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To the honourable the General Assembly.

Gentlemen:

I send herewith a letter from Colonel Emmett of the County of Cumberland, the Intelligence it contains, indicates an intention in

the Enemy to establish Posts for the support of the disaffected to the southward of Cape Fear River. The want of arms and ammunition therein mentioned is the most distressing as the same complaint came from every district except that of Salisbury, and consequently there is no source from whence the wants of any one part can be supplied.

The pernicious license with which the people in the Southern Counties have been pillaged and persecuted, no doubt has rendered them vindictive and desperate, and we have very great reason to apprehend the greatest Cruelties and devastation from their resentments. Such calamities will not be confined to the Individuals whose intemperate Measures have greatly increased the distress of the Country and the number of our Enemies but must fall Indiscriminately on all where the foe may prove superior. These considerations afford strong reasons for putting the State as soon as possible in a situation to support them, suppress them. The great languor and disregard to our situation which is too apparent make it much to be suspected that the Enemy in their passage through this Country have had too much success.

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