July 15th. 1781.
To His Excellency the Governor Thos. Burke.
Sir:—
I arrived home yesterday and found what few men that is stanch for their Country, in Arms to defend themselves, which is not over Fifty to oppose, by the best accounts that I can get, to the amount of Four Hundred or near that Number under the Command of Hector McNeil, and Ray and McLaurin Calvil is appointed Cols. of Bladen County, and is ordering a General Muster on either Monday or Tuesday next, as I am informed by one of our Men who was talking with the said Col. Calvil yesterday, and told him that McNeil had four Hundred Men, and that he should have Three Hundred with him in the lower Part of the County, and that One Hundred was to join him from Brunswick County, and is desiring all the Men to come in or they will be distressed, or if they do not comply by the First Day of August next, they will be destroyed, which was the Time Limited by General Clinton and Aberthnot’s proclamation that has been Industriously Spread amongst the People. McNeil is encamped at a Place Called McFall’s Mill, between Drowning Creek and the Raft Swamp, and Parties going about robbing, and Calvil is ordering his General Muster at Elizabeth Town, which is at our Court House, and I expect will embody his Men in the lower Part of the County, and without it is in Your Excellency’s Power to send
us Speedy assistance we shall be destroyde and over run, or be obliged to submit to all the Distresses that will come. They are appointing Captains and under Officers in every District in the County. I have not seen Col. Brown since I got home, who is the Commanding Officer of Bladen, but am told he is coming up to us where our Men is embodied or will be with us to-day, but it is impossible to get Men to join us without Assistance.