rally taken with reluctance by the people of the lower country. This
part of the State was still further alienated by the licentious and
plundering habits of the British soldiers over a conquered country, and
by the seduction of many of the slaves from their masters."[43]

There can be no justification of Lord Cornwallis's policy; but there
were some mitigating circumstances that palliate the severities which he
inflicted. Among those who had been taken prisoners at the capture of
Charleston, and professed loyalty, was, as Lord Mahon says, "One Lisle,
who had not only taken the oath of allegiance, but accepted military
rank as a King's officer; waited just long enough to supply his
battalion with clothes, arms, and ammunition from the royal stores, and
then quietly led them back to his old friends. Highly incensed at such
signal acts of treachery as Lisle's, Lord Cornwallis had recourse to
some severe orders in return. The penalty of death was denounced against
all militiamen who, after serving with the English, went off to the
insurgents. Several of the prisoners in the battle of Camden, men taken
with arms in their hands and British protections in their pockets, were
hanged. Other such examples were made at Augusta and elsewhere. Some who
had been living on their parole at Charleston, and who, in spite of that
parole, carried on a secret correspondence with their insurgent
countrymen, were shipped off to St. Augustine. A proclamation was
issued, sequestering the estates of those who had been the most forward
to oppose the establishment of the royal authority within the province.
Perhaps these measures exceeded the bounds of justice; certainly they
did the bounds of policy. This was shown by the fatal event, when, on
the overthrow of the royalist cause in South Carolina, the measures of
Lord Cornwallis became the plea for other executions and for every act
of oppression that resentment could devise."

"Within the more limited sphere of his own command, Lord Rawdon had
recourse to, or at the very least announced, some measures still more
severe, and far less to be justified. In a letter to one of his
officers, which was intercepted, we find, for example, what follows: 'I
will give the inhabitants ten guineas for the head of every deserter
belonging to the volunteers of Ireland; and five guineas only if they
bring him in alive.' No amount of provocation or of precedent in his
enemies, no degree of youthful ardour in hims