Introduction: Robert Pringle, a South Carolina businessman, wrote the letter excerpted below to a business partner, John Richards, in London, England. Both Pringle and Richards sold and transported goods internationally.

…About Ten days agoe arriv’d here [in Charleston, South Carolina,] via Boston, His Majestys Ship the Tartar Pink, Capt. George Townshend, Commander with Instructions 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 Majestys 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 [in the Spanish colony of La Florida] from the Spaniards which is now become a great Detriment to this Province by the Encouragement & Protection given by [the Spaniards] to our Negroes that Run away there. An Insurrection has been made of late here in the [South Carolina] Country by some Negroes in order to their Going there & in less than Twenty four hours they murthered in their way there between Twenty & Thirty white People & Burnt Severall houses before they were overtaken, tho’ now most of the Gang are already taken or [killed]. This has happened within these Three Weeks Past….

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