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Content Enable editor Use plain text Code entry Sir : On the 24th ultimate, I sent Your Excellency by way of Apalachee an accurate account of the siege by sea and land of this place by the English, a duplicate of which I enclose.* I have now to inform Your Excellency, that at eleven o'clock on the night of Saturday the 25th of June, I sent out from this garrison, 300 men to make an attack on the fort of Moze, which was executed at day-break on Sunday morning. Our people swept over it, with such impetuosity that it fell, with a loss of 68 dead, and 34 prisoners. I have ascertained that the garrison of this place, consisted of 140 men according to some of the prisoners, and of 170 according to others. It was composed of one militia company of Scotchmen, 70 men, including officers, of 15 infantry, 40 horsemen, and 35 Indians, Yaches and Uchices, with a white man for chief. This detachment or garrison was commanded by Colonel (Palma) who with one of his sons was evidently left dead in the action. An Indian prisoner affirms positively that he saw Colonel Palma dead, and his head cut off. He further infers that both of his sons were dead, though he did not see them dead ; because he saw their hats in the hands of our people; of whom ten have died, among them the Ensign, Don Joseph de Aguilera.* The affair being terminated, I ordered the fort to be demolished, and the dead buried. From such investigation as I have been able to make among the prisoners, I have acquired the following news. Three or four prisoners agree in saying, that both by rumor and by gazette, they have learned of the preparation in England of a considerable expedition against Havana, consisting of 30 ships of the line, and of a landing party of 10,000 menand I am sending this despatch to give you this information as possibly of great importance to the service of the King. Of the armament besieging us, the prisoners say it is composed of 7 frigates, one of 50 guns from Bermuda, another of 40, another of 27, and the rest of 20; the number of despatch boats, bilanders, or of other small boats they do not know. They vary in their estimate of the main body of troops, some putting it at 2,000 others at 1,500, or 1,200, and still others at 900. In respect of batteries, they have brought among others, three bronze 18-pounders from Carolina. Up to to-day they have made no assault, but it would seem that by reason of the blow at Moze, they have all assembled on the Island of Santa Anastacia, where they have collected eleven small mortars, two of them for shells of half a quintal, and the other 9 for smaller ones. With these, and one other larger one formerly on the coast of San Matheo, 12 in all, they fired on us the 30 of June, from 6 in the evening, until 10 at night. My greatest concern is for supplies, and if we get none, there is no doubt we shall die of hunger. *From the beginning of the fire up to this day they have thrown 122 large shell and 31 small, from which, glory be to God, we have received no corporal injury. On the Is-land of Santa Anastacia, they have emplaced a battery of 5 guns, three of 18 and two of 6-pounders, the first to batter the fort and town, and the others for the galliots, and with them they make incessant fire; but ours answers them, and we are informed that they receive more damage than our selves. On the first day of the month, after beating a call, they sent us a white flag, with three letters, making a demand the nature of which Your Excellency will perceive by their tenor. Our answer Your Excellency will learn from the enclosures ; and from that day they have fired with increased vigor, but in vain, for it appears that God has given greater accuracy to our fire. My outposts have found four more men killed in the affair of Moze, two of them white, the others Indian. From a deserter that arrived here on the 14th ultimate, we learn that General Oglethorpe brought 900 men, 300 of his regiment of regulars, and 600 Carolina militia ; that it was unknown if others would come to him from Virginia or other parts; that the Carolina militia came supplied for four months. But the prisoners of Moze say that even if necessary to remain one year before this place, General Oglethorpe will do it, until he subdues it. Saint Augustine, in Florida, July 6, 1740. *This paragraph and the next may be found in .Southern Quarterly Review of April, 1844, p. 409. *This extract is to be found in Southern Quarterly Review for April, 1844, p. 406; it is used here with many corrections and alterations.

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