Letter from Wilmington, in North-Carolina

v6:432

The enemy having landed at General Robert Howe' s plantation on Sunday morning, between two and three o' clock, about nine hundred troops, under the command of Generals Clinton and Cornwallis, the sentry posted on the river bank immediately gave the alarm to the guards, who had only time to collect their horses and throw down the fences to let a few cattle out, which they drove off before the enemy surrounded the house. On their march up the causeway from the river, part of the guard kept up a fire on them, which the enemy returned. A few women who lived in the house were treated with great barbarity, one of whom was shot through the hips, another stabbed with a bayonet, and a third knocked down with the but of a musket. The enemy had two men killed, several wounded, and a Sergeant of the Thirty-Third Regiment taken prisoner. They proceeded on their march to Orton Mill , with a design to surprise Major Davis, who commanded a detachment of about ninety men stationed at that place. In this they failed, as the Major had received the alarm from the guard, and had retired, with his baggage and two small swivels, in very good order, unpursued by the enemy. They have burned the Mill, and retreated to the vessels at the Fort. Upon the whole the Generals have very little to boast of, they having got by this descent three horses and three cows. We had not a man killed or wounded.