第27章 Chapter (1)

The abomination and desolation set up in South Carolina --the author, with sorrowful heart, quits his native land, and flies to the north in quest of warlike friends --fortunate rencontre with his gallant friend colonel Marion --curious adventures.

After the capture of Charleston, with all our troops, the British, as aforesaid, began to spread themselves over the country.

Then was exhibited a spectacle, which for sadness and alarm, ought never to be forgotten by the people of America.

I mean how easy a thing it is for a small body of soldiers to overrun a populous and powerful country. The British did not, after Sir Henry Clinton's return to New York, exceed THREE THOUSAND MEN;and South Carolina alone, at the lowest computation, must have contained FIFTY THOUSAND! and yet this host of poor honest men were made to tremble before that handful of ruffians, as a flock of sheep before the wolf, or a household of little children before a dark frowning pedagogue.

The reason is immensely plain. The British were all embodied and firm as a rock of granite; the Carolinians were scattered over the country loose as a rope of sand: the British all well armed and disciplined, moved in dreadful harmony, giving their fire like a volcano; the Carolinians, with no other than birding pieces, and strangers to the art of war, were comparatively feeble, as a forest of glow-worms: the British, though but units in number, were so artfully arranged that they told for myriads; while, for lack of unity, the Carolinians, though numerous as myriads, passed only for ciphers. In short, the British were a handful of hawks; the poor Carolinians a swarm of rice-birds, and rather than be plucked to the pin feather, or picked to the bone, they and their little ones, they were fain to flatter those furious falcons, and oft times to chirp and sing when they were much in the humor to hate and curse.

Oh! blind indeed, and doubly blind is that people, and well worthy of iron yokes, who, enjoying all the sweets of liberty, in a land of milk and honey, can expose to foreign Philistines, that blessed Canaan, unguarded by Military science. Surely those who thus throw "their pearl before swine", richly deserve that the beast should turn again and trample THEM, and their treasures too, into the mire.

Yes, and had it not been for a better watch than our own, at this day, like the wretched Irish, we should have been trampled into the mire of slavery; groaning under heavy burdens to enrich our task-masters; and doomed on every fruitless attempt at freedom, to fatten the buzzards with our gibbeted carcasses.

For lack of this habitual military preparation on our part, in a few days after the fall of Charleston, Col. Tarleton, with only one hundred and fifty horse, galloped up to Georgetown, through the most populous part of the state, with as much hauteur as an overseer and his boys would gallop through a negro plantation!

To me this was the signal for clearing out. Accordingly, though still in much pain from the rheumatism, I mounted my horse, and with sword and pistol by my side, set out for the northward, in quest of friendly powers to aid our fallen cause.

In passing through Georgetown, I saw a distant group of people, to whom I rode up, and with great civility, as I thought, asked the news. To which a young fellow very scornfully replied, that "Colonel Tarleton was coming, and that the country, thank God, would soon be cleared of the continental colonels."I was within an ace of drawing a pistol and shooting the young slave dead upon the spot. But God was pleased to give me patience to bear up under that heavy cross; for which I have since very heartily thanked him a thousand times and more. And indeed, on thinking over the matter, it has often struck me, that the man who could speak in that way to one who had on, as he saw, the American uniform, must be a savage, and therefore not an object of anger, but of pity. But though my anger was soon over, nothing could cure the melancholy into which this affair threw me. To see my native country thus prostrate under foreign usurpers, the generality quite disheartened, and the few, who dared to take her part, thus publicly insulted, was a shock I was not prepared for, and which, therefore, sunk my spirits to the lowest ebb of despondence.

Such was the frame of mind wherein I left my native state, and set out, sick and alone, for the northward, with scarce a hope of ever seeing better days. About the middle of the second day, as I beat my solitary road, slowly winding through the silent, gloomy woods of North Carolina, I discovered, just before me, a stranger and his servant.

Instantly my heart sprang afresh for the pleasures of society, and quickening my pace, I soon overtook the gentleman, when lo! who should it be but the man first of all in my wishes, though the last in my expectations; who, I say, should it be but Marion!

Our mutual surprise was great. "Good heavens!" we both exclaimed in the same moment, "Is that colonel Marion?" "Is that Horry?"After the first transports of that joy, which those who have been long absent from dear friends, can better conceive than I describe, we began to inquire into each other's destinations, which was found to be the same;both flying to the north for troops to fight the British.

We had not rode far when Marion, after looking up to the sun, who was now past his half-way house, came suddenly to a halt, and said, "Well, come Horry, I feel both peckish and weary, and here is a fine shade, so let us go down and rest, and refresh ourselves a while."Whereupon I dismounted; and with the help of his servant, for his ankle was yet very crazy, got him down too.

Then, sitting side by side, on the trunk of a fallen pine, we talked over the mournful state of our country; and came at last, as we had always done, to this solemn conclusion, that we would stand by her like true children, and either conquer or die with her.