Kentucky Gazette

EDITOR'S CORRESPONDENCE.

ST. MARY'S, GEO. JUNE 28, 1817.

This place is in great confusion, occasioned by the alarm amongst the inhabitants of Amelia Island, on account of the Carthagenians. All the females belonging to that place have removed, and are now here; also, the valuable property has been removed, and every Spanish vessel has left Amelia Island harbor. Reports are continually circulating. The day before yesterday we heard that five armed vessels were off this bar: yesterday it was understood here that the celebrated Venezuelan general Sir Gregor M'Gregor has been endeavoring to raise funds from some merchants in Charleston and Savannah, for the purpose of enabling him to collect a force sufficient to take East Florida, and that he has obtained already $63,000 dollars, which amount is to be reimbursed to the lenders in Florida land's at 20 cents an acre. This report, in part, the well informed class of the community generally believe. And to-day the captain of a sloop, (a man of veracity,) who came over the Bar last night tells us, that off this Bar he spoke a large schooner under the Carthagenian flag, on board of which appeared to be at least 150 men, and that her captain told him he would give a pilot almost any sum to carry him into Amelia. The inhabitants in Florida view not these movements with the same pleasure as it is supposed they would abroad. They have so good a governor and so systematic a government at present, that they are unwilling to change it but for that of the United States. Though they have nothing particularly to fear from the officers and crews of the vessels that are off at present, as they are generally white men: yet, if Amelia Island is taken, that harbor will be the receptacle, not only of those vessels under the Carthagenian flag, manned by brigands from St. Domingo, but for all those wretches who make use of the Patriot flag only to cover their robberies, and who, therefore, would plunder from the inhabitants in the Floridas as soon as from the honest Spanish merchant, if they could do it with the same impunity.—Nat. Intel.