agnanimity toward Tory offenders in preserving their lands from
confiscation.
[Illustration: Marion crossing the Pedee.]
"It was war, then," said he; "it is peace now. God has given us the
victory. Let us show our gratitude to heaven, which we shall not do by
cruelty to man." In the same lofty spirit, he refused to receive
any advantages from a bill exempting the soldiers of the militia from
prosecution for acts committed in the service. He felt that his
conduct needed no shelter. The Legislature rewarded him with thanks,
and the more substantial appointment of Commandant of the Port of
Charleston, a nominal office, with the salary of L500, which were cut
down to dollars. A timely marriage, however, with a wealthy lady of
Huguenot descent, Miss Mary Videau, a spinster of fifty, who was
attracted by the hero, relieved him of pecuniary anxieties, leaving
him an old age of ease in agricultural pursuits. He still represented
his parish in the State Senate, and sat in 1790 in the Convention for
forming the Constitution. In 1794 he resigned his military commission
given to him by Rutledge, and the following year, yielding to a
gradual decline, expired on February 27th, at the age of sixty-three.
Marion was a true, unflinching patriot--a man of deeds, and not of
words; a prudent, sagacious soldier, not sudden or quick in quarrel,
but resolute to the end; a good disciplinarian, and beloved by his
men, who came at his call.
There was no power of coercion, such as restrains the hired soldier,
in his little band; it was held together only by the cohesive force of
patriotism and attachment to the leader. We hear of no acts of cruelty
to stain the glory of his victories, but much of his magnanimity.
PAUL JONES
(1747-1792)
[Illustration: Paul Jones. [TN]]
Paul Jones, the popular naval hero of the Revolution, the son of John
Paul, a gardener in Scotland, was born July 6, 1747, at a cottage on
the estate of his father's employer, Mr. Craik, at Arbigland, in the
parish of Kirkbean. His parents belonged to a respectable class of the
population of the country. The boy, as is wont with Scottish boys,
however humble, received the elements of education, but could not have
advanced very far with his books, since we find him at the age of
twelve apprenticed to the sea. The situation of Kirkbean, on the shore
of the Solway, naturally gave a youth of spirit an inclination to life
on the ocean; and he had not far to seek
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