es
of the moral strength of the interior. Sparsely settled, with unfrequent
opportunities of communion with one another, the minds of the forest
population turned naturally for their tone and direction to the capital
city. The active attrition of rival and conflicting minds, gives, in
all countries, to the population of a dense community, an intellectual
superiority over those who live remote, and feel none of the constant
moral strifes to which the citizen is subject. In South Carolina,
Charleston had been the seat of the original 'movement', had incurred
the first dangers, achieved the first victories, and, in all public
proceedings where action was desirable, had always led off in the van.
To preserve intact, and from overthrow, the seat of ancient authority
and opinion, was surely a policy neither selfish nor unwise. Perhaps,
after all, the grand error was, in not making the preparations for
defence adequate to the object. The resources of the State were small,
and these had been diminished wofully in succoring her neighbors, and
in small border strifes, which the borderers might have been taught
to manage for themselves. The military force of the State, under any
circumstances, could not have contended on equal terms with the ten
thousand well-appointed regulars of Sir Henry Clinton. The assistance
derived from Virginia and North Carolina was little more than nominal,
calculated rather to swell the triumph of the victor than to retard his
successes.

If the movements of the British were slow, and deficient in military
enterprise, where Sir Henry Clinton commanded in person, such could
not be said of them, after the conquest of Charleston was effected. The
commander-in-chief was succeeded by Earl Cornwallis, and his career was
certainly obnoxious to no such reproaches. We shall have more serious
charges to bring against him. Of the gross abuse of power, wanton
tyrannies, cruel murders, and most reckless disregard of decency
and right, by which the course of the British was subsequently
distinguished, we shall say no more than will suffice to show, in what
dangers, through what difficulties, and under what stimulating causes,
Francis Marion rose in arms, when everything appeared to be lost.

Charleston in possession of the enemy, they proceeded with wonderful
activity to use all means in their power, for exhausting the resources,
and breaking down the spirit of the country. Their maxim was that of
habitual tyranny-