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FL spent its last 20 years building defenses in relative peace

Source: The Governorship of Spanish Florida #122

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In Florida the governor used this reprieve to good advantage. Between 1743 and 1763 Montiano and his successors strengthened the defenses of the colony to such a degree that by the time the English took over Saint Augustine in 1763 it was never stronger. Near the end of his tenure Montiano rebuilt and refitted the six half-galleys that had driven off the English landing force in September, 1742, and mounted new cannon at the mouth of the Saint John’s River. Later governors continued this work. Forced laborers erected new storehouses for powder and food, raised the walls of the fort, and built new counterscarps and covered walks. In Apalache a Cuban engineer laid plans to replace Primo’s wooden fort with a stronger, more defensible stone structure, and during the 1750s forced laborers undertook a building program that bolstered Apalache’s makeshift defenses. The usual problems, lack of labor, materials, and money—caused delays in the work of refortification, but after 1743 the governors of Florida did not have to expend their efforts in repairing damage inflicted by the English and their Indians. They were able to make real progress toward improving Florida’s defense lines in order to make the colony less vulnerable to outside attack.