I represent Ann Shakespear. I was the wife of Stephen Shakespear. He was a prosperous merchant in Philadelphia until the revolution broke out. He sent me and our six children to England for safety and he led to West Florida, looking for someplace to settle. In December 1776 he arrived in the colony with four slaves. He sent for us and we settled on land in the Manchac District, which sounded like a good choice but put it put us and our holdings in the path of James Willing’s raiders in the spring of 1778. Later that year we were awarded a compensatory grant on the Pascagoula River, but that came under Spanish conquest in 1779. According to my later claim to the Crown for damages, we went to New Orleans and continued a modest business, but we were expelled for refusing to swear an oath to the Spanish king. We went to Pensacola, where Stephen was a shopkeeper. He was counted in the Spanish listing of householders remaining in Pensacola at the time of the capitulation in May 1781. We went to New York with the rest of the survivors of the siege.
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