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I now, my worthy friend, most sincerely and heartily Congratulate you on the success of the American arms in this Province; and be assured that, let General Clinton land when he pleases, we are ready for him at all points.
The Committee of Safety of Virginia offered our Council assistance, much to their honour; and I Verily believe South-Carolina would have offered every relief, had there been any necessity for it; but we had men enough to settle the account current with the Insurgents. Colonels Moore, Martin, Caswell, Polk, Thackston, Lillington, and Long, have great merit. Any one of these gentlemen, in this country, would be an over-match for a Howe, a Burgoyne, or a Clinton. Their knowledge of the country, and necessary modes of attack, would frustrate any attempt fallen upon by the characters last mentioned. The whole Province, in general, consider Regulars in the woods as an easy conquest, and I am firmly of their opinion. How small must Governour Martin feel himself, after promising Government two thousand men, not to have it in his power to supply the Ministry with a single man; and after having, with ostentatious parade, brought up a sloop-of-war and three armed vessels within half a mile of Wilmington, for the purpose of receiving the Regulators and Highlanders from Negroe-Head Point, to sneak off with two vessels at a time; after hearing of the defeat of his emissaries; but nothing can equal his quixotism, but that of the Ministry, his masters.
In Colonel Moore' s letter, you will observe be mentions a Captain Macleod killed; this man was Adjutant-General of the Highland Regulating Army.
Our troops under Colonel Howe are ordered into this Province immediately. Felix Kenan is a prisoner of ours; that infamous fellow is by this time a prisoner in Halifax Jail, James Hepburn was Secretary to his Excellency Brigadier-General McDonald. The great Colonel Cotton, we hope, by this time, is a prisoner in Halifax Jail.
After the Insurgents gave way, there never was such a scouting hardly ever known before. We expect next Friday to hear of the number of ringleaders taken,
Letter from North Carolina
v5:60
Our natural situation gives us many advantages, and the worthy men in this country do not want spirit. Dunmore to the North, and Martin to the South, have given us full employment for some time past, and have already made the whole Province soldiers. It is altogether out of my power to describen the ardour that at this very hour prevails in this Province; almost every man, at an hour' s warning, is ready to turn out in his country' s clause. Colonel Moore is by the Council, ordered to disarm all the Highlanders and Regulators, and to take all the ringleaders into custody, to send them to Halifax Jail, and to possess himself of their estates, and to make the return of his proceedings to the Provincial Congress, to be held at Halifax on the 2d of April next; which, it is hoped, will amount to something handsome. His Excellency Brigadier-General Donald McDonald I had the honour of seeing at Newbern. He is far advanced in life, being in the sixty-fifth year of his age. By this time, he is a close prisoner in Halifax Jail, as the Council expressly ordered him there.