrors, and the fagot showed to a lurid heaven that even untutored savages can die for their convictions and for principle. After the early period of discovery and settlement had passed, the American colonies became entangled in the wars of the continent. In 1666, again in 1719, and in 1725 various attacks on Florida had been made by the southern colonists entailing a bitterness of feeling between these provinces, which was destined to endure and bear fruit for more than a century. Fire and sword, famine and disease visited the colony in rapid and ruinous succession. By the treaty of Paris in 1763, Florida was ceded to Great Britain in return for Cuba, and a new life was opened to this province- the fairest, yet the bloodiest of our domain. For Spain has ever viewed her colonists as slaves whose blood and tears might well be shed to advance her own proud ease and splendor. With the change of title the Spanish people quite generally emigrated from the country which had been under the Castilian flag for two centuries. Two hundred years of disappointment and sorrow they had been. Outside the garrisoned walls little had been accomplished, for the Spanish were soldiers not civilians, gentlemen not agriculturists. Under the English the province increased in population |