The Pennsylvania packet, or, The general advertiser — Lancaster, Pa.;Philadelphia, Pa., 1782-06-04 00:00:00, page 1

IT is the nature of compassion to associate with mif
fortune; and I address this to you in behalf even
of an enemy, a captain in the British service, now on
his way to the Head-Quarters of the American army,
and unfortunately doomed t© deathfora crime not ids
own.—A sentence so extraordinary, an execution so
repugnant to every human sensation, ought never to
be told without the circumstances which produced it:
and as the defined vidim is yet in exigence, and in
your hands rest his life or death, I shall briefly Rate
the case and the melancholy consequence.
Captain Huddy, of the Jersey militia, was attack
ed in a small fort on Tom's river, by a party of refu
gees in the British pay and service, was made prisoner
together with his company, carried to New-York and
lodged in the provost of that city ; about three weeks
after which, he was taken out of the provost down to
the water fide, put into a boat and brought again up
on the Jersey ihore, and there, contrary to the prac
tice of all nations but savages, was hung up on a tree,
and left hanging until found by our people, who took
- him down and buried him
The inhabitants of that part of the country where
the murder was committed, sent a deputation to gene
ral Washington with a full and certified state of the
fad. Struck, as every human bread must be, with
such brutish outrage, and determined both to punish
and prevent it for the future, the general represented
the case to general Clinton who then commanded, and
demanded that the refugee officer who ordered and
attended the execution, and whose name is Lippencut,
should be delivered up as a murderer; and in case of
refufal, that the person of some British officer should
fuffer in his stead. The demand, though not refufed,
has not been complied with ; and the melancholy lot
(not by feleHion, but by casting lots) has fallen upon
captain Afgil, of the guards, who, as I have already
mentioned, is on his way from Lancaster to camp, a
martyr to the general wickedness of the cause he en
gaged in, and the ingratitude of those he has served.
The firfl refleaion which arises on this black business
is, what fort of men must Englishmen be, and what
fort of order and discipline do they preserve in their
army, when, in the immediate place of their Head-
Quarters, and under the eye and nose of their command
er in chief, a prisoner can be taken at pleasure from
his confinement and his death made a matter of sport.
The history of the most savage Indians does not pro
duce instances cxaHly of this kind. They, at least,
hav^a formality in their punishments. ' With them it
is the horridness of revenge, but with your army it is
the still greater crime, the horridness of diversion.
The British generals who have succeeded each other,
from the time of general Gage to yourfelf, have ail af
fected to speak in language they have no right to. In
their proclamations, their addresses, their letters to ge
neral Washington and their (applications to congress
(for they deserve no other name) they talk of British
honour, British generosity and British clemency, as if
those things were matters of fad; whereas, we whose
eyes are open, who speak the fame language with
yourselves, many of whom were born on the fame
spot with you, and who can no more be mistaken in
your words than in your actions, can declare to all the
world, that so far as our knowledge goes, there is not
a more detestable character, nor a meaner or more bar
barous enemy than the present British one. With us
you have forfeited all pretention to reputation, and it
is only by holding you like a wild bead, afraid of your
keepers, that you can be made managable.—Bur to re
turn to the point in question.
Tho' I can think no man innocent who has lent his
hand to destroy the country which he did not plant,
and to ruin those he could not inflave, yet abfiraded
from all Ideas of right or wrong on the original ques
tion, captain Afgil, in the present case, is not the guil
ty man. The villain and the victim are here separated
charaders. You hold the one and we the other. You dis
own or affeCt to disown and reprobate the conduct of
Lippencut, yet you give him fanduary ; and by so
doing you as effectually become the executioner of Af
gil, as if you put the rope on his neck and dismissed
him from the world.
Whatever your feelings on this extraordinary case may
be are best known' to yourfelf. Within the grave of
your own mind lies burried the fate of Afgil. He be
comes the corpse of your will, or the survivor of your
justice. Deliver up the one and you save the other;
withhold the one and the other dies by your choice.
On our part the case is exceedingly plain ; an of
ficer HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM HIS CONFINEMENT
AND MURDERED, AND THE MURDERER IS WITHIN
your lines. Your army have been guilty of a thou
sand infiances of equal cruelty, but they have been
rendered equivocal and Sheltered from personal detec-
VOL. XI.I Published EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY and SATURDAY.—Price Six-Pence.
To SIR GUY CARLETON.
^i^^^^^l^l,
T UESDA Y,
GENERAL ADVERTISER.
THE letters and papers now transmitted to your
excellency, will acquaint you with my proceed
ings relative to the South-Carolina, since 1 had the hon
our of writing to you lafl. My correspondence with
his excellency general Caggal, captain general of the
island of Cuba, with several papers accompanying them,
will inform you more particularly of the expedition a
gainst the Bahama islands. The a ffiflance the South-
Carolina received in her refitts at the Havanna, the
aid she had in other Spanish ports, with many other rea
sons, not unknown to your excellency, were, among'
others, powerful reasons for my acceding to general
Cagigal's request of taking the command of the Tea
We can have no idea of your honour or your jus
tice in any future tranfadion, of what nature it may be,
while you shelter within your lines an outrageous mur
derer and facrifice in his stead an officer of your own.
If you have no regard to us, at least spare the blood
which it is your duty to save. Whether the punish
ment will be greater on he, who, in this case, innocent
ly dies, or on he whom fad necessity forces to retaliate,
is, in the nicety of sensation an undecided question ? It
'refts with you to prevent the (offerings of both. You
have nothing to do but to give up the murderer and
the matter ends.
You fee yourfelf pressed on all sides to spare the life
of your own officer, for die he will if you withhold jus
tice. The murder of captain Huddy is an offence not
to be borne with, and there is no security we can have
that such anions or similar ones shall not be repeated,
but by making the punishment fall upon yourselves.
To defiroy the last security of captivity, and to take
the unarmed, the unrHißing prisoner to private and
sportive execution, is carrying barbarity too high for
silence. Theevil must be put an end to ; and the choice
of persons rests with you. But if your attachment to
trie guilty is stronger than to the innocent, you in
vent a crime that must defiroy your character, and if
the cause of your king needs to be so supported, for
ever cease, fir, to torture our remembrance with the
wretched phrases of British honour, British generosity,
and British clemency.
But to protest him, be he who he may, is to patron
nize his crime, and to trifle it off by frivolous and un
meaning enquiries is to promote it. There is no de
claration you can make, no promise you can give,
that will obtain credit, ft is the man and not the apo
logy that is demanded.
The following is a Copy of Commodore GiLlon's
Letter to His Excellency Governor Matthews, of
South-Carolina: giving an account of the taking of
New-Providence, and the other Bahama Islands.
tion. Here the crime is fixt; and is one of those extra
ordinary cases which can neither be denied nor paliat
ed, and to which the cuflom of war does not apply ;
for it never could be supposed that such a brutal out
rage would ever be committed. It is an original in the
history of civilized barbarians, a^d is truly British.
On your part, you are accountable to us for the per
sonal fafety of the prisoners within your walls. Here
can be no miflake; they can neither be spies nor sus
pected as such ; your security is not endangered, nor
your operations fubjefted to miscarriage, by. men im
murred within a dungeon. They differ in every cir
cumstance from men in tife field and leave no pretence
for severity or punishment. But if to the dismal con
dition of captivity with you, must be added the con
flant apprehensions of death ; if to be imprisoned is so
nearly to be entombed; and, if after all, the mur
derers are to be protested and thereby the crime encou
raged, wherein do you differ from Indians either in cha
racter or condud.
From this melancholy circumflance, learn, fir, a
lesson of morality. The refugees are men whom your
predecessors have inßruHed in wickedness the better to
fit them to their mafler's purpose. To make them ufeful
they have made them vile, and the consequence of their
tutored villainy is now descending on the heads of their
encoura gers.They have been trained like hounds to the
(cent of blood and cherished in every species of disso
lute barbarity. Their ideas of right and wrong are
worn away in the conflant habitude of repeated infamy,
till like men pradifed in executions they feel not the
value of another's life.
The talk before you, th®' painful, is not difficult ;
give up the murderer, and save your officer, as the firft
outlet of a necessary reformation.
Philadelphia, May 31, 1782. COMMON SENSE.
Philadelphia, Ju@e 4.
On board the South Carolina, May 15, 1782,
in 1at.28 °oo north, and long. 76 9 30 weft
from London.
O R, THE
THE
forces deflined against these islands, which consisted of
fifty-nine Spanish and American vessels, the particular
description of which is enclosed.
We failed from the Havanna the 22d ult. a current
prevented our taking our departure from thence until
the 28th; the 30th we took our departure from the
Matanzas ; the firft inst. made the Doubleheaded Shot ;
the second saw the Biminis, and at noon were abreast
of the Great Isaac rocks, our firft rendezvous, where
we altered our plan of going through the gulph of Flo
rida, and of making Egg island (which is about twelve
leagues to windward of Providence) our second ren
dezvous, and determined to attempt the passage be
tween the Great Isaac rocks, the Berry islands and the
grand Bahama island, in which we succeeded so well,
that on the sth instant we were before the island of Pro
vidence with all the fleet. While some of the Ameri
can vessels of war blocked up the several out lets at the
north fide of the island, some others took their flations
in the offing, the South-Carolina keeping off and on
until five o'clock, when die took her flation as near to
the bar of the harbour as file could, and within gun
shot of fort Natiau, their principal fort, with a de
sign to draw the enemy's attention that way while the
transports were preparing to land the troops, during
which time general Cagigal sent a flag from this ship;
in a Spanish tender to governor Maxwell, requesting him
to mention the terms on which he would surrender the
Bahama islands to his catholic majefly; In the mean
time I direHed the transports to follow the leading
vessel, who repeated our signals for anchoring between
Salt-Key and Hog island, that general Cagigal might
debark when he deemed proper. The next day at nine
o'clock, governor maxwell sent one of the principal in
habitants on board the South-Carolina with propofals,'
which were not accepted : I then wrote the governor a
letter, the copy of which is enclosed. All the Ameri
can vessels continued as near their Rations as the winds;
shoals and circumstances would admit. The Spanish
transports, with the armed yeffels and galleys kept an
choring as ordered, and at three o'clock general Cagi
gal, with all his officers who had a passage in this ship,
departed with a view of making preparations for de
barking his troops as soon as every thing could be got
ready. At five o'clock Mr. Miranda, an aid of his ex
cellency, went with a Rag in the schooner Surprize, a
tender belonging to this ship, to close the capitulation -
the day following he returned, having adjusted the bu
siness, as your excellency will observe by the copy of
general Cagigal's letter to me thereon, and on the Bth
inflant his excellency landed his army and took poffef
feffion of the forts and town.
I feel myfelf happy in assuring your excellency, that
the success of this expedition was entirely owing to the
great attention which the captains and officers of the
American vessels of war paid in conveying such a fleet
through so difficult and so ,unfrequented a passage
with a beating wind all the way, whereby we disap
pointed any plans the enemy might have formed of at
tacking us in our way through the gulph of Florida •
their vigilance in blocking up the different outlets and
approaching every battery, s o as to attack all the bat
teries whenever the signal was to be made for a general'
attack, had a proper effeH, and would have facilita
ted the advance of the troops very much, had there
been the opposition that was expelled, from the intel
ligence it fee ms the enemy received of this expedition'
and its departure; but although they had just received
a reinforcement, they had not time to ereft new batte
ries or repair the old ones, owing to the fleet com-'
mg hrough an unfrequented passage, and much foon-°
er than was thought practicable: to these circumstan
ces may be imputed the surrender of all the Bahama'
inlands without any attack er opposition.
Although there are not many good harbours a
mongst these islands, yet when it is considered that
they extend from the latitude of 21 P 00, to the lati
tude of 27.° 3° north, and from the longitude of
70° 00, to about the longitude of 7, ? o o weft from
London, filling up the seas from about opposite the cen
tre of the island of Hispaniola, to above half way
down the island of Cuba, and then flretching from Cape
Florida, to very near abreast of Cape Canaveral, on the'
continent of North-America : their being in the pos
session of a friend or an enemy, is o f no small conse
quence to the united Rates, especially as the diffi rent
shoals and small islands form a shelter for cruizers • and
from the particular turn these people have for priva
teering, they succeeded so well as to capture upwards
of one hundred and sixty vessels during the last twelve
months many of which were Americans.
I cannot but congratulate our Rate in'particular on
this cotiqueft, as it was from this foot our enemies in
Charleßown received many supplies, and because the
southern Rates have more particularly felt the obstruc
tions they have caused to a free intercourse weflward
with the Spanish Settlements.
JUNE 4, 178%
[NUMB 803.