The whigs in high spirits on account of our success — an express from Governor Rutledge — promotions — British and tories in great wrath — sketch of their treatment of the patriots.

The news of this fourth overthrow of the enemy, was soon spread far and wide among both our friends and foes; producing everywhere the liveliest emotions of joy or sorrow, according as the hearers happened to be well or ill affected towards us. The impression which it made on our honored executive, was sweeter to our thoughts than honey or the honeycomb. For on the fifth day after our last flaggellation of the tories, in came an express from governor Rutledge, with a commission of brigadier general for Marion, and a full colonel's commission for me. Having always looked up to my country as to a beloved mother, whose liberty and prosperity were inseparably connected with my own, it is no wonder that I should have been so delighted at hearing her say, by her favorite son, governor Rutledge, that, `reposing especial trust in my courage, conduct, and attention to her interests, she had appointed me a colonel in her armies,' &c. &c.

Scarcely had I perused my commission, before Marion reached me HIS; and with a smile, desired me to read it. Soon as I came to his new title, "brigadier general", I snatched his hand and exclaimed, "Huzza! God save my friend! my noble GENERAL MARION! general! general! Aye that will do! that will do! that sounds somewhat in unison with your deserts."

"Well, but what do you think of the style," replied he, "and of the prerogative — is it not prodigiously in the pompous?"

"Not at all," said I.

"No," continued he; "why now to MY notion, it is very much in the turgid, in the Asiatic. It gives me dominions from river to river, and from the mountains to the great sea, like Tamerlane or Ghengis Khan; or like George III. `by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, FRANCE,' &c. &c. whereas, poor George dares not set a foot there, even to pick up a periwinkle!"

"Well, but general," said I, "as the English gave France to George because they wish him to have it, so I suppose the good governor gives you this vast district for the same reason."

"Perhaps so," replied Marion.

The truth is, governor Rutledge was a most ardent lover of his country; and, therefore, almost adored such an unconquerable patriot as Marion.

Hence, when he found, that notwithstanding the many follies and failures of northern generals and armies; notwithstanding the victories, and proclamations, and threats of Cornwallis and Tarleton, Marion still stood his ground, and fought and conquered for Carolina; his whole soul was so filled with love of him, that I verily believe he would have given him "all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof," had they been in his gift. Indeed what he did give him was sketched out with a prodigiously bold hand. He gave him all that territory, comprehended within a line drawn from Charleston along the sea, to Georgetown; thence westerly to Camden; and thence to Charleston again; making a domain of extent, population, and wealth, immense; but over which the excellent governor had no more power to grant military jurisdiction, than to give kingdoms in the moon; for the whole of it was in the hands of the British, and their friends the tories; so that the governor had not a foot to give Marion; nor did Marion hold a foot of it but by his own vigilance and valor; which were so extraordinary, that his enemies, with all their men, money, and malice, could never drive him out of it.

But while governor Rutledge, with all the good whigs of the state, were thus heartily rejoicing with Marion for his victories, the British and tories were as madly gnashing their teeth upon him for the same. To be struck four such severe blows, in so short a time, and all rising one over another in such cursed climax of bad to worse; to be losing, in this manner, their dear allies, with all their subsidies of arms, ammunition, and money; to have their best friends thus cooled; their worst enemies thus heated; and rank rebellion again breaking up, out of a soil where they had promised themselves nothing but the richest fruits of passive obedience: and all this by a little, ugly spawn of a Frenchman! It was too much! they could not stand it. Revenge they must and would have; that was certain: and since, with all their efforts, they could not get at Marion, the hated trunk and root of all, they were determined to burn and sweat his branches, the poor whigs, i.e. to carry the curses of fire and sword through all their families and habitations.

Now, had this savage spirit appeared among a few poor British cadets, or piney wood tories, it would not have been so lamentable. Their ignorance of those divine truths, which exalt the soul above such hellish passions, would have furnished some plea for them. But, that a British general, and that general a nobleman! a lord! with an archbishop for his brother, and hot-pressed bibles, and morocco prayer books, and all such excellent helps, to teach him that "God is love", and "mercy his delight"; that such a one, I say, should have originated the infernal warfare, of plundering, burning, and hanging the American patriots, is most HORRIBLE. And yet, if possible, more true than horrible. Yes, sure as the day of doom, when that fearful day shall come, and lord Cornwallis, stript of his "brief authority", shall stand, a trembling ghost before that equal bar: then shall the evil spirit, from the black budget of his crimes, snatch the following bloody order, and grinning an insulting smile, flash it before his lordship's terrified optics.

August 18, 1780,
To lieutenant colonel Cruger, commandant at the British garrison
at Ninety-Six.

Sir,

I have given orders that all the inhabitants of this province, who had submitted, and who have taken a part in this revolt, shall be punished with the greatest rigour; that they shall be imprisoned, and their whole property taken from them or destroyed. I have likewise directed, that compensation should be made out of their effects, to persons who have been plundered and oppressed by them. I have ordered, in the most positive manner, that every militia-man who had borne arms with us, and had afterwards joined the enemy, should be immediately hanged. I have now sir, only to desire that you will take the most vigorous measures to extinguish the rebellion in the district which you command, and that you will obey, in the strictest manner, the directions I have given in this letter, relative to the treatment of this country.

This order of lord Cornwallis proved to South Carolina like the opening of Pandora's box. Instantly there broke forth a torrent of cruelties and crimes never before heard of in our simple forests. Lord Rawdon acted, as we shall see, a shameful part in these bloody tragedies, and so did colonel Tarleton. But the officer who figured most in executing the detestable orders of Cornwallis, was a major Weymies. This man was, by birth, a Scotsman; but, in principle and practice, a Mohawk. So totally destitute was he of that amiable sympathy which belongs to his nation, that, in sailing up Winyaw bay, and Waccamaw and Pedee rivers, he landed, and pillaged, and burnt every house he durst approach! Such was the style of his entry upon our afflicted state, and such the spirit of his doings throughout: for wherever he went, an unsparing destruction awaited upon his footsteps.

Unhappily, our country had but too many pupils that fitted exactly such a preceptor. The lazy, dram-drinking, plunder-loving tories, all gloried in major Weymies: and were ever ready, at the winding of his horn, to rush forth with him, like hungry bloodhounds, on his predatory excursions. The dogs of hell were all now completely uncoupled, and every devilish passion in man had its proper game to fly at. Here was a fine time for MALICE to feed her ancient grudges; for AVARICE to cram her maw with plunder; and REVENGE to pay off her old scores, with bloody interest.

A thievish tory, who had been publicly whipped by a whig magistrate, or had long coveted his silver tankard, or his handsome rifle, or his elegant horse, had but to point out his house to major Weymies, and say, "There lives a d——d rebel." The amiable major and his myrmidons, would surround the noble building in a trice; and after gutting it of all its rich furniture, would reduce it to ashes. It was in vain that the poor delicate mother and her children, on bended knees, with wringing hands and tear-swimming eyes implored him to pity, and not to burn their house over their heads. Such eloquence, which has often moved the breasts of savages, was all lost on major Weymies and his banditti. They no more regarded the sacred cries of angel-watched children than the Indians do the cries of the young beavers, whose houses they are breaking up.

But, oh, joy eternal! "THE LORD IS KING." His law is love, and they who sin against this law, soon or late, shall find that they have sinned against their own souls.

A planter, in his fields, accidentally turning towards his house, suddenly discovers a vast column of smoke bursting forth, and ascending in black curling volumes to heaven. "Oh my God! my house!" he exclaims, "my poor wife and children!" Then, half bereft of his senses, he sets off and runs towards his house. — Still, as he cuts the air, he groans out, "Oh, my poor wife and children!" Presently he hears their cries: he sees them at a distance with outstretched arms flying towards him. Oh, pa! pa! pa! his children tremblingly exclaim; while his wife, all pale and out of breath, falls on his bosom, and, feebly crying out, "The BRITISH! oh the British," sinks into a swoon.

Who can tell the feelings of the father and the husband! His wife convulsed in his arms! his little beggared children screaming around him! and his property all sinking to ruin, by merciless enemies! Presently his wife, after a strong fit, with a deep sigh, comes to herself; he wipes her tears; he embraces and hushes his children. By and bye, supposing the British to be gone, arm in arm the mournful group return. But ah, shocking sight! their once stately mansion which shone so beauteous on the plain, the pride and pleasure of their eyes, is now the prey of devouring flames. Their slaves have all disappeared; their stock, part is taken away, part lies bleeding in the yard, stabbed by bayonets; their elegant furniture, tables, glasses, clocks, beds, all is swallowed up. An army of passing demons could have done no worse. But while with tearful eye they are looking round on the wide-spread ruin, undermined by the fire, down comes the tall building with thundering crash to the ground. The frightened mourners start aghast from the hideous squelch, and weep afresh to see all the hopes and glories of their state thus suddenly ended in smoke and ashes.

It was in this way exactly that the British treated my brother, major Hugh Horry, as brave a soldier as ever fought in America. They laid in ashes all his dwelling houses, his barns of clean rice, and even his rice stacks! Destroyed his cattle; carried off eighty negroes, which were all he had, not leaving him one to bake him a cake. Thus, in one hour, as the wild Arabs served Job, did the British serve my poor brother, breaking him up root and branch; and, from a state of affluence, reduced him to a dunghill.

These savage examples, first set by the British, and followed by the tories, soon produced the effect which Marion had all along predicted. They filled the hearts of the sufferers with the deadliest hate of the British; and brought them, in crowds, to join his standard, with muskets in their hands, and vows of revenge eternal in their mouths.

Hence it was that nothing so pleased Marion as to hear of British cruelty to his countrymen.

"'Tis a harsh medicine," he used to say, "but it is necessary; for there is nothing else that will work them. And unless they are well worked and scoured of their mother milk, or beastling partiality to the English, they are lost. Our country is like a man who has swallowed a mortal poison. Give him an anodyne to keep him easy, and he's a dead man. But if you can only knock him about, and so put the poison in motion as to make him deadly sick at the stomach, and heave like a dog with a bone in his throat, he is safe. Cornwallis has all this time been lulling them by his proclamations, and protections, and lies. But, thank God, that time is pretty well over now; for these unfeeling monsters, these children of the devil, have let out the cloven foot, and the thing is now beginning to work as I expected. Our long deluded people are opening their eyes, and beginning to see and smell the blood and burnings of that `Tophet', that political hell of slavery and ruin, to which the British army is now endeavoring, by murder and rapine, to reduce them."

This was truly the case: for, every day the whigs were coming into Marion's camp. Those who were too old to fight themselves, would call upon their sturdy boys to "turn out and join general Marion."

It was diverting to see how they would come staving upon their tackies; belted round with their powderhorns and shotbags, with rifles in hand, and their humble homespun streaming in the air. The finely curling smile brightened in the face of Marion; and his eye beamed that laughing joy, with which a father meets his thoughtless boy, returning dirty and beaten by blackguards, from whose dangerous company he had sought in vain a thousand times to wean him.

"Well, my son!" Marion would say, "and what good news do you bring us?"

"Why, why, why, sir general," replies the youth, half cocked with rage, and stammering for words, "as I was overlooking my father's negroes in the rice grounds, the British and tories came and took them and carried them all away; and I only am left alone to tell you."

Presently another comes and says: "As I was driving the horses and cattle down to the pasture, the British and tories fell upon them, and carried them all away; and I alone am left to tell you."

While he was yet speaking, another comes and says: "The British and tories came with fire and burnt our houses and goods, and have driven my mother and the children into the woods; and I only am left alone to tell you."

Next comes another, who says: "My father and myself were ploughing together in the field, and the British and tories came upon us and shot my father! and I only am left alone to tell you."

Another comes and tells, that "lord Rawdon is taking the whig prisoners every week, out of the jail in Camden, and hanging them up by half dozens, near the windows, like dead crows in a corn-field, to frighten the rest, and make good tories of them."

Another states, that "colonel Charles Pinckney, prisoner in Charleston, for striking a couple of insolent negroes, was cursed by the British officers as a d——d rebel, and driven with kicks and blows into the house, for daring to strike his `Britannic Majesty's subjects'!"

Here Marion snapped his fingers for joy, and shouted, "Huzza! that's right! that's right! O my noble Britons, lay on! lay on the spaniels stoutly! they want British protections, do they? O the rogues! show them no quarter, but give it to them handsomely! break their backs like dogs! cut them over the face and eyes like cats! bang them like asses! thank ye! thank ye, Cornwallis and Rawdon! most noble lords, I thank ye! you have at last brought the wry face upon my countrymen, the cold sweat, the sardonic grin. Thank God! the potion begins to work! huzza, my sons! heave! heave! aye, there comes the bile; the atrabiliary; the black vomiting which portends death to the enemy. Now Britons, look to your ships, for Carolina will soon be too hot to hold you."