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Ayala Escobar became temporary Governor

Source: The Governorship of Spanish Florida #122

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Appointment and Term of the Interim Governor
Five governors between 1700 and 1763 were temporary—Juan de Ayala Escobar (1716-1718), Ignacio Rodriguez Rozo (1726), Manuel Joseph de Justis (1737), Fulgencio Garcia de Solis (1752-1755), and Alonso de Cardenas (1761-1762). Royal decrees set an automatic succession to this post. If the governor died or left the colony temporarily, the sergeant major, second-in-command to the governor, took office until a permanent replacement arrived or the governor returned. If the sergeant major were not able to fill the vacancy, the senior military captain in the garrison took the post. The interim governor had full authority in the colony, but he did not receive the governor’s salary or perquisites.

Juan de Ayala Escobar became temporary governor in 1716. He had become sergeant major in 1703, and when Governor Pedro de Olivera y Fullana died after only three months and nineteen days in office, the interim governorship fell to Ayala. Old, doddering, and unpopular with some residents of Saint Augustine, he served almost two years until a new governor arrived in 1718.

...Interim governors had the same wide military experience as their permanent counterparts. Juan de Ayala Escobar (1716-1718) had spent most of his life in Saint Augustine, rising from infantry footsoldier to the rank of captain and sergeant major.

(Tepaske GSF)