[Extract]
No 27.

By means df the Sloop Rebecca whom I commissioned and stationed on St John River, the inland water passage from Georgia is secured: the Plantations on that River who were greatly alarmed, do now unmolested and free from the apprehensions of danger employ their Negros in providing lumber and naval stores for the West Indies, having raised sufficient provisions for the ensuing Year, a proof of which is, their purchasing new Negros. The state of provisions to the southward is not less favourable: and this town my Lord has it's coast at last well defended, Lord Howe having sent the Lively twenty Gun Ship to order a disposition of Ships so as to protect this Province; and by their means my Lord and by employing transports to be got in this Province, I expect to be able under the orders of General Howe, to make an advantageous diversion of Indians, and Regular Troops into Georgia, should an attack upon the Southern Colonies, in the Course of the Winter be projected.

There has been my Lord a considerable emigration from the rebel Provinces to this Place.

Several have left their Negros, and part of their Property behind, many more would have fled, had it not been for the inconveniences, and danger of loseing their Property, not only by the rebels, but by the Officer[s] of the Navy, who have seized and libeled Vessels in the Court of Admiralty employed in bringing the friends of Government and provisions to this Province, when they had my licence according to the form transmitted me by your Lordship, and it has been with difficulty, that I have been able to secure rice, through that Channel, with which we have been hitherto well supplied, notwithstanding the numbers of Indians and Emigrants black and white to be fed.

In my letter No 16 of 20 June, I had the honour of enclosing to your Lordship a memorial presented by the Emigrant Inhabitants of Georgia respecting relief on that head.² I had applied for a naval force for this Province to all the naval Commanders: Lord Howe alone gave it a serious thought, and at a time when his Lordship was deeply engaged in the most important business, he did not overlook business of lesser concern, we are the more obliged to his Lordship for the mark of his attention.

St Augustine 30. Octr 1776