Alexander Skinner to Brigadier General Grant

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St˙ Augustine, September 31, 1775.

SIR: By a detachment of the Fourteenth Regiment, ordered to Virginia, I have the opportunity of acknowledging the receipt of your Excellency' s letters of 2d and 23d May, and am glad, in some respects, of your coming to America, as by that means I shall have an opportunity of seeing you again, which otherwise I hardly ever expected.

Things are going on tolerably at the Villa, were it not for the cursed worms, which are getting worse every year. Though this season has been more favourable than several others before it, yet, on account of these destructive insects, I do not imagine we shall be able to make near the quantity of indigo we did last year; but the quality, on an average, will be better. The first cut turned out well, amounting to about two thousand weight; but the worm has laid hold of our second, and destroys it so fast that I am afraid it will be impossible to save much of it. And, to mend the matter, my time is so much taken up in town that I can never get liberty to stay at the plantation above a week, or at most a fortnight, upon a stretch, which may rather be something against your interest. Sampson is a pretty good overseer, and Brimmer becomes more and more attentive; yet I could wish to be more upon the spot myself.

The Indian business is become a perfect plague to me, and for which I have not the smallest consideration, so that I am determined, at all events, to shake myself clear of it, though I do not like to withhold any assistance in my power to give, in the present critical situation of the times.

Mr˙ Stuart, the Superintendent, has taken sanctuary here, and we have information the Carolinians and Georgians design sending an armed force to this place to demand him, and, if not delivered up, to commence hostilities. But I am in hope they will have some other employment nearer home, before it is long.

October 5.