"The inhabitants were of all colours, whites, negroes, mulattoes, Indians, &c, at the evacuation of St. Augustine." So wrote English colonist John Bartram in 1765. His observation was not a firsthand account as he visited St. Augustine almost two years after the Spanish had evacuated the capital city and the Florida colony, sailing to Cuba and Mexico. Who was his informant? Perhaps he heard this from one of the first of the British soldiers to arrive whose posting overlapped the evacuation for Spanish residents. Yet narrative reports and records made during the Spanish centuries bear witness to Bartram's comment. (Parker RR)