I represent David Hodge. I was a merchant in Pensacola and large landowner in West Florida during the British period. I was in the province by November of 1766, as I was the only member of the provincial council to sit in all seven sessions of the General Assembly – though I was dismissed at one point by acting Governor Montfort Browne who did not care for my insistence that he consult with us on provincial policy. I owned Lot number 8 in Pensacola (a fine bayfront lot on Mansfield Street – today’s Zaragossa) and a saw mill on the Mobile River, along with vast other holdings. I acquired some of my land by buying the certificates of military men who had been promised grants by the Crown for their service. I was also quite enterprising when it came to circumventing annoying tariffs on trade with the Spanish. I went down to Veracruz to find an illegal alternative that had the tacit approval of British authorities, since I brought back military intelligence. I spoke Spanish like a native and traded under the table with the Spanish in Campeche for years. Well after the surrender of Pensacola, I petitioned the Spanish governor to continue living there. I was at Pensacola in the last years of British rule, appearing on a list of householders in February 1780 and the final count the Spanish did of Pensacola inhabitants at the time of the capitulation in May 1781. I was married to Elizabeth Hodge.
Sources: 5, 6, 7, 12, 41, 66, 80, 116