I

Indians brought in five Spanish prisoners. On the 7th the rangers came in, and gave an account that the enemy was within a mile. The General took the first horse he found, and took the Highland company, and ordered sixty from the guard to follow him. He himself galloped with the Indians to the place, just within the wood, where he found Captain Sebastian Santo and Captain Magaleto with a hundred and twenty-five Spanish troops, and forty-five Spanish Indians. "Captain Grey, with his Chickasaws, Captain Jones, of Savannah, with Tomachichi and Creek Indians, and the General with six Highland men, who outran the rest of the company, immediately attacked the Spaniards.

"Captain Magaleto was killed, Captain Sebastian Santo taken, and the Spaniards entirely defeated. The General took two Spaniards with his own hands, and after pursuing near a mile, where he halted, he posted his troops to advantage in the wood; then came hither to order the regiments and companies to march. On his returning with his troops towards the late field of action, he met three platoons in great disorder, who gave him an account that they had been broken by the Spaniards, who were extremely numerous. Notwithstanding which he rallied them, rode on, and to his great satisfaction found that Lieut. Southerland and Lieut. McKay, with the Highlanders, had entirely defeated the enemy, who consisted of six hundred men. Don Antonio Barbara, who commanded them, was made prisoner, but mortally wounded in the action. There was one Captain, one Corporal, and sixteen Spaniards taken, and about one hundred and fifty killed.

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July 8th, before day-break, the General advanced with a party of Indians to the Spanish camp at St. Simon's, and found them all retired into the old fort, under the cannon of their men-of-war.

"On the 9th and 10th all hands were employed on the works at Frederica, and the Indians brought us some scalps and prisoners.

gun

"On the 11th, a cutter and two galleys came within shot of the town; but on our firing some bombs and guns from the fort, and the General going towards them with his boats, they returned to their fleet.

"The next morning, being the 12th, an English prisoner escaped from them, who informed us that the enemy on their

landing, had resolved on giving no quarter; but from the day their grenadiers were defeated, they had been in great terror, had entrenched themselves, and given orders that no one should go without their sentinels, for fear of being surprized by the Indians.

"There was great disunion among them; insomuch that Don Antonio de Rodondo, who commanded the Cuba forces, encamped separately from those of St. Augustine; and that the Commodore had ordered all his seamen on board.

"That night the General, with five hundred men, marched within a mile of the enemy's camp, intending to surprise them, but was prevented by the treachery of a Frenchman, who fired his piece, gave the alarm to the enemy, and then deserted to them. When the General found his intentions discovered to the enemy, he ordered all his drums to beat the grenadier's march, and then returned to Frederica.

"The next day, being the 13th, in order to defeat the information of the French deserter, he directed a letter to be written, and sent it by a Spanish prisoner, who, for a reward, and his liberty, undertook to deliver it to the said Frenchman; who was instructed to acquaint the enemy's commanding officer of the defenceless state of Frederica, and encourage them to come up by water under his pilotage. This letter the Spanish prisoner delivered to the governor of St. Augustine; and it had so good an effect that the Frenchman was immediately put into irons.

"The next morning the Spaniards burned the barracks and officers' houses at St. Simon's, and Major Horton's house on Jekyl Island; and the same night they reëmbarked with so much precipitation, that they left a quantity of ammunition, provisions, and some guns behind them.

"The 13th, all the large vessels with the Cuba forces, sailed to the southward, and the Governor and troops from St. Augustine, on board the small craft, went within land, and encamped at St. Andrew's, and caught fifty horses with a design to carry them away; but on the General's appearing in his boats, the enemy shot the horses, and burned the fort and houses at St. Andrew's.

"On the 16th, the General followed the Spaniards with all his small craft, but was not strong enough to attack them. He landed a man out of his boat on Cumberland; who that night passed the enemy's camp, and early the next day

came to fort William, with advice to Ensign Stuart that the Spaniards were beat off from St. Simon's, and that the General was coming with succors, and ordered him to defend the fort to the utmost.*

"The 18th, twenty-eight sail of Spanish vessels appeared off Fort William, fourteen of which came within land, and attacked the fort from their galleys and other vessels, and attempted landing; but were repulsed by a party of rangers from behind the sand hills. Ensign Stuart, who commanded in the fort with sixty men, defended it so bravely that after an attack of upwards of three hours, they were obliged to put to sea with considerable loss. The eighteen pounders disabled two of their galleys.

"The 19th, the General was on his way to Fort William. The 20th, he arrived there, and sent his boats and rangers as far as the river St. John's, who returned the next day with advice that the enemy was quite gone. Upon which the General gave orders for the repairing of the fort, and on the 22d, returned to Frederica. A few days afterwards the men of war from Charleston came off St. Simon's bar. Capt. Thompson with some volunteers from Carolina, our guard schooner, and two galleys came into St. Simon's harbor; and Capt. Hardy, of the Rye man-of-war, receiving a message from the General by Lieut. Maxwell, who went on board him, sent for answer, that he would take a cruise with the rest of the king's ships. But the General, apprehending

*The Ensign Stuart, so honorably mentioned here, became celebrated afterwards as Captain Stuart, who was taken at Fort London, in the Cherokee country, and whose life was saved by his Indian friend Attakullakulla. The whole story, as detailed by Dr. Hewatt (p. 237 to 242, vol 2d.) is as romantic as it is beautiful. It exhibits Indian friendship in its warmest coloring; it exhibits Indian character in its brightest light. This ancient Chief had remembered Captain Stuart, when he was a young Highland officer of General Oglethorpe's; and although fifteen years had rolled away, although his country was still bleeding, and he was indignant at the treachery of Governor Littleton, of Carolina, in the imprisonment and death of the chiefs of twenty towns; yet no actings of others could extinguish, in this generous and high-minded man, the friendship of years. The dangers of that day, the thousand wiles and accidents Capt. Stuart escaped from, renowned him among the Indians, and concentred upon him the affections of all the southern tribes. He was the Colonel John Stuart of the Revolutionary war, who from Pensacola directed at will the movements of the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, and the Cherokees, against all save Georgia. The memory of General Oglethorpe hung like a panoply over Georgia; for she suffered but little, considering her weakness, during the Revolutionary war, from Indian aggressions. Nor was this feeling altogether extinct for fifty years with the Creeks, nor until they believed the people of Oglethorpe had passed away, and the country was occupied by Virginia Algoes.

Sir John Stuart, the victor over General Ranier at the battle of Maida, in Calabria, was the son of this gentleman. This victory at Maida was the first triumph obtained with equal numbers by England over France in the late war; but it would not have been his last, if he had not perished prematurely.

the Spaniards, upon recovering their fright, might return with more courage and better conduct, continued Capt. Thompson's ship in the king's service, and sent expresses over land to the northern provinces on this occasion.

"A list of some of the Spanish forces employed in the invasion of Georgia under the command of Don Manuel de Monteano, Governor of St. Augustine, Commander-in-Chief of the expedition; and Major General Antonio de Rodondo, engineer general:

"Two colonels, with brevets of brigadiers; one regiment of Grenadiers; one regiment of Dragoons, dismounted; the regiment called the Havanna Regiment; ten companies of fifty each, drafted off from several regiments in the Havanna; one regiment of the Havanna militia, consisting of ten companies of one hundred each; one regiment of negroes, regulars, officered by negroes; one regiment of mulattoes, and one company of one hundred Miguelatos; one company of the train, with proper artillery. Augustine forces consisting of about three hundred men, ninety Indians, and fifteen negroes, who ran away from South Carolina.”

Thus terminated the invasion of Georgia by the great force that had been brought to bear upon General Oglethorpe, leaving him victorious, and crowned with a glory which no Englishman up to that time had acquired in any of the provinces; for the Spaniards of that day were not like the Spaniards of this. Spain had been for centuries a field of battle, an arena for the powers of Europe to contend in. Nor had Spanish infantry lost any of that fame, in these times, which they had so well maintained under a Prince of Parma and a Duke of Alva. The Spanish infantry that were brought to bear upon Fort Moosa, and again at the Bloody Marsh on St. Simon's, were the same. They were a chosen regiment of grenadiers from old Spain, in garrison at Cuba, that were employed upon both occasions. At Fort Moosa they were victorious, but not bloodless. The particulars of that affair were not known for years, or until Capt. McIntosh was exchanged at the peace.

Fort Moosa is upon a broad river emptying itself under the castle of St. Augustine, four miles only from the castle. Capt. McIntosh had remonstrated with Col. Palmer, for remaining there more than one night, until it produced an alienation between them. All that he could then do was to

make his company sleep upon their arms. They were not surprised. At the first alarm of the sentinels they were in rank. They met the Spanish infantry that approached them in three columns with a highland shout. But the contest was too unequal; all was over in a moment; and Capt. McIntosh and thirty-six of his men had fallen under the Spanish bayonets. A few, with his young son, escaped through the breached wall, and when Col. Palmer, saw the overwhelming force that assailed them, he directed the rangers without the walls, to fly; but, refusing to follow them, paid the debt of imprudence with his blood.

The Spaniards, as should have been expected, when they found Col. Palmer, for five nights, had made with his moving columns, Fort Moosa his resting-place, came in boats with muffled oars at the dead of night. They landed unheard and undiscovered. The Indians, who were relied upon by the commanding officer, were watching the land side, but never dreamed of, or looked to the water. The dead and the wounded of the Spaniards were carried back to St. Augustine for burial. It was this same regiment that, two years afterwards, was brought from Cuba to lead in all enterprises that were again destined to meet the remnant of those highlanders, that they had encountered at Fort Moosa. But this time the scene had changed. It was in the light of day, and it was blood and slaughter, and not victory that awaited them.

In the details that have been given of that day, written probably in a hurry, and certainly by one not himself engaged in the action, there is some confusion of position, and some mingling of events, which can only be understood by one familiar in his childhood with the scene, and who has travelled it over often, with more than one that was himself an actor in the conflict.

It may be remembered that in giving an account of the road cut out from Frederica to the south end of the island of St. Simons, where the fort and sea battery were placed, it was stated that General Oglethorpe traced this road himself; that it proceeded in a south-eastern direction, for two or three miles, where it reached the eastern marsh; that this marsh was bounded to the east, or seaward, by a thick and impracticable morass; on the west, by dense, close wood. The highway continued along this marsh for two miles,