15/01/2025
Turnbull and family move to St. Augustine and he shares his thoughts there. (The Minorcan Experience)
Andrew Turnbull to Sir William Duncan
St. Augustine, November 26, 1766
“I arrived here the 18th of this month with all my family and our artificers in good health and spirits, though the finding a home and making it fit to live in has taken up much of my time, yet I have been often in the environs of this place to [view] the productions of the neighboring plantations. Yesterday I wandered in the woods the whole day and dined on a racoon: a pine board fresh from the saw & supported by stumps of trees was our table and chairs, for we sat astride on the board. Dining thus in the open air, under a clear sunne [sic] sky, with such an appetite as a walk of such hours in the woods brings a [tear in paper] on such food as these woods affords, is very agreeable: & I am convinced that wolves & the other gentry of the forest do not live such hard & disagreeable lives as is generally immagined [sic], especially not [in] this Country where game and pray of every kind is incredibly abundant.
“As to the climate & fertility of the country in general, so far as I can judge from the weather since I have been here, and from the productions I have seen, they far exceed my expectations, and seem to me to be beyond what has been said of them. Some Sugar canes brought from the Havannah this Spring and planted last April by the governor here are thriving fast, and promise to be as good both for Rum & Sugar as any in the West Indies, and this without the least help or care. The cotton plant is stronger and better than any I ever saw in Turkey. The Indigo plant stands the winter, which it never does in the neighboring provinces; from this circumstance a better Indigo is made, and the labour of ten men is equal to that of twenty when it is planted and raised from the seed every year. As to vines they seem to be at home here. The woods are full of many different kinds. Some of them bear a good fruit: a few cuttings brought from Madeira last winter and planted in the governor’s garden, have got on more in one year than in two in Asia Minor, or in four years in Italy and France. They will give a good half crop the second year. I intend to form a little vineyard from this year’s cutting of them. Figs, dried Raisins will all become articles of export. Mulberry Trees grow well without care of cultivation, and if the Spring weather is in proportion to this we now have, the silk worms may be fed on the tree, which will be a saving of the labour of four men in five. Rice has given an extraordinary crop this year: and many other vehicles of commerce may be cultivated to great advantage in this country.
“As to the Greek scheme, this Province has every advantage to be asked for especially that of food, as theirs is chiefly on fish, the Rivers and shores swarm with them, and the banks of every river never nigh the sea, is almost one continual bed of very fine oysters. I can see now that there are many advantages in this part of the world, especially in some other considerable articles of trade which the Americans have not found out; as soon as my information confirms my opinions I will not fail to communicate them; but even without these, I can only see that a Greek colony will be of much more importance both to the Proprietors of Lands here & to the Mother Country than I imagined.
“I am now preparing to go about seventy or eighty miles to the Southward to see the country & lands that way. As I go on horseback I will take a different route in coming back, from that by which I go. Afterwards, I intend to see both sides of the St. Johns at [least] as far as the great lake, or perhaps [tear]. The governor here is well informed of everything relating to this province. He has taken great pains to give me every help in his power; he is the most of a man of business of any military person I have ever met with, and he has a strong desire of doing every service in his power to all who come to settle in his province. My scheme seems to him the only one which cannot fail in this province. As to Palatines or Germans he has already wrote to some of his friends not to think of them.
I beg the favour of my respect to Lady Mary, & I am with great respect, Dear Sir William, Your most obedient servant.”
Dundee City Archive
UNF Florida History Online
(map - “Plan of the Town of St. Augustine, the Capital of East Florida,” by Thomas Jeffrys, published in William Faden, North American Atlas (1777). The map appeared first under a different title in William Stork, Description of East Florida (1769). Image from Boston Rare Maps Sale Catalogue.)
