he
only son of a Carolinian, who could boast the best blood of English
nobility in his veins. The sire, however, had outlived his fortunes,
and, late in life, had been compelled to abandon the place of his
nativity--an adventurer, struggling against a proud stomach, and a
thousand embarrassments--and to bury himself in the less known, but more
secure and economical regions of Tennessee. Born to affluence, with
wealth that seemed adequate to all reasonable desires--a noble
plantation, numerous slaves, and the host of friends who necessarily
come with such a condition, his individual improvidence, thoughtless
extravagance, and lavish mode of life--a habit not uncommon in the
South--had rendered it necessary, at the age of fifty, when the mind,
not less than the body, requires repose rather than adventure, that he
should emigrate from the place of his birth; and with resources
diminished to a cipher, endeavor to break ground once more in unknown
forests, and commence the toils and troubles of life anew. With an only
son (the youth before us) then a mere boy, and no other family, Colonel
Ralph Colleton did not hesitate at such an exile. He had found out the
worthlessness of men's professions at a period not very remote from the
general knowledge of his loss of fortune: and having no other connection
claiming from him either countenance or support, and but a single
relative from whom separation might be painful, he felt, comparatively
speaking, but few of the privations usually following such a removal. An
elder brother, like himself a widower, with a single child, a daughter,
formed the whole of his kindred left behind him in Carolina; and, as
between the two brothers there had existed, at all times, some leading
dissimilar points of disposition and character, an occasional
correspondence, due rather to form than to affection, served all
necessary purposes in keeping up the sentiment of kindred in their
bosoms. There were but few real affinities which could bring them
together. They never could altogether understand, and certainly had
but a limited desire to appreciate or to approve many of the several
and distinct habits of one another; and thus they separated with but
few sentiments of genuine concern. William Colleton, the elder brother,
was the proprietor of several thousand highly valuable and
pleasantly-situated acres, upon the waters of the Santee--a river which
irrigates a region in the state of South Carolina, famou