-"might is right". They seemed to recognize no other
standard. The articles of capitulation, the laws of nations, private
treaty, the dictates of humanity and religion, were all equally set
at naught. The wealth of private families,--slaves by thousands,--were
hurried into the waists of British ships, as the legitimate spoils of
war. The latter found a market in the West India islands; the prisoners
made by the fall of Charleston were, in defiance of the articles of
capitulation, crowded into prison-ships, from whence they were only
released by death, or by yielding to those arguments of their keepers
which persuaded them to enlist in British regiments, to serve in other
countries. Many yielded to these arguments, with the simple hope of
escape from the horrors by which they were surrounded. When arts
and arguments failed to overcome the inflexibility of these wretched
prisoners, compulsion was resorted to, and hundreds were forced from
their country, shipped to Jamaica, and there made to serve in British
regiments.* Citizens of distinction, who, by their counsel or presence,
opposed their influence over the prisoners, or proved themselves
superior to their temptations, were torn from their homes without
warning, and incarcerated in their floating dungeons. Nothing was
forborne, in the shape of pitiless and pitiful persecution, to break the
spirits, subdue the strength, and mock and mortify the hopes, alike, of
citizen and captive.

* Moultrie's Memoirs, Vol. 2, 'Correspondence'.--

With those who kept the field the proceedings were more summary, if not
more severe. The fall of Charleston seems necessarily to have involved
the safety of the country from the Savannah to the Pedee. In a few weeks
after the capture of the city, the British were in peaceable possession
of the space between these limits, from the seaboard to the mountains.
They had few opponents--an isolated body of continentals, a small squad
of militia, for the first time drilling for future service, or a little
troop of horse--and these were quickly overcome. On these occasions the
British were generally led by Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton. This officer
acquired for himself an odious distinction in his progress through the
South in the campaigns which followed. He was rather an active than a
skilful commander. Rapid in his movements, he gave little heed to the
judicious disposition of his troops, and aiming more at impressing the
fears of his enemy,