mentioning to your Excellency. I think it next to impossible that the rebels have advice of every thing you do; that they are expeditiously informed of every resolution adopted by your Excellency. They know your Excellency’s daily orders in their camp and lines, by the time the orders are delivered to the Regiments of the British Army. Could I hear such advice, and not let your Excellency know it? but it is understood to be true throughout America.

On a general conception of circumstances, I should judge your Excellency would think it necessary to secure a firm post somewhere in the south, for His Majesty’s service, without leaving it in any danger to be snatched away. I know of no place more fit than Augustine. Had the Fourteenth Regiment remained here, this object was effected; now it is at a hazard; a sure and certain intercourse with the Creek Indians would have been preserved. But, whatever our condition, I shall put in execution every exertion I am capable of suggesting for the good of His Majesty’s service. I don’t know whether your Excellency has been informed that the rebels in Carolina are fortifying Charles-town.

By this time I most sincerely hope the British Army, under your Excellency’s command, is crowned with glory and success.

I have the honour to be, with very great esteem and respect, Sir, your Excellency’s most obedient and most humble servant,

PAT. TONYN.

To General Gage, Boston.

P. S. The Commissary for the Army represented that his contract was only to supply the Troops within the Province. I told him it was a peaceable contract, meant for quiet times. It was now war. The Regiment must be supplied with six months’ provisions, if the commanding officer desired as much to take with him.

I have sent privately to the south parts of Georgia, to procure, by open boats, if possible, rice and corn. If I succeed, we shall be able to let the Virginia command have a further supply sometime hence. It may possibly be a very essential thing to lay up here a very large magazine, for the Troops, of provisions; I think this might be managed if you have any such view. Should I succeed in the plan I am forming, to establish an intercourse of private trade for provisions, with Georgia, be so good as to let me have your Excellency’s sentiments on the subject. Whatever you require of me, you may rely shall be done with the utmost care.

An Indian of note, the Cussité King’s brother, who came from the Creek Nation with a talk of friendship, on his return with a trader, who lives in the nation, was waylaid by some of the Georgia rebels. They took from them a present of powder and ball. I sent to some of the headmen of the nation, who are soon to be here on a visit to me. The trader, I hear, they have sent to prison; the Indian is gone to the nation. The Superintendent fears this robbery will make the Creeks attack Georgia, but I am sure they will see me before they take any such measure.

Your Excellency will allow me to suppose that some very weighty reasons must exist why a communication be not fixed with all His Majesty’s Governours in America; a thing so easy to be done, by a few of His Majesty’s cutters, schooners, or sloops, that I wonder very much it be not done.

I imagined Major Furlong would have taken six months’ provisions, but he has not taken any such proportion.

EAST-FLORIDA.

By his Excellency PATRICK TONYN, Esq., Captain-General, Governour, and Commander-in-Chief in and over His Majesty’s said Province, Chancellor and Vice-Admiral of the same.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas I have received information from Alvara Lofthouse, Master of the Brigantine called the Betsy, that on the seventh day of August instant, he, the said Master, being on board the said Brigantine, then lying at anchor off the Bar of St. Augustine, in the Province aforesaid, a Sloop, commanded by one Clement Lempriere, run alongside of the said Brigantine, and in a hostile and violent manner instantly boarded her with twenty-six men, some armed with Muskets and Bayonets fixed, others with Swords and Pistols, and were commanded by the said Clement Lempriere and one Simon Tuffs. That the said Clement Lempriere ordered a guard over the said Master and the people, and then, in an audacious and piratical-like manner, opened the hatches and took out of the said Brigantine, and put on board the said Sloop, one hundred and eleven barrels of Gunpowder belonging to His Majesty, and about four hundred weight, the property of Mr. Robert Payne, of St. Augustine, Merchant. And the said Clement Lempriere, for a justification of his conduct, showed to the said Master a Letter or Commission from Henry Laurens, styling himself President of the Council of Safety in Charlestown, to seize the said Brigantine, and take whatever Gunpowder or warlike stores he could find on board.

And whereas such proceedings are not only unwarrantable and illegal, but subject the offenders and perpetrators thereof to great and severe pains and penalties, and it is highly necessary such atrocious offenders should receive the punishment due to their crimes: To the intent, therefore, that the persons concerned in the above piracy may be apprehended and brought to condign punishment, I have thought fit, by and with the advice of His Majesty’s honourable Council, to issue this my Proclamation, offering, and I do hereby promise, a reward of two hundred Pounds sterling, to any person or persons who shall apprehend and bring to justice the said Clement Lempriere and Simon Tuffs, and their associates in the said act of piracy. And I do hereby likewise offer His Majesty’s most gracious pardon to any one of the persons on board the said Sloop, commanded by the said Clement Lempriere, who shall give certain information of the other persons concerned in the aforesaid act of piracy, excepting Clement Lempriere, and the other person hereinbefore named.

Given under my hand, and the great seal of His Majesty’s said Province, in the Council Chamber at St. Augustine, the twenty-first day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, and in the fifteenth year of His Majesty’s reign.

PAT. TONYN.

By his Excellency’s command:

DAVID YEATS, Deputy Secretary.

GOD save the King.

GOVERNOUR PATRICK TONYN TO VICE-ADMIRAL GRAVES.

St. Augustine, September 14, 1775.

SIR: In a letter to General Gage, of the 19th July last, I mentioned the Savage Sloop and St. John Schooner, stationed on this coast and the Island of Providence; that the St. John has been here only once, the other not at all. They harbour at Providence, out of the way of action, in perfect quiet, when His Majesty’s service calls for their assistance in these seas.

When the St. John was here, it was a critical hour in the Province of Georgia. Lieutenant Grant, the commander, showed me a note he had received from Sir James Wright, requesting to see him before he sailed, or that he would return again to Savannah. I had despatches of consequence for Sir James Wright, which I desired him to take, advising him to return there, as the dissension and disaffection were mounting to an extreme height between the inhabitants in the interest of the constitution and the rebellious. But I requested of Mr. Grant to return to this port, which he promised. My object for it was, I had intelligence that armed cruisers were out from Carolina, to intercept some merchant ships coming to this place with ordnance stores for His Majesty’s garrison, and powder for the merchants. I intended, on their appearance, the St. John should go out to protect them, until the wind permitted them to come into the harbour. If Mr. Grant had returned, an act of piracy, which happened off this bar, would not have been committed: a relation of which I have wrote to his Excellency General Gage, and beg leave to enclose you an extract of it. I also wrote to General Gage some intelligence I had procured, of gunpowder being run from the West-India Islands to the Province of Carolina.

A cruiser of considerable force, I am informed, is to be stationed from St. Mary’s River, the north boundary of this Province, to intercept whatever vessels may be bound to