Washington letter
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-18-02-0523
From Meek
Various
efforts were made by Captain James Willing, of Phil
adelphia, and Oliver Pollock, the agents of the Conti
nental Congress, to seduce them from their allegiance.
These gentlemen came by way of New Orleans to
Mobile, and circulated clandestinely, many copies of
the Declaration of Independence. But the effort was
a bortive. After many narrow escapes, Captain Willing
was at length apprehended through the vigilance of the
British officers, and was kept closely confined, a part
of the time in irons, in the stone Keep of Fort
Charlotte. He came near expiating his temerity upon
a gallows in the plaza in front of that fortress, but was
eventually exchanged at* the close of the year 1779,
for Colonel Hamilton of Detroit, a British officer, upon
whom our government had retaliated for the rigorous
treatment of the imprisoned agent.
From SiebertGreat link on Pollack http://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1614&context=luc_theses
Those remaining behind who had acted with Jackson were sent under guard to Pensacola, where several were ordered shot.* Willing and the rest of his party, meantime, had sailed from Manchac to the Tensas settle- ments above Mobile, and had tried to enlist the people there in their cause. In 1779 Captain Willing sent his troops north under the command of Lieutenant Robert George, who placed them under the orders of General George Rogers Clark. But Willing himself proceeded to Mobile, was captured there and placed in confinement in the stone keep of Fort Charlotte. He narrowly escaped being hanged in the plaza in front of that fortress ; but was shipped to New York at the close of the year." If Willing 's adventures accomplished nothing for the Ameri- cans, they at any rate moved the new commander in chief of the British forces. Sir Henry Clinton, to send one thousand troops under Brigadier General John Campbell to Pensacola, at the same time that he dispatched three thousand under Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell to take possession of Savannah. Clinton's instructions to the former officer made it clear that he was to assume command of the king's soldiers in West Florida, s Claiborne, Mississippi, as a province, territory and state, 1 : 121-123 ; Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on American manuscripts in the Boyal Institution, 1: 260; Pickett, Bistory of Alabama, 348, 349.
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