On Saturday last a sloop came up with Occacock Bar and anchored, the pilots knowing the vessel, as she had lately sailed from this port, went on board her, when to their great surprise, they discovered her to be an English privateer from St. Augustine, the Capt. of which told them, that they were come after the Frenchmen, and if they did not immediately carry him over the bar into the road where lay a French ship and a brig, with a considerable quantity of tobacco on board, he would instantly put them to death.1 The pilots accordingly carried the sloop in, when she immediately boarded the brig and ship, hoisted what tobacco was on board the ship, into the brig, and carried her, with a Bermudian sloop loaded with salt, out, and went off with them. They had taken two or three prizes off the bar before. Thus has a small sloop with 4 guns and 30 men robbed this state of two fine vessels with more than 100 hogsheads of tobacco and a considerable quantity of salt. This surely shews the necessity of keeping some force on Occacock island, otherwise our trade will be annihilated.
