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Abstract

So runs the pious ejeculation scrawled across the front page of the bundle of documents in the Archivo Nacional de Cuba concerned with pensions to wives, widows and daughters of the Floridians who chose to follow the retreating Spanish flag in 1763 and 1764. 1 It is not surprising that the Havanese officials called for help from on high when they found themselves confronted with the feeding and housing of the whole population of East Florida after the cession of that province to Great Britain by the Peace of Paris. Fortunately the total of that population scarcely exceeded three thousand ; but, even so, the drain on a treasury always dependent on a subsidy from New Spain was considerable; moreover, that same treasury was also faced with the financing of the reconstruction and fortification of Cuba’s capital after an eleven months siege and occupation by British forces.

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