Another popular Florida port was Pensacola. There was a regular slave-ferry between Havana and Pensacola in the days when Florida was Spanish territory. When General Jackson seized Pensacola in the spring of 1818, Colonel Brooke captured the slaver Constitution with eighty-four negroes on board, while Lieutenant McKeever, of the naval forces, captured the Louisa and the Marino with twenty-three slaves between them. All these slaves were destined to the United States for a market. Considering the fact that three slavers were found in or near the port at one time, it is fair to suppose that at least one slaver a week was the average of arrivals.
Congressman Mitchell estimated that 20,000 were smuggled in each year. In 1810 President Madison referred to the traffic and said he believed that "just and benevolent motives" would "be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil."
On January 22, 1811, Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton wrote to Captain H. G, Campbell, the commanding naval officer at Charleston, S. C., saying: "I hear, not without great concern, that the law prohibiting the importation of slaves has been violated in frequent instances at St. Mary's (Ga.), since the gunboats have been withdrawn from that station. Hasten the equipment of the gunboats. . . and despatch them to St. Mary's with orders to use all practicable diligence."
The extent of the traffic here mentioned may be imagined from what is said by the author of the "Voyage of the Ship Two Friends," who was in a position to learn some of the facts before he wrote his book.
