The imprisoned messengers were ultimately released and sent back in a launch with commissioners to treat with Oglethorpe. In order to make a favorable impression on the Spaniards, the Highlanders, under Ensign MacKay, were ordered out. June 19th, Ensign MacKay arrived on board the man-of-war Hawk, then just off from Amelia island, with the Highlanders, and a detachment of the independent company, in their regimentals, who lined one side of the ship, while the Highlanders, with their claymores, targets, plaids, etc., did the same on the other side. The commissioners were very handsomely entertained on board the war vessel, and after dinner messages in writing were exchanged. While this hilarity and peace protestations were being indulged, an Indian brought the news that forty Spaniards and some Indians had fallen upon a party of the Creek nation who, then depending upon the general peace between the Indians, Spanish and English, without suspicion, and consequently without guard, were surrounded and surprised, several killed and others taken, two of whom, being boys, were murdered by dashing out their brains. To the people of New Iverness the year 1737 does not appear to have been a propitious one. Pioneers were compelled to endure hardships of which they had little dreamed, and the Highland settlement was no exception to the rule. The record preserved for this year is exceedingly meagre and consists almost wholly in the sworn statement of Alexander Monroe, who deserted the colony in 1740. In the latter year he deposed that at Darien, where he arrived in 1736 with his wife and child, he had cleared, fenced in and planted five acres of land, built a good house in the town, and made other improvements, such as gardening, etc.; that he was never able to support his family by cultivation, though he planted the said five acres three years and had good crops, and that he never heard of any white man being able to gain a living by planting; that in 1737 the people were reduced to such distress for want of provisions, having neither corn, peas, rice, potatoes, nor bread-kind of any sort, nor fish, nor flesh of any kind in store; that they were forced to go in a body, with John Mohr Macintosh at the head, to Frederica and there make a demand on the Trust's agent for a supply; that they were relieved by Captain Gascoigne of the Hawk, who spared them two barrels of flour, and one barrel of beef; and further, he launches an indictment against John Mohr Macintosh, who had charge of the Trust's store at Darien, for giving the better class of food to his own hogs while the people were forced to take that which was rotten.[81]