I represent Stephen Williams. I was a sailor on HMS Mentor. The Mentor was a sloop built in Maryland in 1778. It spent between April 1780 and May 1781 – the height of Spanish hostilities – patrolling the waters near Pensacola, and at times our crew would go ashore to help the army shore up defenses. Sometimes we’d cruise out to take Spanish prizes. In March 1781, our captain realized the Mentor couldn’t hold out against the much larger Spanish convoy and our guns, ammunition, and men were better spent defending Pensacola on shore. The ship was taken up the Blackwater River, where it capsized and was burned to keep from falling into enemy hands. I was one of the crew stationed at the Queen’s Redoubt at Fort George on May 8, 1781. From Robert Farmar‘s journal of the siege of Pensacola for that day: “About 9 o’clock a.m. a shell from the enemy’s front battery was thrown in at the door of the Magazine at the Advanced Redoubt (as the men were receiving powder) which blew it up and killed 40 seamen belonging to H.M. Ships the Mentor and the Port Royal and 45 men of the Pennsylvania Loyalists were killed by the same explosion.” I was among the fatalities of that explosion. This disaster was the final nail in the coffin of Pensacola’s defenses against the Spanish, and Gen. Campbell raised the white flag that very day.
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