iled from Havana, consisting of a great fleet, among which were two
half galleys, carrying one hundred and twenty men each and an
eighteen-pound gun. A part of the fleet, on June 20th, was seen off the
harbor of St. Simons, and the next day in Cumberland Sound. Oglethorpe
dispatched two companies in three boats to the relief of Fort William,
on Cumberland island, which were forced to fight their way through the
fire from the Spanish galleys. Soon after thirty-two sail came to anchor
off the bar, with the Spanish colors flying, and there remained five
days. They landed five hundred men at Gascoin's bluff, on July 5th.
Oglethorpe blew up Fort William, spiked the guns and signalled his ships
to run up to Frederica, and with his land forces retired to the same
place, where he arrived July 6th. The day following the enemy were
within a mile of Frederica. When this news was brought to Oglethorpe he
took the first horse he found and with the Highland company, having
ordered sixty men of the regiment to follow, he set off on a gallop to
meet the Spaniards, whom he found to be one hundred and seventy strong,
including forty-five Indians. With his Indian Rangers and ten
Highlanders, who outran the rest of the company, he immediately attacked
and defeated the Spaniards. After pursuing them a mile, he halted his
troops and posted them to advantage in the woods, leaving two companies
of his regiment with the Highlanders and Indians to guard the way, and
then returned to Frederica to await further movements of the enemy.
Finding no immediate movement on the part of his foes, Oglethorpe, with
the whole force then at Frederica, except such as were absolutely
necessary to man the batteries, returned to the late field of action,
and when about half way met two platoons of his troops, with the great
body of his Indians, who declared they had been broken by the whole
Spanish force, which assailed them in the woods; and the enemy were now
in pursuit, and would soon be upon them. Notwithstanding this
disheartening report, Oglethorpe continued his march, and to his great
satisfaction, found that Lieutenants Southerland and MacKay, with the
Highlanders alone, had defeated the enemy, consisting of six hundred
men, and killed more of them than their own force numbered. At first the
Spanish forces overwhelmed the colonists by their superior numbers, when
the veteran troops became seized with a panic. They made a precipitate
retreat, the Highlanders