acco was raised and thousands of laborers lived with their
families, and in raising the moral standard of Cuban society.

The spirit of animosity between France and England on the one hand, and
Spain and England on the other, gave birth to two schemes to attack
Charleston in the year 1706. The valiant Canadian pioneer d'Iberville
was on the way with a respectable force. He reached Santo Domingo, where
he was reenforced by Spanish troops, and set sail for the coast of South
Carolina. He was stricken with yellow fever and the undertaking had to
be abandoned. At the same time the Spanish authorities in the West
Indies, having decided upon an aggressive policy towards the British in
America, planned retaliation for some of the wrongs suffered in recent
years. The unwarranted attack of Governor James Morgan of South Carolina
upon the old Spanish town of St. Augustine, only four years before, was
not forgotten and offered a welcome pretext to launch an offensive
movement. Accordingly an expedition was fitted out in Havana, mostly of
French privateers, but also some Cuban forces and on the way was joined
by more from St. Augustine. The squadron arrived at Sullivan's Island
off Charleston on Saturday afternoon in August of that year. The
militia of the city was rapidly mobilized but open combat did not begin
until the following Wednesday, when the French commander demanded the
surrender of the city in the name of Louis XIV. The South Carolinians
replied by a violent attack, which drove a large number of the French
that had landed into the water. The fight was renewed when more ships of
the expedition came up, and though the attack was repulsed and there was
considerable loss of life, the Cuban force that had participated,
returned with considerable booty.

The new governor who entered upon his office May 13, 1706, was Field
Marshal D. Pedro Alvarez de Villarin, a native of Asturia, gentilhombre
(a nobleman-attendant of the young princes of Spain and counsellor of
the Elector of Bavaria). But his reign was one of the shortest in Cuban
history. He died on the eighth of July, and the former provisional
governors, D. Luis Chacon and D. Nicolas Chirmo Vandeval, once more
administered their duties, political and military. British warships were
haunting the coasts of the island and kept the authorities and the
residents in a perpetual state of suspense. But the French were now the
allies of the Spaniards and their able admiral Chavagn