ited also supplies and
reinforcements.

Immediately after the victory at Camden, he had ordered the friends to
royalty in North Carolina "to arm and intercept the beaten army of
General Gates," promising that he would march directly to the borders
of that province in their support: he now detached Major Patrick
Ferguson to its western confines, to keep the war alive in that
quarter. This resolute partisan had with him his own corps of light
infantry, and a body of royalist militia of his own training. His
whole force was between eleven and twelve hundred men, noted for
activity and alertness, and unincumbered with baggage or artillery.
His orders were to skirr the mountain country between the Catawba and
the Yadkin, harass the whigs, inspirit the tories, and embody the
militia under the royal banner. This done, he was to repair to
Charlotte, the capital of Mecklenburg County, where he would find Lord
Cornwallis, who intended to make it his rendezvous. Should he,
however, in the course of his tour, be threatened by a superior force,
he was immediately to return to the main army.

During the suspense of his active operations in the field, Cornwallis
instituted rigorous measures against Americans who continued under
arms. Among these were included many who had taken refuge in North
Carolina. A commissioner was appointed to take possession of their
estates and property; of the annual product of which a part was to be
allowed for the support of their families, the residue to be applied
to the maintenance of the war. Letters from several of the principal
inhabitants of Charleston having been found in the baggage of the
captured American generals, the former were accused of breaking their
parole, and holding a treasonable correspondence with the armed
enemies of England; they were in consequence confined on board of
prison ships, and afterwards transported to St. Augustine in Florida.
Among the prisoners taken in the late combats, many, it was
discovered, had British protections in their pockets; these were
deemed amenable to the penalties of the proclamation issued by Sir
Henry Clinton on the 3d of June; they were therefore led forth from
the provost and hanged almost without the form of an inquiry. These
measures certainly were not in keeping with the character for
moderation and benevolence usually given to Lord Cornwallis; but they
accorded with the rancorous spirit manifested toward each other both
by whigs and tories