The Virginia Gazette

Extract of a letter from Pensacola, Sept. 27, 1768.

"I have no agreeable news to tell you of this place; it has lately declined very much, and a good deal for want of men of influence at home. By some very extraordinary orders lately received from General Gage, the out forts are all to be abandoned, and the two regiments (three companies only excepted) to embark for East Florida. There seems such an absurdity in withdrawing troops from a frontier province, surrounded by numerous nations of Indians, to place them in an interior country, that we are at a loss to reconcile, by any motives whatsoever, such a very singular measure. It is suggested that your Sons of Liberty are the cause of the troops being drawn (from different parts) to the northward, in order to enforce your obedience to the late acts of Parliament. It may be so; and even was such a step to prove equal to the purpose (which appears possible) what in the end can be gained by it but the submission of a people governed by laws to which they never gave their concurrence, laws which they deem incompatible with our happy constitution, and which they will no longer obey than they are compelled thereto by a superior force? It is greatly to be wished some medium could be found out to ease these contests with honour to both parties, which seems an impossibility.

"It is a strange consideration that crossing the Atlantic should make such a difference in the privileges of a free people, and that the government of the colonies and that of England should be so opposite, under the same constitution, to make slaves of the one and freemen of the other. I would recommend it to you all, as the only expedient that can be fallen upon to save the honour of both, that you embark for England and acquaint the King and Parliament that as you find the sons of Great Britain cannot live in America and enjoy their birthright that you have thought fit to return to your mother country, where it cannot be withheld from you; and that you have left the army in America to take off the goods and merchandises of the mother country, and that you are come to aid them in their manufactures. If I have digressed, you must lay it to the Pennsylvania Farmer, that very excellent performance of your patriot Mr. D."

To return to this province. We have a meeting of the General Assembly, and address his Majesty, with a memorial to the Secretary of State for America, representing the present state of the province, and implored the support and protection of our mother country. Nothing keeps us almost from a state of despair but the daily expectation of our new Governor's arrival, which we hope will once more give life and spirit to the province."