AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE NATCHEZ, OR DISTRICT OF NATCHEZ, every. What the country had been under the French dominion, may well be inferred from its condition some years afterward, when the British received possession of it from France, by virtue of negociated (From the Western Messenger.) treaties at Paris in 1762 and 1763. True it is, that THE earliest information of THE NATCHEZ or DIS- the cession was nominally made to Great Britain by TRICT OF NATCHEZ, (as it was differently termed,) France. As it was she who surrendered to Great is furnished by the French. That spirited people, Britain "the port and river of Mobile, and although behind the Spaniards and English, in the thing on the left side of the Mississippi she possess. career of maritime discovery which so brilliantly ed, or had a right to possess, except the island of marked the fifteenth century, soon made up for their New Orleans." Still the virtual grantor was Spain, backwardness. Early in the following century for whose benefit France alienated her province of Canada was discovered, Quebec founded, and the Louisiana partly to Great Britain; and the residue great chain of northern lakes explored. In 1673, to the Spanish government, as a compensation and the party of Joliet and Marquette set off from exchange in its hands, for the British conquest of Michilimackinac, and revealed to Europeans the Havana. Among the first acts of ownership exer noble river which gives name to the state of Missis-cised by Great Britain over this portion of her brill sippi.* This discovery was soon followed by a suc-iant conquests obtained from the house of Bourbon, cession of enterprises under La Salle, Iberville, and in the war of 1755, was the proclamation of seventh Bienville, which extended the occupation, and some- October, 1763. By this instrument, the country times the settlements of France, along the gulf of embraced by Appalachicola, the gulf of Mexico, Mexico, from the bay of St. Bernard's in the West, lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, the Mississippi to the Mobile in the East. It was not, however, as far north as thirty-one degrees, and a line due till 1700, according to some French writers, that east to the Chatahooche, was erected into the gov fort Rosalie was built at Natchez; others represent ernment of West Florida.† This is the first ap it as still later, in 1719. This ancient memorial of pearance of the geographical term, West Florida, the distinguished people who first explored these which had previously formed a part of Louisiana, beautiful regions in the Southwest, is said to have and extended to the Perdido river. These British been so named by Bienville, in compliment to Ro- limits were, however, upon a representation of the salie, Countess De Pontchartrain. An obscure Board of Trade to the king, extended to the Ya trace of a part of this ancient fortification still sur- zoos, or Yazoo north, and the east line abovemenvives, to leave a faint impression of the romantick tioned. This appears in the commission issued to changes of Mississippi fortune, from the dominion Governour Chester, second March, 1770‡ By of France, Britain, and Spain, to the beneficent and these official acts, the District of Natchez was, unenterprising rule of the great Republick of North der the British government, established as a part of America. West Florida. But the country, sparsely settled, The governour who founded this advanced fort in and surrounded by numerous tribes of Indians, prethe interiour of our continent, is said to have been sents no brilliant picture at this period of its history, very anxious to fix the seat of government of the Long as the country had been in the occupation of province of Louisiana, on the mountain bluffs of the French, for more than seventy-eight years, Natchez. This brilliant destiny was, however, their settlements, (as they did all over the West) overruled in favour of the more commercial, though merely dotted the country. Along the coast of the in all other respects, inferiour position of New Or- gulf of Mexico. up the rivers, at points remote and leans. If beauty of site, lofty hills, in this general-insulated, from Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans, and ly low and flat region, fertility of soil, and salubrity Natchez, to Michilimackinac and Quebec, the of climate, could have overbalanced the temptations French settlers composed only broken strings of of wealth, Natchez would have become the seat of population. Hunting, not agriculture, seems to have the French empire in the Southwest. As it is, Na-been the favourite employment of the people; and ture has lavished her choicest treasures to adorn too often were the sons of France seduced by the and enrich this beautiful spot. A lofty bank, two romantick and perilous charms of savage life, from hundred feet above the ordinary level of the river, pursuing the sober but slow arts which conduct na commanding a view of the most majestick stream tions to the proud achievements of civilization, over of Western America, which sweeps far to the right the wilderness of nature. No Europeans have, to and left, presents one of the most remarkable points such an extent, and so happily, amalgamated with in this region. Here, the French, with the taste the natives of America, as the French. It is the characteristick of that polished people, established key to the Indian attachment which is shown to the seat of their government for the district of them above all other foreigners. The earliest Indian alienation of the District of Natchez by treaty, that is known to the writer, is described in the following affidavit of a surveyor in the employment of the British government: "The Natchez district is bounded to the westward by the river Mississippi, and extends from Loftus Cliff up the said river to the mouth of the Yazoo, the distance being one hun Natchez. During the government of France, the divisions of the province of Louisiana, were Biloxi, Alebamos, Natchitoches, Yazoos, Wabash, and Natchez, with New Orleans. For French Louisiana extended to New France, or Canada. It is the district of Natchez, however, and principally while under the government of British and Spaniards, that forms the subject of the present sketch. • Marquette's Journal. Butler's Ky. Treaty of Paris, 1763. † Hall's Law Journal, 5 vol. 405; al so Land Law U. S. + Idem 412. I See Land Law U. S. vol. 2 Appendix 1, p 275. dred and ten miles. The said district was purchased from the Choctaw nation, by the British superintend=ent of Indian affairs, at a treaty held at Mobile, in May, 1777, and the lines as above described were =marked and surveyed by me in 1779." This de=scription, it must be observed, contains no eastern boundary; the cession, however, is recognised by the same Indians, in a treaty concluded with our government at Hopewell, in 1786. By this treaty the United States were authorized to retrace and mark the "old line of demarkation heretofore established by and between the officers of his Britannick majesty and the Choctaw nation, which ran in a parallel direction with the Mississippi and eastward thereof." The Choctaws relinquished all right and title to the same from latitude thirty-one degrees north, to the Yazoo. This line is laid down upon the maps in our land-offices, as about twenty miles east of the Mississippi. There are other Indian treaties of 1765, between the Creeks and the Choctaws with the British government; but they alienate lands on the seacoast, and do not effect the present subject. Such is the aspect of the District of Natchez presented by political regulations; its actual living condition, its manners, its domestick government and history must be found in other testimony. Fortunately for a curious posterity, such evidence is furnished by the memoranda of a settler, who, when a boy of eight years old arrived at Natchez, in September, 1776. grown with forest trees which would have measured two and a half feet through. There were likewise several iron guns lying about, which were supposed to have been left by the French. The whole site of the present city of Natchez was, in 1776, a thick canebrake. The country settlements were quite sparse and scattered. Next to the settlement on St. Catherine's creek, (which has been previously mentioned,) there were on Second creek, about fifteen families scattered from its junction with the Homochitto for ten miles up the stream. At Ellis's Cliffs there was a solitary settler-Richard Ellis; and his brother William was the only settler south of the Homochitto. He lived at the point of high land, between Buffalo creek and the Mississippi. In the absence of county, township, and parish divisions, the different inhabited parts of the country were denominated settlements. Thus the Jersey settlement lay next south of the one upon Second creek, on the northern side of the Homochitto, and contained ten families; Cole's Creek settlement embraced eight families; Petit Gulf, (now Rodney,) and Bayou Pierre settlements contained about six families; Black River settlement embraced about six families; and but a solitary settler, by the name of John Watkins, lived at the Walnut Hills, now the flourishing city of Vicksburgh. Thus seventy-eight families composed the white population of Mississippi, in so recent a period as 1776, none of whom were know to have removed to the country before 1772. Let us now extend our notice to the surrounding country. Calvin Smith, now in his seventieth year, enjoying the ample fruits of a life skilfully devoted to agriculture, has not been unmindful of the curiosity The nearest white settlements out of the present of his countrymen to learn the incidents of early state of Mississippi, to the Natchez, were at Point Mississippi history. To the curious cares of this Coupee and Oppelousas, some eighty or a hundred ancient settler, the reader is indebted for the follow-miles distant, and on the opposite side of the Missising primitive picture of the Natchez district. The facts are unvarnished, the colouring as much so, the form alone has been changed. Where dates have been forgotten or unknown to Mr. Smith, the papers of William Dunbar, (better known by the marked courtesy of a republican people, as Sir William Dunbar,) have been resorted to. This gifted and scientifick gentleman, after leaving land in 1771 settled at Baton Rouge in 1776. The journal of his plantation from 1776, an extensive correspondence, (all most liberally placed in the author's hands by Doctor William Dunbar,) offer a rich mine of southwestern history, in its early British and Spanish days. sippi river. Natchitoches and Washitaw settlements were two hundred miles, and the Post of Arkansas an old French settlement, was 300 miles distant. No roads existed through the interiour; there were paths to the Choctaw towns, and thence to the Tennessee; there was likewise a trace to Pensacola. The latter, during the British dominion, formed the seat of Scot-government for West Florida; of which Mississippi, it will be recollected, constituted a part. The government was as simple as the people were plain in their manners; their wants were great, but the means of gratifying them few. The only court in the Nat chez was held by the commandant, who acted as judge; two assistants, a clerk and sheriff, compleMr. Smith was the son of a New England cler- ted the simple government, whose decrees a small gyman, who emigrated to Natchez in 1776. At garrison enforced. The jurisdiction of this court that time, our annalist relates, that the town of Nat- extended, in all civil cases, to suits involving sums chez consisted of ten log-cabins, and two framed less than one hundred dollars, and in criminal cases houses, all below the bluff. The bank of the river only embraced slaves. An appeal lay from the extended between three and four hundred yards to commandant to the governour at Pensacola. The the edge of the water, at an ordinary stage. There condition of the settlers was poor and embarrassing. were six or eight families, and four mercantile es- The stock of the farmers consisted of horses, cattle, tablishments, in a small way. The latter consisted and a few sheep, but scarcely any hogs; slaves of one Barber, his two nephews in one firm, James were few, and sometimes obtained from the West Willing was a second, Hanchett & Newman a Indies as the country advanced in prosperity.— third, and Broomart a fourth. At this time no set- Trade had scarcely penetrated the country with the lement existed between Natchez and St. Cather-inspiring energies which a good market for the ine's creek. On the latter there were only twenty families settled. The site of the fort* was over Variously named, by the French Rosalie, by the British Panmure, which is retained in the Spanish records now in the probate court of Natchez; and Carlos by the Spaniards. produce of labour never fails to effect. Peltries were the principal article of traffick, and they were obtained from the northern territories. In 1778, the British merchants did encourage the production of tobacco; but with the government of their nation, the patronage was withdrawn for a At the period when our materials begin, the Ameri long and dreary interval. At this period of Missis-can Revolution had just broken out. The first effects sippi history, it may be gratifying to contrast it with of this brilliant era of American history upon those the condition of the hardy and vigorous common-remote settlements, were the visits of Colonels Gib wealths which now flourish upon the waters of the Ohio son and Linn, in 1776 from Fort Pitt to New Or and the Upper Mississippi. Arkansas, Missouri, leans to procure military stores for the defence of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Ten- the American forts on the Ohio. This mission was nessee, were then portions of the great Indian wil- eminently successful, owing to the friendship of the derness that constituted the wide domain and pro- Spanish government. It was followed by that expe ductive park, which was roamed over by the sparse dition of Major David Rogers in 1778 for the same tribes of the red man. A few scattered and insig- purpose, which after reaching the neighbourhood of nificant French villages existed at the Arkansas Cincinnati terminated most fatally. Towards the Post, St. Genevieve, St. Louis, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, latter end of February, 1778, James Willing, for Vincennes, Michilimackinac, and Detroit. The merly of Philadelphia, and who was one of the white man did not possess a foothold beyond these merchants found by Smith at Natchez, was despatchfeeble points, within the first five of the above ed by the old Congress to New Orleans, on a similar states. In Ohio he had no possession; in Ken- commission to that of Gibson, Linn and Rogers | tucky he was limited to a few stations containing This person had lived some time in the country, a one hundred and two fighting men in 1777. In fellow-subject with the planters on the coast, as the Tennessee, now possessing a population about equal banks of the Mississippi are familiarly termed by the to that of Kentucky, the white settlements were French. He had shared liberally in the hospitali confined to a few stations on Cumberland and Hol- ties which have ever distinguished a country sparse ston. Yet the population of those regions amounted, ly settled, and particularly in southern regions. by the census of 1830, to 3,010,702. If the aver- He had feasted at the tables, and had drank the age ratio of annual increase at 1833* for eight wine of the river planters, as a boon companion and years be added to the above, say twenty-five per friend. Who could have been less an object of ap cent. for that time, the above total of population will prehension as a military visiter through a region of become 3,763,377. What a contrast to the solitude profound peace, and which required, nay justified, of the wilderness! the barbarity, the savage state of no hostilities against its peaceable settlers? Yet, the Indian! Such are some of the conquests over to the disgrace of the American commission which barbarousness effected by the indomitable enterprise Captain Willing bore, on his arrival, he plundered of American freemen. There were some circum- the inoffensive inhabitants holding no hostile atti stances favourable to the prosperity of the American tude-seizing their slaves, shooting their stock, and colonists in Mississippi, which, however superiour firing their buildings, from Natchez to Manshac their unshackled energies were in other respects, To these enormities, justified by no laws of war, and were not enjoyed by our countrymen in the North- uncalled for by his commission, Captain Willing ad west. The Indian nations in the Southwest, either ded the violation of his own protections given to the originally less warlike than the northern tribes, or friends of the United States. On landing at Nat exposed more directly, and for a longer time, to the chez, Willing, to the surprise of the inhabitants, unarts and the arms of the whites, were comparatively furled the American flag, and claimed to take pos harmless and pacifick; offering little if any obstruc- session of West Florida. In a short time he had tion to the settlers, and frequently affording them apprehended all persons who had anything worth an asylum from the vengeance or the justice of the plundering, and who were reported to be unfriendly Spanish government. The Spaniards would as to the cause of the United States, in other words soon go to h**l," said Man to Fulsome, when medi- were royalists, or in revolutionary phrase, tories. He tating the Natchez insurrection of 1779, as demand seized their slaves, plate, and all kinds of goods.us from the Choctaws. The latter tribe have been Isaac Johnson, Colonel Hutchins, the Alstons, Hiimmemorially distinguished for their aversion to ram Stewart, and Alexander M'Intosh, were almost shed the blood of the whites. The contrast of stripped of every moveable that was of northern settlement is deeply marked in a war of There were upward of a hundred negroes, with twenty years, characterized by every feature of fe- other valuable articles, plundered by this band of rocious and bloodthirsty warfare. It raged from robbers. The plundered people were then compel 1774 to 1794, the date of Wayne's battle of the led to take an oath not to bear arms against the Uni Maumee. The country was contested by inches, ted States, and were dismissed to their naked homes. and won by blood. In fact, the white man, without After Willing had got his fill of plunder at Natchez, his disposition for agricultural labour, and consequent he set off for New Orleans, taking Reuben Harrison superiour rate of population, could not have con- along with some more recruits. On this voyage, quered the Indian. The success of the latter is to planters on the coast, as far as Manshac, which ter be attributed to his industry and fecundity, much minated the British territory, fared still worse than more than to his superiour art or valour. It is, those of Natchez. William Dunbar, (and a few however, to be observed, that had not the Indians of his friends who availed themselves of his sabeen furnished with arms and ammunition by their gacious advice,) saved their slaves by conveying British allies, the contest in the northwestern re- them over to the Spanish side of the Mississippi. gion of North America would have been as hope- When the party had arrived at New Orleans, the less, as it has proved over the rest of the world, plunderers who had come from Pennsylvania, were between the civilized and barbarous races of man. unwilling to share with the recruits, the booty they American Almanack, for 1832, p 162. any * See Butler's Ky., 2d edition, p 155. † Idem ante, p. value. 104 the E this did not instantly break out, the fire was only smothered, not quenched. had picked up at Natchez. These new partners in depredation, to the number of thirty or forty, were sent back under Reuben Harrison, now become a About this time, or 1780, Stephen Minor, an enlieutenant, to collect what Willing had spared.- terprising young man, descended the Ohio and MisThis new scheme of plunder was somehow convey-sissippi from Redstone, on the Monongahela, (now ed to Natchez, where the wronged inhabitants proved Brownstown, in Pennsylvania,) for the purpose of less tame than the predatory gang may have expect- obtaining military supplies from New Orleans. He ed. The people of Natchez, under Hutchins, Bloo-succeeded in his mission, and proceeded on his return by mart, M'Intosh and Percy, assembled at Ellis's Landing. Here an engagement took place between the Natchez settlers and Harrison's party; in which the leader and five or six of his men were killed by the planters in arms. This was the first battle fought in the country between white men, after the establishment of British government. land, on the western bank of the Mississippi, with a caravan of loaded mules. In the course of his journey he was attacked by one of the violent intermittent fevers which so sorely infest the banks of southern streams. This prevented him from pursuing his route in company with his men, when the fit was upon him. In this condition he would lie by, until the ague had passed off, and then ride on to overtake his company at their stage, or rather encampment for the night. One day, when not far from the present Orders now came from Governour Chester, at Pensacola, to fit up fort Panmure; and Col. Magellan was sent to raise a battalion of four companies. These were given to the command of Colonels Ly-post of Arkansas, he was as usual attacked by his man, Bloomart, Bingaman, and M'Intosh. These troops were soon ordered to Baton Rouge, with the increasing prospect of a Spanish war. The place of this military force was filled by a Captain Foster, with a hundred men, who took full possession of the country. fever, followed by an ague, that compelled him to stop. On recovering from his chilly fit, he followed the trail of his caravan, and after riding a few miles he came upon the murdered bodies of his men; his goods had all been taken off; and he was left sick in the heart of an Indian wilderness. Circumstances On the sixteenth of June, 1779, war was declared not a little disheartening, but such and even worse by Spain against Great Britain. This was the sig-were often manfully endured by the pioneers. Minor nal to the colonial officers of Spain, in Louisiana, to partook largely of their indomitable spirit; he made retrieve, if possible, the bad fortune which had so the best of his way to the post, whence he returned eminently attended the military efforts of the French, to New Orleans, with nothing but his own energy to as well as the Spanish branch of the house of Bour-support him in a foreign colony, but at a bustling bon, in the war of 1755. Fortunately for Spain, Jo-time, and at a point full of daring enterprise. Our seph De Galvez, a most enterprising officer, was at adventurer devoted himself to the acquisition of the this time governour of Louisiana. This active com- French and Spanish languages; and this attention, mander, early in the fall of 1779, successfully di- coupled with many manly qualities, soon attracted rected an expedition against the British fort Bute on the notice of the Spanish officers at New Orleans. the Mauschac; and on the twenty-first of September, Accordingly, when in the spring of 1780, Governor he likewise captured a more considerable fort at Galvez undertook an expedition against Mobile, then Baton Rouge, commanded by a Colonel Dixon. It in the possession of the British, Minor was readily is said, however, that the bad state of the defences enlisted into the governor's body-guard, the finest aided the efforts of the Spaniards in no inconsidera- body of men which could be raised at New Orleans. ble degree. By the capitulation of Baton Rouge all In this expedition Minor had the good fortune to save the British possessions, embracing fort Panmure at the life of his general, by killing an Indian who was Natchez, a fort on Amite river, and another on aiming at the governor. Another version of this Thompson's creek, on the Mississippi, were ceded story, however, represents that Hooper, (a white man to Spain: and she once more reoccupied the labours of some notoriety in the early history of Natchez,) of De Soto, in his brilliant and unrivalled enter- had drawn sight upon the governor, as he was reconprise through the barbarous forests and swamps of noitering the bay in an open boat; when a British ofMississippi. Such an extension of the capitulation, ficer, struck by the barbarity of the warfare, suddenly and indeed the whole defence of Baton Rouge, struck up Hooper's rifle, and thereby saved the genegreatly surprised the shrewd and bold planters of ral's life. Hooper, with the dogged spirit of a backNatchez. At this point, the British had great re- woodsman, then swore he would fight no longer in a sources both in the settlers and the Indians, upon cause so managed, and suddenly packing up his small which Col. Dixon might have confidently fell back. baggage, he left the British camp. Galvez reduced These interiour means seem to have been unknown Mobile again under the Spanish government,* and or disregarded by the British officer. It was no in the Spanish service and by the continued favor Minor was rewarded for his services by a commission doubt favourable to the humanity of the warfare, that the Indians were not introduced into the trage-known in the eastern part of the United States, that of the government. These changes were so little dy of war, always full enough of horrours, but never so much so, as when such murderous savages as the Congress in 1779, granted a commission to one North American Indians are made its actors. James Robinson, a friend and companion of Willing, Natchez, for the first time, since the exploration to carry on hostile enterprises on the Mississippi, of De Soto, became a Spanish territory, on the 21st supposing these western districts still under the September, 1779. This transfer of dominion was British government. Upon Robinson's reaching not, however, immediately acquiesced in, either by Natchez, with some thirty or forty followers, he first the British Planters, or the Indians. Deep dislike found out that the Spaniards had got possession of the to the Spaniards existed in both nations; and though * 14th of March, 1780.-Martin's Louisiana. country. The expedition was therefore entirely conductor to social and national sympathies. Inbroken off, the men dispersed and the leader died. deed, two individuals, and still more, two nations, In the spring of 1781, Galvez set off from Mobile speaking different languages, are too insulated from on an expedition against Pensacola, at that time also one another to enjoy or maintain intercourse and in the possession of the British. Here he was met friendship. by a large Spanish naval force from Havana, and The disaffection of the district was so decided he compelled General Campbell and Governor that the people ran to arms with alacrity. Moreover, Chester to surrender this commanding point on the the idle condition, owing to the want of trade, left Gulf of Mexico. * But during these operations the people scarcely anything to do, after the short against Pensacola, and while, with characteristic time required in this genial climate to lay by, or British confidence, the Natchez settlers anticipated finish the cultivation of, their Indian corn. Hunting the success of Great Britain; in earnest of it, they was the only additional employment. By such a undertook to reduce the Spanish fort at Natchez. people the enterprise against the Spanish govern The persons who took the lead in this daring enter- ment was embraced with all the eagerness of a frol prise were Colonel Anthony Hutchins,† Jacob Win- ick. There were not more than five or six men frey, Captain D. Bloomart, Christian Bingham, John who stayed away from it. Alexander M'Intosh fled and Philip Alston, and one Turner Mulkey, a Baptist with all his disposable property into the Spanish fort; preacher. but the planters, who had been summoned to arms, This party applied to Governor Chester, at Pen-assembled as directed, and after roll-call and detailing sacola, for assistance, through a messenger, of the a small guard, they were dismissed. Any of them name of Christopher Man. The British governor who lived near were, with a carelessness strongly received the communication with the welcome to be evidencing their confidence, permitted to retire to their expected; but felt too much concerned for the wel- homes, on condition of appearing at nine o'clock the fare of the Natchez people to encourage them to next morning. Such was the security of the insurtake up arms against the Spaniards, until the pros- gents, and such the supineness of the Spanish garrison! pects of maintaining Pensacola were more favour- The next day the commissary procured plenty of able. He, however, sent whatever supplies he could provisions for this rapid assemblage. On the ensu spare, with directions to Man, to remain with Ful- ing Sunday afternoon, a party of the revolters set off some, a Choctaw chief, until further orders. Man, to visit the village of Natchez, then entirely under however, eager to play a more active part than that the hill. The road was covered by an intervening warranted by his orders, urged Fulsome to push on ridge from the fire of the fort, and on the south, a the project of attacking Natchez and plundering the considerable ravine protected an object from its guns. friends of the Spanish government. "In this latter Some of the soldiers, however, not well acquainted project, if even Pensacola should fall," said Man with the ground, attempted to pass the ridge in full to Fulsome, "we shall be out of Spanish jurisdic-sight of the garrison, when a discharge of grape-shot, tion; and the Spaniards would never look for us from a six-pounder in the fort, rolled them down the among the Choctaws. Then the credentials and sup- hill with all imaginable expedition. Calvin Smith, plies I have," continued he, "from Governor Ches- a boy, at the time, too young to be pressed into ser ter are such, that the Natchez people will be ready vice, was looking on. Commandant Bloomart pitchas bulldogs to seize the Spaniards. If we succeed ed his camp in the hollow, in front of the we shall have not only the plunder of the fort but also that of the Illinois boats, that will come down the river, richly laden with peltries." This scheme of war and rebellion too easily won upon the excitable parties to whom it was proposed. A body of fifteen or twenty whites and as many Indians, collected and proceeded to Natchez. An express started before them, brought out their confederates, and a plan of operation was soon adopted. Every man in the district capable of bearing arms, was summoned to meet at John Row's, accoutred for service, and to march against Fort Paumure, under the penalty of treason to the British government. This was sometime in May, 1781; it could not have been far from this date, as the capitulation of Pensacola by the British, took place on the ninth of May, and this intelligence was received some time after the rupture of this insurrection. The threat of declaring all malcontents enemies to the British government and sending them to Pensacola was not at all necessary to rouse the people The British government had a thousand ties of sympathy with a people themselves of British stock, that necessarily attached them to it in preference to the government of the Spaniards-foreigners in customs, and above all, in language, itself such a powerful present house of Job Routh, then occupied by John Row. The siege continued in this harmless way for several days, with more noise than effect, till a small sixpounder was discovered and fixed up by the insur gents. This piece had been ploughed up at the French Meadows, near St. Catharine's creek, and had lain there as worthless until this unexpected military demand again brought it into use. On er amination, it proved to be injured in appearance only. Bloomart now opened his entrenchments against fort Paumure; and, in the meantime, intelligence was received of a large Illinois boat coming up the river. The insurgent chief instantly despatche forty or fifty men to waylay the boat at a point, where her burden would compel her to come close to the shore, in order to stem the current with our A The prize was easily captured, and with it, a most acceptable reinforcement of two swivels, and a quan tity of ammunition. The principal difficulty was that the prisoners were nearly as numerous as their captors; and the latter had no means of securing them but by compelling them to take an oath not to serve against his Britannic Majesty. The captured party were then permitted to dispose of themselves, at pleasure. Two days after this capture, the insur gents were able to open a considerable battery with Father to the present gentleman of that name in the vicinity the bobtail, (as they called the broken piece of artil of Natchez, and maternal grandfather to John F. H. Claiborne.lery,) and the two prize swivels. The entrench 9th of May, 1781.-Martin's Louisiana. |