FLORIDA NEWS

The Apalachicola Advertiser of June 15th states that Norton, chief mate of the slaver `E. A. Rawlins' has been acquitted. Henry Sloan of the same party has been sentenced to three years imprisonment, and $1,000 fine for manslaughter on the high seas. The captain and third mate will be tried at Pensacola this week. [Douglas Monthly, July 1, 1859]

The Havana (Cuba) Messenger of the 8th inst. says:—`It is advised upon good authority that an American war steamer has captured an American schooner in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, having on board 400 Africans, which, with the vessel have been taken to Key West, making in deposit there about 2,080 negroes, with cargoes previously landed.'
[Douglas Monthly, Aug. 1, 1860, submitted by: Candi H. - 2008]

Judge Marvin, of the U. S. District Court South, has discharged the crews of the slavers Wildfire and William, captured with hundreds of African slaves on board, and brought in to Key West—the Judge deciding there was nothing-in the law of 1820 to hold them. A passage was given them over to Havana, and they are at liberty to enter upon
piratical expeditions again, assured of safety and good treatment if caught by United States cruisers. The mockery of holding some of the officers for trial is still being enacted.
[Douglas Monthly, Aug. 1, 1860, submitted by: Candi H. - 2008]

INHUMAN TREATMENT OF AMERICAN SEAMEN.
In January last the Indian Queen arrived at St. Mark's, Florida, from Aspinwall, for a cargo of cotton.
The first and second officers were taken down with Chagres fever, and were sent ashore to the Marine Hospital a building belonging to the U.S. Government, costing $20,000.
After the return of the physician, who had been a delegate to the Secession Convention, they were told that the State had seceded, and were accordingly turned out of the Hospital, and charged $30 for expenses while there sick. These officers had paid Hospital dues for twenty two years, and this was the first time that they ever had occasion to receive any benefit from the institution, established by Government, but supported by seamen. The physician said he thought it well for the Southern States to remain in the Union so long as they had the Government in their hands; but, as they had now lost control of it, they would break up the Union. The Indian Queen lay about half a mile from land, though some ten miles below the town, and had in her crew seven colored seamen. A plot was formed to take these out of the ship and sell them into slavery; but the conspirators were overheard at their midnight meeting, and the captain was immediately informed of the danger that threatened his crew. The captain hired the only steamboat in the place, and by daylight had the ship towed over the bar outside some five miles from shore, and beyond the jurisdiction of Florida. The first officer reports that a few days after the Secession Ordinance passed, a resident remarked that he thought the North was right and the South wrong; whereupon he was seized, stripped and whipped, and started North on a train with directions to run him out of the country.
[Douglas Monthly, Rochester, N.Y., May 1861]

A DUEL.
A duel was recently fought at Fort Mcrea, Florida, between St. Clair Morgan, a young South Carolinian, and Mr. Storrs, a young Alabamian, late a midshipman, U. S. N. Twenty steps were paced off, and at the first fire Morgan fell dangerously wounded, the heavy ball of the Sharp's rifle having entered his right groin and ranged through and out of the back part of the thigh. The cause of the duel was as to the possession of a bright mulatto girl. This Morgan was the man who fired into the Star of the West, the vessel that attempted to re-enforce Fort Sumter some weeks ago. [Douglas Monthly, Rochester, N.Y., May 1861]

Contributed by Candi

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