The Virginia Gazette

Extract and Translation of a letter from Rome, dated August 1.

"We are informed that a noble personage, a near relation of his Holiness, will soon set out for England, upon matters of very interesting political business to this state. That a permission may be obtained from the Court of London to raise in Ireland four battalions of Catholicks, and in Scotland two battalions of Highlanders, each consisting of 1000 men, and to be officered by natives from those countries. That three battalions are to garrison the town of Civita Vecchia, the others the town of Ancona. These battalions nominally to be paid by us, but in fact by Great Britain. The treasury of Loretto is to be security for the repayment of that sum. And that the two ports of Ancona and Civita Vecchia are to be declared free ports only to the English, with certain privileges of trade, and likewise at Rome, that will prove of mutual benefit to the two states, and particularly to the commerce of Great Britain.

"This political arrangement can only account for the last of your Ministry, in tamely permitting the French so easily to become masters of Corsica, of more importance to your trade in the Mediterranean, as well as to the Levant, than you are now sensible of; but you will hereafter.

"How happy a prospect for Rome, should we be under your protection! We may see English colonies fixed in the Campagnia, surely as good a country as Florida, where they will never prove so ungrateful as the Americans."