On the 10th August, M. de Bienville was informed that M. St. Denis and some Canadians had invaded the territory of our allies to capture slaves, which he ordered to be restored.
On the 1st October, M. Davion, missionary, and Father Limoge, a Jesuit, arrived from the Mississippi, to give notice that one of their brethren and three Frenchmen had been murdered on the Yasous river, by two young Courois, who had acted as their guides.
On the 11th November, Don Francisco Martin arrived from Pensacola, with the news that France and Spain were at war with England, and asked for a supply of arms and powder, which was given him.
On the 28th, two shallops, with two Spanish officers, arrived at the fort from St. Augustine, Florida, and brought a letter from Don Joseph de Souniga y Serda, Governor of that place, informing M. de Bienville that it was besieged by fourteen English vessels and two thousand Indians. He further requested that a small vessel might be sent to the Viceroy of Mexico, informing him of what had happened. M. de Bienville sent him one hundred muskets and five hundred pounds of powder.
Bénard de la Harpe, Historical Journal of the Establishment of the French in Louisiana, in B. F. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana (New York, 1851), Part III, 19-28 passim.
110. Danger from the French Mississippi Settlements (1718)
BY LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD
Spotswood was an efficient governor of Virginia; his letters and state papers are of great historical value. — Bibliography: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, IV, 196-202; Channing and Hart,§ Guide, 90.
. . .HAVING of a long time endeavour'd to informe myself of ye scituation of the French to the Westward of Us, and the Advantages they Reap by an uninterrupted Communication along ye Lake, I shall here take the Liberty of communicating my thoughts to Yo'r Lord'ps, both of the dangers to w'ch his Majesty's Plantations may be exposed by this new Acquisition of our Neighbours, and how the same may be best prevented. I have often regretted that after so many Years as these Countrys have been Seated, no Attempts have been made to discover the Sources of Our Rivers, nor to Establishing Correspond-
