FORM OF MATRIMONIAL

INVESTIGATIONS

(DILIGENCIAS DE SOLTERIA) IN FLORIDA.

[Translated from the original Spanish Documents.]

MARRIAGE OF GASPAR HERNANDEZ, WIDOWER.

JUDGE: SEÑOR DON MIGUEL O'REILLY. NOTARY: DON JUAN

NEPOMUCENO GOMEZ.

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA., March 31, 1808.

I give permission to my legitimate son, Gaspar Hernandez, condition, widower, to enter into matrimony, which with my consent he has contracted, with Margaret Andreu, spinster; and that it may be attested and be duly effective before a competent Tribunal, I give this present with my blessing at St. Augustine, Florida, A.D. April 4, 1808.

[L.S.]

For Margarita Triay, mother of this party to the contract, who not knowing how to sign, it is done at her request by

CASIMIRO DE ZUBIZARRETA.

I give permission to my legitimate daughter, Margaret, condition, spinster, to contract matrimony, the espousals of which have my consent, with Gaspar Hernandez, widower. And that it may be attested, and that the laws prescribed by the Ecclesiastical Tribunals may be complied with, I give this present with my blessing, at St. Augustine, Fla., A.D. April, 1808.

[L.S.]

At the request of Thomas Andreu, father of the contracting party, who does not know how to sign his name, it is done by

QUIRINO DE FUENTES.

SEÑOR VICAR, ECCLESIASTICAL JUDGE.

Gaspar Hernandez, native of the town of Mahon, in the Island of Minorca, legitimate son of Gaspar, deceased, and of

Margarita Triay, natives of said town, a widower of his first wife, Isabel Mayer;-and Margaret Andreu, spinster, a native of this parish, legitimate daughter of Thomas and of Margarita Petrus, both natives of the aforesaid Mahon, before you state that we have plighted our troth of future marriage, and desiring to attest it in due form, we pray you, having produced our respective licenses and the certificate of widowhood of the contractor, herewith appended, that you vouchsafe to have the banns duly published and us espoused according to usage prescribed by our Holy Mother, the Church. St. Augustine, in Florida, April 5, 1808.

For the contracting parties, who do not know how to sign, it is done at their request by

QUIRINO DE FUENTES.

This Petition and accompanying Documents having been presented, the contracting parties will appear and make present declaration in due form, and this done it shall be executed.

O'REILLY.

Approved by Señor Don Miguel O'Reilly, beneficed Parish priest, Vicar, and Ecclesiastical Judge of this Parish Church, place and Province of St. Augustine, Florida, who signed it on the fifth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and eight. JUAN NEPOMUCENO, Notary Public.

In the city of St. Augustine, Florida, on said day, month, and year, I served a notice of the aforesaid decree on the contracting parties. Attested: GOMEZ, Not. Pub.

In the city of St. Augustine, Florida, on the sixth day of April, A.D. one thousand eight hundred and eight, by virtue of the decree found above, on yesterday appeared before the Señor Vicar and Ecclesiastical Judge the contracting party, summoned before me, and declared on oath before God and the Holy Cross, according to law, and did promise to answer truly

whatsoever he might be asked, and having been interrogated in proper form, declared that his name is Gaspar Hernandez, a native of the town of Mahon, on the Island of Minorca ; that he is the legitimate son of Gaspar, deceased, and Margaret Triay, both natives of said town; that he belongs to the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church; that he has never taken vows of chastity nor of religion; that he is a widower of his first wife, Isabel Mayer; that he has never been betrothed to any one except Margarita Andreu, spinster; that the present marriage is neither constrained nor forced; but that he enters into it freely and spontaneously; that there are no impediments to impair or disturb the marriage, but that he is and considers himself able, free, and unencumbered to conclude it with the validity and lawfulness required; and he testifies that what he has set forth is true by virtue of his oath, which he affirms, and proves that he is thirty-eight years of age; that he does not sign because he does not know how, but makes his mark, which I attest.

O'REILLY, Ec. Judge.

JUAN NEPOMUCENO GOMEZ, Not. Pub.

At St. Augustine on said day, month and year, by virtue of the same authority, also appeared before the Señor Vicar, Ecclesiastical Judge, the contracting party, who, summoned before me, made oath in the name of God and of the Holy Cross, according to law, and promised to answer truly whatsoever she might be asked, and having been interrogated in proper form, declared that her name is Margarita Andreu, a native of this parish, legitimate daughter of Thomas and Margaret Petrus, both natives of the town of Mahon, on the island of Minorca; that she belongs to the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church; that she has never taken any vows of chastity nor of religion; that she is single and not married; that she has not given her promise of marriage to any other person than Gaspar Hernandez, widower; that in the marriage she seeks with him she is not constrained nor forced, but that she enters into it of her

Inadequate to the task and unqualified by my character for the business of political dissertation, I shall not attempt a portrait of the illustrious man, nor enumerate his achievements whose loss we now deplore: the former has nearly exhausted the power of human eloquence; the most brilliant tints of oratory have yet left it incomplete; the latter is engraven, not in letters of marble, my brethren, which time might crumble out or ignorance mistake, but in the never-fading characters that speak a nation's gratitude-in the praises that have been echoed from the boundaries of the universe.

Hence, my brethren, I shall only beg to fix your attention, in a few words, on the duties of citizens as they peculiarly regard our countrymen, and shall close this admonition with some religious considerations.

We have come into this country from motives of preference, and in common we experience the advantages of protection: whether our own country could serve us and would not; whether she could befriend us and would not; in a word, the nature of the causes that have fixed our residence here, makes nothing essential in our political predicament; nor can it affect the good wishes we owe to the government. America has opened her bosom to receive us; she is scrupulously attentive to the claims of the industrious; she is the protectress of arts and sciences; the asylum of the helpless, and she covers all our rights with the arm of equal justice.

Where is the country, my friends, where liberty is better defended or the clime more propitious to her progress and luxuriance than this in which we now prosper and find security? Here power is deprived of the destructive faculty of perpetuating insult and the brow of opulence is unclouded and serene; here wretchedness is scarcely known even to the indolent and undeserving, and activity and temperance are the certain springs of fortune; here the uniform rotation of the political machine returns the lofty statesman to the humble situation of the private citizen, and raising him in his turn through the points of public confidence, gives talent a fair trial,

prevents the feuds and jealousies that exceptions would produce and the arrogance and oppression that might grow from stationary greatness.

Could my feeble accents convey well to your minds the abundant advantages of this constitution; the justice and the fortitude that presided at her birth; the temperance that formed her strength, and the prudence that marked her progress in the unshaken magnanimity and disinterested councils of the illustrious General Washington, whose hand has directed the flight of the Eagle and whose virtues increase the brilliancy of the Hesperian constellation, with me you would devoutly wish that our country had produced him. Yet not so, my brethren, your well wishes are too affectionate to your adopted country; envy can have no place in the bosom that glows with gratitude; God's providence has produced him to confer him on our friends, and our virtues will entitle us to a share in what he purchased.

What then can be desired to engage our affections to the constitution of the United States of America, and excite our respect and gratitude for the work of the great Washington? do not the emigrations almost from every country here and the rapidity of the increase of opulence and population, speak more than many volumes the prerogatives of this country which the Almighty has thought good to point out for our abodes? are not our individual fortunes integral parts of the public weal? must not then their ruin be nearly menaced in the misfortunes that would reach the government, since the general welfare must be the aggregate of individual loyalty, and general calamity in the corruption of the social parts? is it not evident, my friends, that the various individuals of which society is composed must look to the joint effort of all as to the means of preservation and happiness? has not the social compact for object the protection of the weak against the encroachments of the strong, and the assurance of those assistances which our necessities require? Whatever, therefore, tends to disunite must prove pernicious to the entire,