By 1733 James Oglethorpe’s settlement of the area resolved the 60-year-old struggle over the vast no-man’s land. For the governor in Florida this meant a reorientation of military policy. Prior to 1733 the threat to Spanish power in Florida had come from the Carolinians in Charleston, 150 miles away. Now in 1733 the English menace was less than half that distance, forcing the governor to revise his defensive policies to fit the realities of expanding English power in the Southeast. Reaction in Florida to the Founding of Georgia By the summer of 1733 Governor Benavides was thoroughly alarmed over English activity in Georgia. In July he reported to the Council of the Indies that the new Georgia settlement was the first step in an English plot to drive the Spanish out of the Southeast. The Georgians, he stated, were more than simple farmers; they were well-armed military men ready to move first on Saint Augustine and from there on to New Spain. [Note 1: gov to Patino 7/27/1733] (Tepaske GSF)