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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from Alexander Spotswood to William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth
Spotswood, Alexander, 1676-1740
July 28, 1711
Volume 01, Pages 796-797

[From Spotswood Letters. Vol. 1. P. 105.]
GOV. SPOTSWOOD TO LORD DARTMOUTH.

Virginia, July 28th, 1711.

To My Lord Dartmouth:

My Lord:

Having given Your Lord'p the trouble of two dispatches by the New York packet boat (of which the duplicates are inclosed) I have little now to add except to enclose the Journals of Council and proclamations which contain the publick transactions of this her Majesty's Colony. Since the arrival of the Marines I sent into Carolina, the Affairs of that Country seem to take a new turn. Mr. Cary and his party are dispersed, and 'tis hoped the Courts of Justice and Assembly of the Province will again be at Liberty to resume their Functions. Upon advice that some of the Chief of Mr. Cary's Faction were come into this Colony, the Council advised the issuing a proclamation for apprehending them 'till they should give Security for their good behaviour here, for no government can be safe that has in it such dangerous Incendiarys. There are several Affidavits sent me to prove that one Porter who is one of Mr. Cary's pretended Council was with the Tuscaruro Indians promising great Rewards to incite them to cut off all the Inhabitants of that part of Carolina that

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adhered to Mr. Hyde. The Indians own that the proposal was accepted by their young men, but that their old men (who bare great Sway in all their Councils) being of their own nature Suspitious of some trick or else directed by a Superior providence, refused to be concerned in that barbarous design. I must beg leave to represent to Your Lord'ps how ill provided we are here to oppose either a foreign Enemy or Intestine Commotion, the powder her Majesty sent hither some years ago is so much wasted by lying so long in this Climate that there's no dependence on its doing execution even at half distance. I pray Your Lord'ps will be pleased to move her Majesty to send a fresh Supply, and in the Meantime that the Captains of her Majesty's Ships of War resorting to this place may be directed to exchange from time to time some new powder for that here, which will be as usefull as any other for their Signals, Watch guns or Salutes. Her Majesty's Ship the Enterprize attending this Government had the good fortune to take at our Capes a French privateer of 88 men from Petitguarms [sic] which had used their Coast and done great damage to our Trade for two or three summer's past. I have sent the prisoners home by this Fleet and hope it may prove for her Majesty's Service in redeeming from the Enemy the like number of her Majesty's Subjects, which I shall always preferr to the particular Advantages to me by sending them in a Flag of Truce to their own Island.