Serious difficulties between the Seminole Indians[89] and the whites of Georgia, occurred at an early date in this period arising from attempts of the latter to recapture fugitive slaves. These finally resulted in the first Seminole war, and attracted the attention of the general government. The action taken in respect to it may be found in the Ex. Doc. No. 119, 2d Session, XVth Congress, which contains “the official correspondence between the War Department and General Jackson; also that between General Jackson and General Gaines, together with the orders of each, as well as the correspondence between the Secretary of the Navy and Commodore Patterson, and the orders of the latter officer to Sailing-Master Loomis, and the final report of Sailing-Master Loomis and General Clinch;”[90] also in two messages of the President during 1818, on the Seminole war, one of which contains the documents relative to Arbuthnot and Ambruster, the Cherokees, Chocktaws, &c., and in the speeches of the Hon. Robert Poindexter, and others. Dr. Monette and Mr. Giddings, in their historical works, have also examined this subject at some length. Two accounts of the fillibustering expeditions that resulted in the forcible possession of Amelia Island by Captain MacGregor, have been preserved; one, “the better of the two,” by an anonymous writer.[91] They are both rare, and neither have come under my inspection. An important addition to our knowledge of East Florida during this period, is contained in the entertaining Letters of Dr. William Baldwin.[92] This gentleman, a surgeon in the United States Navy, and a devoted lover of botany, compelled to seek safety from a pulmonary complaint by taking refuge in a warm climate during the winter months, passed portions of several years, commencing with 1811, in East Florida and on the confines of Georgia, occupying himself in studying the floral wealth of those regions. He recorded his observations in a series of letters to Dr. Muhlenberg of Lancaster, and to the subsequent editor of his Remains, Dr. William Darlington, of West Chester, Pa., well known from his works on the local and historical botany of our country, and whom I have already had occasion to advert to as the editor of the elder Bartram’s Correspondence. While those to the former have no interest but to the professed botanist, his letters to the latter are not less rich in information regarding the condition of the country and its inhabitants, than they are entertaining from the agreeable epistolary style in which they are composed, and the thanks of the historian as well as the naturalist are due to their editor for rescuing them from oblivion. It was the expectation of Dr. Baldwin to give these observations a connected form and publish them under the subjoined title,[93] but the duties of his position and his untimely death prevented him from accomplishing this design. As far as completed, comprising eight letters, twenty pages in all, this work is appended to