In a memoir of June, 1702,2 Iberville analysed the French advantages for rivalling the English traders among the Creek Indians, notably the ease of watertransport from Mobile. Franco-Spanish rivalry on the eastern Gulf coast, in Iberville's view, must be subordinated to the common task of checking the advance of the Carolinians. Even while engaged in furnishing Ponchartrain with arguments for the cession of Pensacola to France, he recognised the necessity of supporting the feeble establishments of the Bourbon ally [Spain]. In the next war, he declared, St. Augustine, Apalache, Pensacola would lie at the mercy of the English. He therefore helped to secure supplies for the starving garrison at Pensacola, and sought earnestly to link Florida and Louisiana in effective resistance to English intrusions.