separation of members
of the same flock, were but the happiest results: their hate was
frequently kindled into a flame, only quenched in blood. Williams has
left a graphic picture of the state of society at that time, and it may
be remarked, that his opinion of the inhabitants was by no means high.

He says, writing to his brother:--"There are a few virtuous good men in
this State, and in Georgia; but a great majority of the people is
composed of the most unprincipled, abandoned, vicious vagrants that ever
inhabited the earth. The daily deliberate murders committed by pretended
Whigs, and reputed tories, (men who are actually neither one thing nor
the other in principle,) are too numerous and too shocking to relate.
The licentiousness of various classes and denominations of villains,
desolate this country, impoverish all who attempt to live by other means
and destroy the strength and resources of the country, which ought to be
collected and united, against a common enemy.

"You may rely on it, my dear brother, that the enemy have had such
footing and influence in this country that their success in putting the
inhabitants together by the ears, has exceeded even their own
expectations: the distraction that prevails surpasses any thing I ever
before witnessed, and equals any idea, which your imagination can
conceive, of a desperate and inveterate civil war."

But horrible as this state of society was, it had some redeeming
features; fire might consume, a savage soldiery might plunder, the sun
might scorch and not gladden, and the rivers might run with blood,
instead of water, but the women of the Carolinas stood superior to their
husbands, their sons, and their brothers, and were unconquered,
unconquerable. They indeed, bore the fiery trial, and preferred exile to
submission, death to slavery. They incited their kindred never to lay
down their arms, until the last foe had vanished from their soil. They
would with the courage of Joan of Arc, have grasped the sword, and
perished at the stake. They would not give their hand in the light dance
to a Briton; they gave their heart with their hand to the meanest of
their countrymen. They threw the gold bracelet into the scale to lighten
the iron fetter. They feared not the contagion of the prison ships, nor
the damp of the dungeon. They instilled into their drooping relatives
new hopes, and urged them once more to draw the sword, and throw away
the scabbard. It is related that