The journal and letters of Columbus show that the native people of the Bahamas suffered much from the attacks of the man-eating Caribs, whom they greatly feared but often doubtless bravely repelled. We have also evidence from Vespucci that the Caribs advanced much farther north for war and rapine, boldly navigating the sea in their great canoes, to Pamlico Sound. Whether they had a permanent settlement on the northwestern islands of the Bahama group, can probably never be known; but I believe that either they or the more peaceable Bahama islanders there were attacked, defeated, and many of them captured and sold into slavery, by this Spanish expedition. This discussion or explanation, though not directly relating to the discovery of the Mississippi river, seems to me needful to set forth my reasons for thinking that Vespucci’s narrative of his first voyage is a true account, excepting mistakes of his memory or writing or of later copying. WARREN UPHAM. ST. PAUL, MINN. (_To be continued._) BETWEEN TWO FLAGS. I. “To-morrow is Valentine’s Day. You are mine. I have chose you out among the rest, the reason is I love you best—so, my Dear, God bless you. I wish you Health and Happiness.”—Isabella Cleghorn to Capt. Joseph Hynson, in a letter from London dated the 13th of February, 1777, intercepted in the general post-office by the British Secret Service, and now preserved among the Auckland _MSS._ in King’s College, Cambridge. Isabella Cleghorn? Who was she that her valentine fancies should weigh with nations and be treasured in the archives of a State? A factor in the birth of the American republic? Let those so minded review the evidence and construct an answer to suit themselves. When the events of our Revolutionary war destroyed commerce with the mother country, it followed in nature, if obscurely, that Joseph Hynson, a young Maryland sea-captain, employed in the London carrying trade, should find his occupation gone. Beating about in search of a new one suited to his taste, Hynson shortly betook himself to France, there to solicit from the American Commissioners some maritime employment in the service of Congress. Several well-known Marylanders in Paris at the time vouched for the newcomer as an able seaman and an honest man. The Commissioners, glad to find a trusty hand, enrolled him among their elect, and Hynson soon received from them orders to cross over to Dover, there secretly to purchase a good cutter-sloop. This vessel, he was told, he should presently command on a voyage across the Atlantic, bearing despatches to Congress.