ALEXANDER SKINNER TO BRIGADIER GENERAL GRANT.

St. Augustine, September 31, 1775.

SIR: By a detachment of the Fourteenth Regiment, ordered to Virginia, I have the opportunity of acknowledging the receipt of your Excellency's letters of 2d and 23d May, and am glad, in some respects, of your coming to America, as by that means I shall have an opportunity of seeing you again, which otherwise I hardly ever expected.

Things are going on tolerably at the Villa, were it not for the cursed worms, which are getting worse every year. Though this season has been more favourable than several others before it, yet, on account of these destructive insects, I do not imagine we shall be able to make near the quantity of indigo we did last year; but the quality, on an average, will be better. The first cut turned out well, amounting to about two thousand weight; but the worm has laid hold of our second, and destroys it so fast that I am afraid it will be impossible to save much of it. And, to mend the matter, my time is so much taken up in town that I can never get liberty to stay at the plantation above a week, or at most a fortnight, upon a stretch, which may rather be something against your interest. Sampson is a pretty good overseer, and Brumner becomes more and more attentive; yet I could wish to be more upon the spot myself.

The Indian business is become a perfect plague to me, and for which I have not the smallest consideration, so that I am determined, at all events, to shake myself clear of it, though I do not like to withhold any assistance in my power to give, in the present critical situation of the times.

Mr. Stuart, the Superintendent, has taken sanctuary here, and we have information the Carolinians and Georgians design sending an armed force to this place to demand him, and, if not delivered up, to commence hostilities. But I am in hope they will have some other employment nearer home, before it is long.

October 5.

Your Excellency's letter of the 13th ultimo I had the honour to receive by the St. Lawrence schooner, which came very well over the bar, without being in the least lightened, as our bar is at present very good. Every body here is extremely glad and thankful that this is to be her station, and only wish she had come a little sooner, to have prevented one hundred and odd barrels of the King's powder being taken out of Lofthouse by a Carolina pirate, acting under the orders and directions of your old acquaintance Colonel Laurens. The garrison, you imagined, were scarce of provisions; but we are pretty well as yet, having about four hundred barrels of pork and above that number of barrels of flour, after sparing a supply of three months' provisions for the detachment at Virginia.

I have been a week at the plantation since I wrote you the 21st ultimo, making indigo fast, but this four days past I have been obliged to be in town with the Allatchaway Indians, with whom I earnestly wish I had nothing to do, as that business takes up a great deal of my time, and of which I have so little to spare at this season of the year. The people at the plantation are obliged to be upon foot night and day in order to save as much of the indigo from the worms as possible, and it is not in my power to give them any assistance until these savages are gone from town.

Lofthouse is loaded with lumber at St. Mary's, and is expected off this bar in a few days. The vessel does not come into the harbour, but proceeds directly for England. I wish I could send what indigo is cured along with her, but am afraid, in the hurry of our cutting, it will be impossible to get it ready. However, I shall do every thing I can for the best.

I shall write your Excellency by Wallace, who will sail in about eight or ten days hence; at present I take leave of you, with this earnest prayer, that God may preserve to you your health and protect you from your enemies.

I am, with my best wishes, sir, your Excellency's most obliged and most obedient servant,

ALEXANDER SKINNER.

FREDERICK GEORGE MULCASTER TO GENERAL GRANT.

St. Augustine, October 3, 1775.

DEAR SIR: I wrote you about five days ago [29th September] by Captain Fordyce, who is not yet sailed. The day before yesterday a man-of-war schooner appeared off; the pilot immediately went out and was put on board; it blew fresh, and she stood off and on the remainder of the day and night. Yesterday she came in with the flood-tide, without the least difficulty. The wind being to the eastward, you, sir, very well know, throws a heavy sea upon our bar, but, notwithstanding, she did not even touch; and Lieutenant Graves, who commanded her, told me she then drew nine feet water. Had she been in need of assistance, there is here (belonging to Government) a sixteen-oared launch, a decked schooner of about fourteen tons, and a stout open boat, which would have been ready to have lightened her; but for vessels of that burden there is no such need wanting. She rides safe at an anchor opposite the Chief Justice's door. I have also a decked boat, which is always ready, and the pilots have my leave to command her at a moment's warning for the publick use; and you may be assured she would have been out had occasion been necessary. Indeed, I did not dream that such assistance would be even thought of for vessels of that burden, till I got your letter, which makes me imagine that this bar is held to the northward as a bugbear; it was formerly so, only by the jealousy of our two neighbouring Colonies, for fear we should outdo them in their own produce of rice and indigo. I hope now men-of-war's men will have better opinion of it; in truth, it is done great injustice to. The Governour, Lieutenant Brown, of the Fourteenth, and myself, not above two months ago, sounded it with the pilots; we had seven feet at low water, the tide runs five, which gives twelve at high. The St. Lawrence came in at three-quarters flood. When I write to you I am confident you will believe me, as I wish only to say what your Excellency may assert, in favour of a Province once under your protection, and we find now you have still at heart. The St. Lawrence's log-book will prove this. She is infinitely necessary here, for neither provisions, correspondence, or any thing whatever is to be obtained at this place without such assistance.

The Carolinians are, or, I should rather say, have, fitted out three vessels in order to attack the Tamar at Charlestown, which is the reason Thornborough has taken the Cherokee to support him, for they were to be ready in two days after our last accounts from them. They are also fitting out a stout vessel of ten guns, to give Captain Lampriere, (the rascal who look our powder,) for his gallant behaviour off this bar; by this you see that private cruisers are upon this coast as well as the northern.

The guns at Fort Johnston were thrown over the parapet by the Tamar's people, but what could possess them not to destroy the carriages and knock off a trunnion I cannot conceive; they might at least have thought of spiking them, but Thornborough is old, and unfit for service. It is very well to send such men in time of peace to a hot country, for the chance of a vacancy; but in time of rebellion, surely active officers should be employed.

There is a set of five guns, I have been told, at Providence, and, if my intelligence is good, (and you know I have not in general any bad,) the Carolinians intend soon to have them; should they get them, it will not reflect great honour upon the navy.

The troops going to Virginia can certainly be of no use, but you are mistaken in regard to Lord Dunmore's sending for them without authority. The first detachment of Captain Leslie and sixty men and the Providence company, was a positive order from General Gage; the detachment of sixty men which goes now was also a positive order of the General's; and the last order says that, if Lord Dunmore makes a requisition of the rest of the regiment, it is to go upon the arrival of the three companies of the Sixteenth. These orders I have seen, and there is, at this hour of my writing, nothing contradictory to it, so that, should the companies arrive to-morrow, the regiment must, of course, embark, in consequence of those orders, (Lord Dunmore having made the requisition.) However, as the companies are not arrived, the order has undoubtedly miscarried; but the St. Lawrence has brought a duplicate of the order to Governour Tonyn, who is to forward it to West-Florida; but there is no contradiction in regard to the regiment. This last article is hearsay, but I believe I am right, and am positively certain that