The French, too, pressed eastward. Soon after Fort Toulouse was built Bienville attempted to create an advanced base nearer the Lower Creeks. While La Tour was sending agents to the Emperor, Bienville, early in 1718, despatched Chateaugue to build a stockaded post, Fort de Crevecoeur, on Baie St. Joseph, just west of the mouth of the Apalachicola River. But the Spanish soon discovered this flagrant intrusion into Florida, and protested vehemently to the commandant and to Bienville. Bienville referred to orders from France, but shortly abandoned Fort de Crevecoeur as untenable. In South Carolina the affair did not escape notice. With the building of Alabama Fort, and a rumored French reconnaissance near Altamaha, it was cited in propaganda at home as further evidence of the dangerous French policy of encirclement. 19 [Note 19 A narrative of this forgotten French intrusion is in Barcia, Ensayo cronologico. See Bienville to conseil de marine, June 12, September 25, 1718; Commons House answers to queries (1720) in C.O.; Carte nouvelle (1718), MS, in Bibl. Nat.; and D'Anville, Carte de la Louisiane dressee en Mai,1732 (1752)]