CHAPTER I.
"Oh, grievous desolation! look, and see
Their sad condition! 'Tis a piercing sight:
A country overthrown and crushed—the scythe
Gone over it in wrath—and sorrowing Grief
Dumb with her weight of wo."
Our narrative begins in South Carolina, during the summer of 1780. The arms of the British were at that time triumphant throughout the colony. Their armies overran it. Charlestown, the chief city, had stood a siege, and had fallen, after a protracted and honourable defence. One-half of the military strength of the lower country, then the most populous region, had become prisoners of war by this disaster; and, for the present, were thus incapacitated from giving any assistance to their brethren in arms. Scattered, crushed, and disheartened by repeated failures, the whigs, in numerous instances, hopeless of any better fortune, had given in their adhesion to the enemy, and had received a pledge of British protection. This protection secured them, as it was thought, in their property and persons, and its conditions simply called for their neutrality. Many of the more firm and honourably tenacious, scorning all compromise with invasion, fled for shelter to the swamps and mountains; and, through the former, all Europe could not have traced their footsteps. In the whole state, at this period, the cause of American liberty had no head, and almost as little hope: all was gloomy and
