July 4, 1781, American patriots from South Carolina and New Jersey, including four South Carolina signers of the United States Declaration of Independence, are imprisoned at Fort St. Marks, the former Castillo de San Marcos before the British occupation of St. Augustine by treaty in 1763.

     The American Revolution is nearing its end. St. Augustine and Pensacola, designated the 14^th and 15^th British colonies, are the last remaining loyalist strongholds, their populations swelled not only with patriot prisoners but as well loyalist refugees from the northern colonies.

     While there is bitterness between patriots and loyalists, Charles Reynolds, recounting the era in his 1887 History of St. Augustine (pp. 96-97), wrote:

     "The Patriot prisoners ... have fared well in British custody. Dr. Andrew Turnbull has loaned them his English newspapers-little consolation for American rebels here-and local businessman Jesse Fish sent oranges and lemons from his world-famous grove on St. Anastatia Island.

     "On the Fourth of July, by special permission, the American captives messed in common; and one feature of the bill of fare was an English plum-pudding of gigantic dimensions, and on its top a tiny flag with thirteen stars and stripes.

     "Inspired by the occasion, Captain Thomas Heyward had that morning been busy with his pen; and at this Fourth of July Patriot dinner in British St. Augustine was heard for the first time:

                         God save the thirteen states,

                         Thirteen United States,

                         God save them all.

                         Make us victorious,

                         Happy and glorious;

                         No tyrants over us;

                         God save our States!

     "Being set to the familiar tune of God Save the King, the guards, peeping in at the windows and deceived by the accustomed air, wondered greatly at what they took to be the Yankees' sudden return to loyalty to King George."

      Heyward, 34, had served in the Royal Assemblies of South Carolina, and was a Revolutionary War officer. He'd been captured at Charleston, where he fled after British forces seized his plantation. The anthem had five verses, each more stinging than the last. Two decades later, today's National Anthem was written by Francis Scott Key.  

Image: Anthem author Thomas Heyward