The colonists, disappointed and chagrined by the failure of the expedition, attributed this misfortune entirely to the incapacity of the general, who was not less dissatisfied with them. Whatever may have been the true causes of the failure, it produced a mutual and injurious distrust between the general and the colonists.[134]
[Footnote 134: In the same year Charleston was reduced to ashes. A large portion of its inhabitants passed, in one day, from prosperity to indigence. Under the pressure of this misfortune, the legislature applied to parliament for aid; and that body, with a liberality reflecting honour on its members, voted twenty thousand pounds, to be distributed among the sufferers.]
The events of the war soon disclosed the dangers resulting from this want of confidence in general Oglethorpe, and, still more, from the want of power to produce a co-operation of the common force for the common defence.
Spain had ever considered the settlement of Georgia as an encroachment on her territory, and had cherished the intention to seize every proper occasion to dislodge the English by force. With this view, an armament consisting of two thousand men, commanded by Don Antonio di Ridondo, embarked at the Havanna, under convoy of a strong squadron, and arrived at St. Augustine in May. The fleet having been seen on its passage, notice of its approach was given to general Oglethorpe, who communicated the intelligence to governor Glenn of South Carolina, and urged the necessity of sending the troops of that province to his assistance.
Georgia being a barrier for South Carolina, the policy of meeting an invading army on the frontiers of the former, especially one containing several companies composed of negroes who had fled from the latter, was too obvious not to be perceived: yet either from prejudice against Oglethorpe, or the disposition inherent in separate governments to preserve their own force for their own defence, Carolina refused to give that general any assistance. Its attention was directed entirely to the defence of Charleston; and the inhabitants of its southern frontier, instead of marching to the camp of Oglethorpe, fled to that city for safety. In the mean time, the general collected a few Highlanders, and rangers of Georgia, together with as many Indian warriors as would join him, and determined to defend Frederica.