ex-governor remained influential, and soon another force, a thousand Indians and fifty English, invaded Florida. This time the Carolinians did not go to St. Augustine, but laid waste the Spanish possessions far and near. Possibly the most extensive raid was that against the Apalaches in revenge for their invasion a few years before, and hardly anything was left of this once flourishing country beyond smoking ruins and fleeing inhabitants. Moore destroyed at least eight towns, and returned with the usual booty of church plate and slaves. Some of the fugitives from the Apalache country, we may recall, fled as far as Mobile, where they were warmly received by Bienville and given a location near his new fort, and they named their new home St. Louis, like their old. Others went to St. Augustine, and in course of time many went back to their old homes, but the glory of the nation that had been the first fruits of Spanish civilization and had made so great an impress upon the geography of America was gone forever.

It was soon seen, however, that invasion was not the rôle of the English alone. After three years of recuperation the Spaniards, in conjunction with the French, with whom they were then in alliance, prepared an expedition. It is not clear to what extent aid came from Louisiana, but we may be sure that Bienville would not be slow to help on the cause if possible. At all events, in August, 1706, a privateer suddenly brought the news to the Carolinians that a French and Spanish fleet was on the way to attack them. Charlestown itself was almost desolated by yellow fever, but the governor defied the foe that moved upon him from the landside, and repulsed attacks upon the adjacent islands. As for the threatened danger from the marine force, the Carolinians, who have never waited to be attacked, sent out a fleet under Colonel Rhett against the Latin foe. One vessel was captured with two hundred men; as for the rest, they had earlier sailed away, not stopping to exchange fire. Charlestown had repulsed the first of the three naval attacks known in her history.

It sounds incredible that a fleet of French and Spaniards should cross the ocean to attack an enemy, and flee without a blow before a militia squadron. Unfortunately, we have not the story of the other side to correct that of the victors; but, at all events, the contest was decided in favor of the English, and Carolina was free from invasion once more. Yet the contest was indecisive, for the Carolinians could not capture the fort of San Marcos any more than the Spaniards could take Charlestown. We find from the first year of the war Spaniards retiring from the sea islands toward St. Augustine. Even San Simon was abandoned, and in 1706 the English found the way open to build a tower and place artillery on San Pedro, while on the adjacent island of Ballenas they established a small fort of posts and boards. They had reoccupied Port Royal and on it built a fort named St. George, whose importance and influence even among the interior tribes is shown by the report which early reached Bienville that emissaries from it were crossing the mountains and descending the streams leading into the Ohio. How much of truth there may have been in this we cannot say, but it is a tribute to the sagacity of the English as well as of the French that such explorations, whether for trade or war, could have been planned and feared. It is possible that we have an echo of all this in the invasion, in 1708, of the Mobile territory by four thousand Indians from the northeast. We are told that the Cheraquis [Cherokees], Abikas, and Cadapouces [Catawbas] formed an alliance with the Alibamons and descended to attack Fort Louis, while we have already seen that, as with many another Indian invasion, the warriors could not be held together long enough to do anything effective.

There is little to record from this time as to the AngloSpanish border, except that it would seem that the short Triple Alliance War, in which for once the English and French were allied against Spain, brought as its results two fortifications on the Spanish border. We are told that the English of Carolina constructed a fort at the mouth

of the river called Talace or Tamasa, which remained for ten years. This was probably the one built by Colonel Barnwell on the Altamaha, against which the Spaniards protested during the Charlestown boundary conference with Middleton in 1724. It was soon afterward burned, possibly at Spanish instigation. The history of this stockade is obscure, but the one established by the Spaniards at Appalachee is better known. We observed that when Moore raided this country he found it well inhabited and civilized, a part of his glory consisting in destroying churches and carrying off the plate. He mentions two forts by name, Ayaville and St. Louis, and describes Appalachee as the granary of Florida. After a while, many of the inhabitants returned to their older district, and the Spaniards in 1718, to protect them for the future, built at a considerable distance up St. Mark's River a fort known in later days only by its ruins. Later, twenty-five miles below, they constructed between the arms of the river, at the edge of the marshes nine miles from the sea, quite a formidable structure. It was designed to be of stone, and a bastion and curtains were finished of that material. The quarry was somewhat nearer the sea and protected by a castle, with a tower forty-five feet high of two or more stories, itself used as a landmark and watch tower and perhaps also as a lighthouse. Moore found white men, no doubt Spaniards, among the palisaded Apalache towns, for from the building of these forts a Spanish garrison was almost always maintained there. A road ran eastwardly to the Picolata on the St. John's and another westwardly to Pensacola, passing in both directions through friendly villages. The padres were at home among the Indians, whom they effectually civilized, but St. Mark's of Appalachee must have been lonesome enough for the troops. It was a lodge in one vast wilderness, with no other post short of Pensacola in the one direction or on the east coast of Florida in the other. But at least it served its purpose, and during the subsequent hostilities between the English and the Spanish we find little mentioned of invasions of Appalachee.

Somewhat later the English had influence enough to set the Talapouches on Pensacola, which certainly shows great influence to the west. The expedition was unsuccessful, however, because Périer, who was then Governor of Louisiana, informed the invaders that if they did not retire he would send the Choctaws against them. This was effectual, for the Talapouches were too far from their homes to continue a siege in the face of such an attack. They retired and Pensacola was saved.

For a time quiet reigned upon the Atlantic, but it was only a lull. It seemed as if there was an irrepressible conflict between the Teuton and the Latin. Just as Carolina had been interposed between Virginia and Florida and had borne the brunt of battle, the time was come when Carolina could shift the burden to other shoulders. There was to be a buffer between Charlestown and St. Augustine, to receive the shock of struggles yet to come.

CHAPTER XVI

GEORGIA, THE BUFFER COLONY

ENGLAND had changed greatly since the foundation of Carolina. In foreign relations, the wars with Louis XIV. had given her a commanding place in Europe, and the accession of the House of Hanover put an end to all reasonable chances of a Stuart restoration. An even greater change occurred in domestic affairs. Sir Robert Walpole was the first of the great commoners who governed the country in express reliance upon the House of Commons. From his time there was carried out in practice what had been the theoretical result of the English Revolution of 1688, the king reigned and did not govern, and the ministry that conducted the government was only a committee of the dominant party in the lower house. Walpole has been called the first peace minister. He kept England out of foreign wars as much as possible, and aimed at lightening public burdens as far as circumstances would allow. During his long rule England developed wonderfully. Her successful wars had left her the mistress of the ocean, and the energy which had once gone to colonization now turned toward commerce and manufactures. She no longer shipped wool and other staples to be manufactured in the Low Countries so much as manufactured them herself. She no longer used Italian and Dutch bottoms to bring raw products and carry her goods abroad, for her seamen covered the ocean with merchant ships just as they had covered it for so many