Letter to Guemes y Horcasitas

From COLLECTIONS OF THE Georgia Historical Society, Vol. VII. 1741-10-31 THE KING ORDERS THE DISPATCH OF AN EXPEDITION AGAINST GEORGIA. 1741-10-31 King to Guemes Your Excellency is informed in respect of the motives which induced His Majesty in the year 1737 to resolve up on the extirpation of the English from the new colony of Georgia and from the territories of Florida which they have usurped, as well as of the orders sent out to this end, and of all dispositions made for their execution, until a suspension was commanded. I bring these past matters to the recollection of Your Excellency, because we are now in a state of open war, and under no necessity to practice the caution which in the former conjuncture of affairs compelled us to give pause. His Majesty considers the time opportune to accomplish the destruction of Carolina and of its dependencies, thus compensating ourselves for the ancient perfidies of which the English have made the colony the seat, as well as for the present hostilities, by inflicting a damage that will ruin and terrify them, seeing the affection in which they hold that country, and the benefit they derive from its commerce.