B. NORTON.  To Jeremiah Harman, Mas’r & John Webb, mate.

For signal, hoist your Dutch jack at mast head; if we hoist first, you answer us, & do not keep it up long.

Wednesday, 29th. About 4 P.M. saw a sloop.  Gave chase, but, the weather being calm, was forced to get out our oars.  Fired our bow chase to bring her to; but as the people were in confusion, the ship tacking about, and the night coming on very foggy, we were unable to speak to her.  By her course she was bound to the North’d.  Lost sight of our prize.  The two Englishmen, who were taken prisoners by the Spanish privateer, signed our articles to-day.

Saturday, Aug 1st. The prize still alongside of us.  Ordered the Master to send us the negro prisoner, having been informed that he was Cap’t of a Comp’y of Indians, mulattoes, and negroes, that was at the retaking of the Fort at St Augustine, which had formerly been taken while under the command of that worthiest G—­O—­pe,[H] who by his treachery suffered so many brave fellows to be mangled by those barbarians.  The negro went under the name of Signior Capitano Francisco.  Sent one of the mulattoes in his room on board the prize.  Gave the people a pail of punch.

[Footnote H:  General Oglethorpe, who was at this time the victim of unfavorable reports and calumnious stories, that had been spread by disaffected members of the infant settlements in Georgia, and by some of the officers who had served under him in his unsuccessful attempt to reduce the town of Saint Augustine in Florida, “The fort at Saint Augustine,” to which the writer of this Journal refers, as having been taken while under the command of Oglethorpe, was Fort Moosa, three miles from Saint Augustine, where a detachment of one hundred and thirty-seven men, under Colonel Palmer of Carolina, had been attacked by a vastly superior force of Spaniards, negroes, and Indians, and had been cut off almost to a man.  This misfortune seems to have been due to Colonel Palmer’s disregard of Oglethorpe’s orders, and Oglethorpe himself was in no way responsible for it, although the popular blame fell on his shoulders.]

Sunday, 2nd. At 1 P.M. we examined the negro, who frankly owned that he was Cap’t of a Comp’y as aforesaid, & that his commission was on board the privateer; that he was in the privateer in hopes of getting to the Havanah, & that there he might get a passage to Old Spain to get the reward of his brave actions.  We then askt him if it was his comp’y that had used the English so barbarously, when taken at the fort.  He denied that it was his compy, but laid that cruel action to the Florida Indians, and nothing more could we get out of him.  We then tied him to a gun & made the Doctor come with instruments, seemingly to treat him as they had served the English [prisoners], thinking by that means to get some confession out of him; but he still denied it.  We then tried a mulatto, one that was taken with him, to find out