any public source of information. It is only since I've landed in the neighborhood of New Orleans that we were undeceived as to the reception the Army was likely to meet with from the settlers of Louisiana and the Floridas in the event of our attacking them. It was the received opinion founded certainly upon hints given to Military officers high in rank by Sir Alex before we quitted Jamaica and upon our arrival on the American Continent that the vexatious taxes imposed upon them by the American Government had so disgusted the people at large as to leave no doubt of our being received with open arms. A representation to this effect must have gone home and can be the only means of accounting for the reason why the Ministry did not send out a force with us adequate to the enterprise we were sent on. The issue has proved that the Admiral's information was fallacious and the returns of our killed and wounded will convince the world that the opposition we have met with was owing to the unanimity of every class of men. In fact not a white man of even the lowest description has joined us since we landed, nor have our generals or the Admiral succeeded in obtaining information of the most trivial nature. We quitted Plymouth with barely 2000 men under Major-General Keane. Off the western point of Jamaica we were reinforced by the remains of General Ross's army from the Chesapeake, and two black regiments. The entire number of our force even by this addition did not exceed 4500 bayonets; of this only 1600 men could be put on shore at once, owing to the want of boats in the fleet and the distance the troops were to be conveyed from Cat Island to within eight miles of New Orleans, about a hundred miles. We made our landing good with that number of men on the 23rd ultimo but with great difficulty, owing to the shallowness of the water and other impedi-. ments, and took up a position on the banks of the Mississippi without hearing of an enemy being (sic) in our neighborhood. We found the plantations deserted and learned from the slaves that their masters had joined the militia corps. No sooner, however, had daylight quitted us than we were suddenly surprised by a tremendous fire of grape and round shot from a 12 gun schooner that had dropped down unperceived by any person of the army from New Orleans just opposite our position, but within grape range. After suffering considerable loss, General Keane

succeeded in getting the troops placed under the embankment of the river so that shot could occasion us little further injury. The vessel's fire was from thence returned by volleys of musketry all along our line. A quarter of an hour could scarcely have elapsed when we found ourselves assailed in the rear or on the flanks by about 7000 men under General Jackson so that it became necessary once more to subject ourselves once more (sic) to the fire of the schooner so as to meet Jackson in the field. Notwithstanding their vast superiority both in numbers and mode of attack, from our entire ignorance of the enemy's movements or even a knowledge that any force beyond the militia of the immediate neighborhood existed, we resisted them in the first instance and fortunately succeeded in dispersing them but not without a loss of 300 men. Jackson on this night gained sufficient experience to suffer us to be the assailants on all future occasions and allowed us to disembark our whole force without further molestation. Sir Edward Pakenham, to be our Commander-in-Chief, and General Gibbs, second in command, had an opportunity of joining before anything further was attempted and on the following morning the schooner was set fire to by redhot shot from two guns we had landed. A reinforcement of the 7th and 43rd regiments joined us about the same time from England. The general expectation was that the period was at hand when we were to be relieved from our unpleasant situation and get into town. We drove in the enemy's pickets with this impression and expected to annihilate Jackson's force in an instant, but to our great mortification we found after pushing on about three miles. that his army had entrenched itself in a strong position with its rights on the river and its left resting on a swampy wood which we afterward discovered to be impenetrable, with redoubts in front mounting fifteen pieces of cannon. A twenty-gun ship had moved down and was anchored in such a situation as to fire down our line in case [of] our attempting an assault. Not one of these obstacles had been foreseen and our troops rushed on headlong till brought up by the ditch in front of the American line. They were of a nature not to be surmounted and we were constrained to fall back without reach from shot from their lines and ship, with loss. Sir Edward then determined upon cannonading the enemy so as to oblige him to quit his strong ground or by making.

breeches, force his way through them, to effect which thirty pieces of ordnance of all descriptions were got ashore and placed in batteries on New Year's Eve. New Year's Day afforded us a sight of fire works, pop guns, mortars and rockets such as has been seldom witnessed even in Lord Wellington's great actions in the Peninsula. However, this attempt was unsuccessful and we sustained a further loss of nearly a hundred men. The last resource was now to storm the lines and the day was fixed for the 8th instant. It was so arranged that a party should cross the river in boats. We were enabled to get into it by a canal we had been employed the previous days in cutting from our previous landing place, which was to take their enfilading batteries on the opposite side in reverse to prevent our suffering from them as we advanced to the storm. The party succeded with a trifling loss in taking all the cannon mounted there, eighteen in number. The principal attack upon the lines failed notwithstanding the success upon the opposite side and the public papers will sufficiently explain to you the loss the army has met with in the loss of Generals Pakenham. and Gibbs and the number of regimental officers and about 2000 men. In fact it had the effect to depress the spirits of the Army so far that General Lambert, our present General-in-Chief, immediately after the action determined upon a re-embarkation and began to put our wounded on board the same day and successively shipped off our stores, men and guns, with the exception of our heavy ship guns we were obliged to destroy, until this day when the last of the troops were got off.

To mention individual suffering is perhaps ridiculous, but until this day since the 15th of last month, when I left the ship I have not had the comfort of a change of linen or any other than a blanket and great coat could afford me either in boats night and day exposed alternately to rain and frost or hutted on shore on swampy ground, so that you can easily figure to yourself the change to the captain's cabin of a fine frigate sitting before a large fire that I am enjoying on this present writing. Not only our prospects of prize money have vanished but promotion also which I fully expected would have followed success. No plans for the future operations of the army have yet been suggested. It is generally supposed we shall attack Mobile, but I differ from others in this particular. I do not conceive it to be of sufficient

importance but rather conclude we shall sail away for New Providence or Bermuda and remain in either of those islands until reenforcements can reach us from England and general officers to command with fresh instructions on which point I shall not fail to write you when they are determined on. I have omitted to inform you the enemy had unknown to the Admiral five gunboats of a superior class on the lakes which were discovered by accident by Captain Gordon of the Seahorse most fortunately for the army as they would have destroyed the troops in the boats as they were conveying through the lakes; these were captured by the boats of the Squadron.

With kind regards to my Aunt and Cousins,

Representation Upon the Limits of Louisiana Made to His Excellency the Duke of Alcudia by His Ex

cellency Brigadier General Estevan Miro.

Aranjuez, March 18, 1793.

Most Excellent Sir: The desires which assist me of being useful to his Majesty's service compel me to intrude upon your Excellency's attention and if I have not done so up to the present moment it is because I did not dare to interrupt your Excellency in the consideration of the important affairs which surround your Excellency since he has taken up the duties of the Minister of State; but a new Envoy from the U. S. having arrived, who will undoubtedly take advantage of the present critical circumstances to present his pretentions to the navigation of the Mississippi River and to the boundaries which Great Britain unduly fixed induce me to manifest to your Excellency certain circumstances that may facilitate the settlement of one and the other point; to that end I will explain the position of the settlements of the U. S. that are a menace to Louisiana, the means of conserving peace with them, and the measures which I judge necessary to adopt in order to safeguard ourselves from their insults without taxing the Royal Treasury, discussing at the same time the settlement of the boundaries in accordance with the knowledge that I have acquired during my fourteen years of service in the said Province, of which I was Governor.

Referring to the situation of Louisiana with regard to the U. S. and the means of developing and conserving peace by granting them the navigation of the Mississippi, it is necessary to explain the circumstances which will facilitate the settlement of the boundary question. The just means and the mutual rights which will dissipate all cause of dispute are as follows:

The Indian nations who live in the Territory comprised between the mouth of the Mississippi and the sea and also between the two mentioned powers, have never been conquered nor reduced in any way. The English and French who possessed the territory now belonging to his Majesty bought it from the Indians and fixed the boundaries with these. Which boundaries are defined and well known, therefore let the U. S. do the same on its side, and with regard to this they have nothing to discuss with us, and anything which deviates from these principals will be declared null and void by the said Indian nation and will be the cause of war against any one who opposes them, as has occurred up to now between the Cherokees, Creeks or Talaposas and the United States.

The first desire the boundaries to be fixed by the Cumberland River, the latter by the Ocony and for this they have constantly fought until 1795 in which year the half-breed Alexander McGillebray with several of the chiefs of the Creek nation was called to New York by President Washington and a treaty of peace was agreed to, which has not yet been confirmed by all the nation because McGillebray ceded more lands than the said nation cared to grant.

The United States therefore recognizes as a result that this point must be settled with the aforesaid Indian nations in order to be able to possess and use the territory, which the Cherokees and Creeks have granted them in that part of the world. Spain will do the same with the Creeks in Eastern and Western Florida, and with the Chicksaws, Choctaws and Alabamas in Mobile and Louisiana. Between the Cherokees and Creeks the last mentioned Indians have their lands.

The line which the above mentioned Indians, who live on the borders of the U. S. wish to establish is as follows:

It begins at the mouth of the Ohio on the Mississippi, goes up the above River until the mouth of the Cumberland, continues