feitures, commute punishment, and grant pardons. Should the Governorship become vacant it will be filled by the president of the Senate, and if again vacant, by the speaker of the House.
Judicial. There are a Supreme Court consisting of a chief justice and two associates, elected for a term of six years, also circuit, criminal, and county courts, and justices of the peace. Seven circuit court judges are appointed for six years, and each holds annually two court sessions; county court judges are elected for four years. The county commissioners divide the counties into justice districts, in each of which a justice of the peace is elected for four years. Each county elects a prosecuting attorney and each justice district a constable.
Local Government. Every county is divided into five districts, from each of which a county commissioner is elected. Other county officers are: a clerk of the circuit court, sheriff, county assessor of taxes, tax collector, county treasurer, superintendent of public instruction, and a county surveyor. The term of office of all the above is four years, except that of the assessor of taxes, county tax collector, and county treasurer, who are elected for two years. The Legislature provides a uniform system of municipal government. The legal rate of interest is 8 per cent., but 10 is allowed by contract. Judgments outlaw in twenty years, notes in five, and open accounts in two. Extreme cruelty, habitual intemperance, and willful neglect for one year are the principal causes for divorce—previous residence required, two years. The property of the wife is not liable for the debts of the husband without her consent. Upon the application of one-fourth of the electors of any county a vote can be taken to determine whether intoxicating liquors shall be sold in the county.
Militia. In 1899 the organized aggregate militia of Florida was 1258, of whom 1167 were members of the infantry and 91 of the light batteries. In 1900 the males of military age numbered 114,500.
Tallahassee is the capital of the State. Two Representatives are sent to the Lower House of Congress.
History. Florida was discovered on Easter Sunday (Pascua Florida), 1513, by Ponce de Leon, who landed near the site of the present Saint Augustine in search of the Fountain of Perpetual Youth. He failed to find the fountain, and, returning in 1521, found death instead. Ayllon carried off large numbers of Indians from Florida as slaves between 1520 and 1526, and in 1528 Pánfilo Narvaez (q.v.) invaded the country with a force of 400 men eager for conquest and booty. Narvaez pushed into the wilderness north of the Gulf, and only four survivors of his band, among them Cabeza de Vaca, succeeded in reaching Mexico after infinite hardships. In 1539 Hernando De Soto (q.v.) traversed the country. In 1559 a well-equipped expedition of 1500 men under Don Tristan de Luna sailed from Vera Cruz, and landed, August 14, on the shores of Santa Maria Bay, probably the Bay of Pensacola. The main body penetrated into the country for a distance of forty days' march, while a smaller detachment explored the region as far as the Coosa River in eastern Alabama. Discouraged by the hardships encountered, the expedition returned to Mexico, after passing more than a year in the country.
Under the patronage of Coligny, French Huguenots, led by Ribault, had founded in 1562 a colony at Port Royal, in South Carolina; when that settlement, owing to the worthless character of the colonists, failed, René de Laudonnière brought over a new band of emigrants in 1564, and built Fort Caroline on the Saint John's River. To uphold the Spanish claims to the country against the French, Pedro Menendez de Avilés sailed from Spain in 1565, erected a fort at Saint Augustine, and, taking Fort Caroline, exterminated the Huguenot colony. (See Gourgues, Dominique de.) Saint Augustine was burned by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, and was plundered by English buccaneers in 1665; but the Spaniards retained their hold on the country, and about 1699 founded Pensacola. In 1702 the Perdido River was made the boundary between Florida and French Louisiana. Between the Spaniards of Saint Augustine and the southern English colonists hostile relations generally prevailed. A force from Carolina, under Colonel Daniel, burned Saint Augustine in 1702, and in the following year Governor Moore, with a force of English and Creek Indians, defeated a Spanish force under Don Juan Mexia at Fort San Luis, near Tallahassee, and reduced a number of Spanish-Indian towns. In 1718 and again in 1719 Pensacola was taken by the French, the town being destroyed on the second occasion. When Georgia was settled, General Oglethorpe found it necessary to protect the new colony by an invasion of the enemy's country. He failed to take Saint Augustine, but repelled an attack of the Spanish fleet on the forts of the Altamaha in 1742. By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Spain ceded East and West Florida (the latter lay west of the Apalachicola River, and embraced a large part of what is now Alabama and Mississippi) to England, but recovered possession of both in 1783. West Florida was sold to France in 1795. After 1803 the United States asserted its title to the region between the Pearl River and the Perdido on the ground that it had formed part of Louisiana as held by France, Spain, and France again, in turn. In 1812 and 1813 United States troops took possession of the disputed territory. Pensacola was garrisoned by the British in 1814 with the consent of the Spanish authorities, but was taken by General Jackson in November of that year.
In East Florida Spain made no attempt to preserve order, and the country was overrun by white adventurers, Seminole Indians, and escaped slaves from the Southern States. Marauding bands of Indians and negroes crossed the frontier into Georgia, plundered and burned, and fled into Spanish territory beyond the reach of the United States authorities. Such reasons, as well as a natural hunger for land, made the Georgians anxious for the acquisition of the peninsula. In 1818 General Jackson, conducting operations against the Seminoles, invaded Florida, and after defeating the Indians, turned about and took Pensacola, the Governor of which had been supplying the Seminoles with arms. The town was restored to Spain; but in 1821 Florida, by virtue of a treaty concluded in 1819, passed to the United States, and in March, 1822, it was organized into a Territory. It was admitted into
