Letter from Charleston 31 July 1776

Extract of a Letter from Charlestown, South Carolina, Dated July 31, 1776.

We are just setting out for the burning sands of Georgia.  An expedition is planned against part of East Florida.  Two brothers of Governour Wright, with many others, are intrenched on St. Mary's River, which divides Florida from Georgia.
Sir James Wright (1716-1785) served as the royal governor of Georgia from 1760 to 1782.  Mary R. Bullard writes that two of Governor Wright's brothers, Jermyn and Charles, built Wright's Fort in 1773-74.  The simple stockade was on the Georgia side of the St. Marys, about five miles inland from where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean.  Wright's Fort, Bullard explains, became a refuge for Tories (Americans Loyal to Britain) during the American Revolutionary War.  

St. Augustine: That Pestiferous Nest

On 27 August 1778, Henry Laurens of South Carolina, serving as President of the Continental Congress, wrote to Georgia Governor John Houston about St. Augustine, the capital of British East Florida:

While St. Augustine remains in possession of the Enemy, Georgia will be unhappy, and her existence as a free and Independent State rendred very doubtful.  South Carolina too will be continually galled by Rovers and Cruizers from that Pestiferous nest--another Expedition must therefore be undertaken at a season of the Year which will not out vie the bullets and bayonets of the Enemy in the destruction of our Men.

Henry Laurens to John Houston, 27 August 1778, in Paul H. Smith, editor, Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 10: June 1, 1778-September 30, 1778 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1983), page 409.