Copy

(Sir) I have the honour to inform your Excellency that on Thursday the first day of August last an Armament by Land & Sea being fitted out from the Town of Sunbury in the Province of Georgia. Consisting of a large flat on which was Mounted One Twelve pounder & Six Swivels with two Small Schooners Attendants and about One hundred and Eighty Men, destined for the River St Marys, with Hostile intentions against His Majestys Armed Schooner St John, to lay waste Mr Wrights Fort, and to plunder the Island of Amelia with other plantations adjacent thereunto. I thought it a auty incumbent on me as an Officer of the Crown to give the earliest intelligence thereof to the Commanding Officer of His Majestys Ships then lying at Cockspur, where I repair'd the day following hopeing from thence some relief might be given by Capt [John] Stanhope,² to whom I related the whole of this enterprize, with advice how to conduct matters, to frustrate their designs ー Capt Stanhope intorm'd me he was not in a Capacity to render the least Assistance, being then very Short of Provisions and that if the Sphynx Frigate did not arrive within a few days with some expected Supplys he would be under the necessity of putting to Sea in Order to make the best of his way to the Fleet, for these above recited reasons, and not haveing Orders to Act in a matter of the kind, Capt Stanhope declin'd sending (any) the least Succour or intelligence. On Sunday Morning following a Schooner Arriveing at Cockspur bound for St Augustine I took a passage in her in hopes to have been here in time to have given your Excellency intimation thereof that some force might have been sent form hence to their Assistance but am Sorry to find the length of the passage prevented anything of the kind being done. However I am still of Opinion, that If your Excellency would order an Armed Vessel to run into Sapello or Saint Catharine's their retreat might be cut off and a number of them taken prisoners. I have the Honor to be Your Excellency's [&c.]

[Endorsed] Copy Mr Kitching's letter to Governor Tonyn. No 7ー
In Govr Tonyn's No 20 of 15th August 1776.