Letter from Captain Squire to the Committee of Hampton

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And on the day after the disaster which happened to his tender, which was chiefly manned with runaway negroes, he despatched the following Letter to the Committee of the Town of Hampton, dated

"Otter Sloop, Norfolk River, September 10, 1775."

"GENTLEMEN: Whereas a Sloop tender, manned and armed in His Majesty' s service, was on Saturday, the 2d instant, in a violent gale of wind, cast on shore in Back River, Elizabeth County, having on board the undermentioned King' s stores, which the inhabitants of Hampton thought proper to seize, I am therefore to desire that the King' s Sloop, with all the stores belonging to her, be immediately returned, or the people of Hampton, who

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Six swivels, five muskets, five cutlasses, two powder-horns, one seine and rope, an anchor and grapnel, with two cables and hawser, one boat' s awning, one iron stone, with some lead."

The Hampton Committee having thought proper, on Monday last, to lay the above Letter before the Committee of this City, they represented to the commanding officer of the volunteers here, the necessity of sending down a sufficient force to protect the inhabitants of Hampton from any insult that might be offered to them by Captain Squire, who immediately communicated the same to the volunteers, when one hundred men offered themselves, and next morning set out upon their march to Hampton; where it is to be hoped, should the said Squire attempt any thing hostile against the people there, that they will be able to give a good account of him. And as to the requisition of the King' s stores, &c˙, that were on board the tender, being delivered up to him, it will be time enough to settle accounts with him after he has made satisfaction to the owners of the several slaves he has harboured, some of whom he now employs in the King' s service, as well as for the number of robberies he has suffered to be committed, in hogs and poultry, from sundry plantations.