Page 83 - John Anderson

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Chapter 4

Who is Captain James Ormond I
Captain James Ormond I (175X - 1819),
born in Scotland, an Anglo-Irish-Scotch sea
captain who commanded the armed brig
Somerset and was the first member of the
Ormond family to come to Florida. James
Ormond I was commissioned by King
Ferdinand VII of Spain to bring Franciscan
settlers to this part of Florida. Ormond had
served Britain and Spain in the Napoleonic
Wars as a ship captain. Captain James
Ormond I was rewarded for his services to
Spain by King Ferdinand VII. Ormond later
worked for the Scottish Indian trade
company of Panton, Leslie & Company. He

owned a plantation on Exuma Island in the Bahamas.

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts fought between
France, under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, and a number
of European nations between 1799 and 1815. The Napoleonic Wars
followed on from the War of the First Coalition (1793 - 1797) and
engaged nearly all European nations in a bloody struggle, a struggle
that also spilled over into Egypt, America and South America. This was
part of the struggle which followed the French revolutionary wars, with
the great dynastic powers of Europe trying to reverse the outcome of
the revolution and restore the French monarchy.
Later in life, Captain Ormond gave up seafaring and settled down on
his cotton plantation on the island of Exuma in the West Indies. The
invitation from the Spanish government for settlers to come to
Florida, and the offer of large land grants induced James Ormond to
give up his struggling plantation on Exuma and move to Florida. His
first plantation in Florida was near Smyrna, now New Smyrna, and
other families from the Bahamas, including a General Williams also

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