About four or five weeks since, sixteen young fellows left this city in a shallop and a flat, to go down to Muskmelon creek,¹ in order to purchase provisions; on the passage down, just below Reedy-Island, the shallop with eight of them on board, and armed with two four pounders and three swivels, was attacked and fired upon by a galley, with twenty-five armed men on board;—after receiving two or three fires, by which time they had got pretty near each other, the shallop returned the fire from her two four-pounders and swivels all at once, which cut away the gally's main-mast, and obliged her to run into Duck creek: The shallop then proceeded down, and joined the flat at Muskmelon,—where, while they were busy purchasing provisions and loading their vessel, a schooner, a sloop, and a number of armed boats, came down to take them; and being two powerful for them to encounter, they quitted their vessels, and having got ashore, eleven of them travelled across the country to the head of Nanticoke,² where, having purchased a pettitauger for a half joe, ten of them went on board, with two muskets, and proceeded down to Tangier sound; after cruising six days, they boarded a schooner bound from Baltimore to Damn quarter,³—but finding she was going to purchase stock for some of the British men of war, four of them again took to their pettitauger, determined to make good their losses with the first rebel vessel they should meet;—they had now only one musket and two cartridges with them; two days after they fell in with a schooner, having three hundred bushels of wheat and three men on board, bound to Baltimore. This vessel also they boarded and took possession of, giving the men their choice, either to be put on board the first British frigate they should meet, or to take the pettitauger, and go ashore;—they accepting the latter, our adventurers proceeded in the schooner down Chesapeak to Cape Charles, where they expected to find some men of war; but, being disappointed, put to sea, with only three gallons of water, a peck of Indian meal, two gammons and a piece of pork: Two days after, they were chased into Cape Henlopen, by a rebel privateer, which, luckily for them, grounded for about half an hour, in which time they got clear of her, and the privateer, after she got off, put to sea: they proceeded up the Bay, and arrived here Saturday last.