第80章 Chapter (1)
The author congratulates his dear country on her late glorious victories --recapitulates British cruelties, drawing after them, judicially, a succession of terrible overthrows.
Happy Carolina! I exclaimed, as our late victories passed over my delighted thoughts; happy Carolina! dear native country, hail! long and dismal has been the night of thy affliction: but now rise and sing, for thy "light is breaking forth, and the dawn of thy redemption is brightening around."For opposing the curses of slavery, thy noblest citizens have been branded as `rebels', and treated with a barbarity unknown amongst civilized nations.
They have been taken from their beds and weeping families, and transported, to pine and die in a land of strangers.
They have been crowded into midsummer jails and dungeons,*there, unpitied, to perish amidst suffocation and stench;while their wives and children, in mournful groups around the walls, were asking with tears for their husbands and fathers!
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* All Europe was filled with horror at the history of the one hundred and twenty unfortunate Englishmen that were suffocated in the black hole of Calcutta. Little was it thought that an English nobleman (lord Rawdon) would so soon have repeated that crime, by crowding one hundred and sixty-four unfortunate Americans into a small prison in Camden, in the dogdays.
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They have been wantonly murdered with swords and bayonets,*or hung up like dogs to ignominious gibbets.
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* A brother of that excellent man, major Linning, of Charleston, was taken from his plantation on Ashley river, by one of the enemy's galleys, and thrust down into the hold. At night the officers began to drink and sing, and kept it up till twelve o'clock, when, by way of frolic, they had him brought, though sick, into their cabin, held a court martial over him, sentenced him to death, very deliberately executed the sentence by stabbing him with bayonets, and then threw his mangled body into the river for the sharks and crabs to devour.
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They have been stirred up and exasperated against each other, to the most unnatural and bloody strifes. "Fathers to kill their sons, and brothers to put brothers to death!"Such were the deeds of Cornwallis and his officers in Carolina!
And while the churches in England were, everywhere, resounding with prayers to Almighty God, "to spare the effusion of human blood,"those monsters were shedding it with the most savage wantonness!
While all the good people in Britain were praying, day and night, for a speedy restoration of the former happy friendship between England and America, those wretches were taking the surest steps to drive all friendship from the American bosom, and to kindle the flames of everlasting hatred!
But, blessed be God, the tears of the widows and orphans have prevailed against them, and the righteous Judge of all the earth is rising up to make inquisition for the innocent blood which they have shed.
And never was his hand more visibly displayed in the casting down of the wicked, than in humbling Cornwallis and his bloody crew.
At this period, 1780, the western extremities were the only parts of the state that remained free. To swallow these up, Cornwallis sent Col. Ferguson, a favorite officer, with fourteen hundred men. Hearing of the approach of the enemy, and of their horrible cruelties, the hardy mountaineers rose up as one man from Dan to Beersheba.
They took their faithful rifles. They mounted their horses, and with each his bag of oats, and a scrap of victuals, they set forth to find the enemy. They had no plan, no general leader.
The youth of each district, gathering around their own brave colonel, rushed to battle. But though seemingly blind and headlong as their own mountain streams, yet there was a hand unseen that guided their course. They all met, as by chance, near the King's mountain, where the ill-fated Ferguson encamped.
Their numbers counted, made three thousand. That the work and victory may be seen to be of God, they sent back all but one thousand chosen men.