The Stono Rebellion: Robert Pringle Private Correspondence

THE STONO REBELLION: ROBERT PRINGLE (1702-76) PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE

About ten days agoe [sic] arriv’d here Via Boston, His Majestys Ship the Tartar Pink, Capt. George Townshend, Commander with Instruction for our Governour to grant Letters of Marque & Reprisal to any Vessells that have a mind to goe a Privateering on the Spaniards & all his Makjestiys Ships on the American Stations have Rendevous’d here in Order to goe a Cruizing on the Spaniards So that we may expect soon to see some Prizes brought in here.

I hope our Government will order Effectual methods for the taking of St. Augustine from the Spaniards which is now become a great Detriment to this Province by the Encouragement & Protection given by them to our Negroes that Run away there.  An Insurrection has been made of late here in the Country by some Negroes in order to their Going there & in less than Twenty four hours they murthered in their was there between Twenty & Thirty white People &  Burnt Severall houses before they were overtaken, tho’ now most of the Gang are already taken or Cut to Pieces [sic].  This has happened within these Three Weeks Past.

Source:  Robert Pringle, Charles Town, to John Richards, London, 26 September, 1739, in The Letterbook of Robert Pringle, vol. 1, April 2, 1737-September 25, 1742. Walter B. Edgar. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972, p. 135.