him for having allowed himself to be cooped up in so extensive and indefensible a town, instead of continuing the war in the open field. They said that if he had taken this course, he might have preserved to the union a considerable army, and the most fertile part of the province; that it would have been much better to harass and fatigue the enemy by marches, retreats, ambuscades, and well concerted attacks; that Washington had acted very differently, and with greater utility to his country, when to the loss of his army, he preferred that of the island of New York, and even of the city of Philadelphia itself. It was not Lincoln alone, however, who should have been made responsible for events, but the Congress and the neighboring provincial states; since they promised at the approach of , danger, reenforcements which they did not furnish.

Other censors of the general's conduct condemned him for not having evacuated the town, when all the roads were still open on the left side of the Cooper river. But if he followed an opposite counsel, it should be attributed, at first, to this same hope of promised succour; and then, after the rout of Monk's Corner, and the English had occupied the country between the Cooper and the Santee, to the fear he justly entertained of encountering an infinite superiority of force, particularly in cavalry, and to the repugnance he felt to leave Charleston at discretion in the hands of the enemy.

As soon as general Clinton had taken possession of that capital, he hastened to take all those measures, civil as well as military, which were judged proper for the reestablishment of order; he then made his dispositions for recovering the rest of the province, where every thing promised to anticipate the will of the victor. Determined to follow up his success, before his own people should have time to cool, or the enemy to take breath, he planned three expeditions; one towards the river Savannah, in Georgia, another upon Ninety-Six, beyond the Saluda, both with a view to raise the loyalists, very numerous in those parts; the third was destined to scour the country between the Cooper and Santee, in order to disperse a body of republicans, who, under the conduct of colonel Buford were retiring by forced marches towards North Carolina. All three were completely successful; the inhabitants flocked from all parts to meet the royal troops, declaring their desire to resume their ancient allegiance, and offering to defend the royal cause with arms in hand. Many even of the inhabitants of Charleston, excited by the proclamations of the British general, manifested a like zeal to combat under his banners. Lord Cornwallis, after having swept the two banks of the Cooper and passed the Santee, made himself master of Georgetown. Such was the devotion, either real or feigned, of the inhabitants towards the king; such was their terror, or their desire to ingratiate themselves with the victor, that not content with coming in from every quarter to offer their services, in support of

the royal government, they dragged in their train as prisoners, those friends of liberty, whom they had lately obeyed with such parade of zeal, and whom they now denominated their oppressors. Meanwhile, colonel Buford continued his retreat with celerity, and it appeared next to impossible that he should be overtaken. Tarleton, nevertheless, offered to attempt the enterprise, promising to reach him. Cornwallis put under his command for this object, a strong corps of cavalry, with about a hundred light infantry mounted on horseback. His march was so rapid, that on the twenty-eighth of May he had gained Cambden, where he learned that Buford had departed the preceding day from Rugeleys Mills, and that he was pushing on with extreme speed, in order to join another body of republicans that was on the march from Salisbury to Charlotte, in North Carolina. Tarleton saw the importance of preventing the junction of these two corps; accordingly, notwithstanding the fatigue of men and horses, many of these having already dropped dead with exhaustion, notwithstanding the heat of the season, he redoubled his pace, and at length presented himself, after a march of one hundred. and five miles in fifty-four hours, at a place called Wacsaw, before the object of his pursuit. The English summoned the Americans to throw down their arms; the latter answered with spirit, that they were prepared to defend themselves. The colonel drew up his troops in order of battle; they consisted of four hundred Virginia regulars, with a detachment of horse. He formed but one line, and ordered his artillery and baggage to continue their march in his rear, without halting; his soldiers were directed to reserve their fire till the British cavalry were approached within twenty yards. Tarleton lost no time in preparation, but charged immediately. The Americans gave way after a faint resistance; the English pursued them with vigor, and the carnage was dreadful. Their victory was complete; all, in a manner, that were not killed on the spot, were wounded and taken. Such was the rage of the victors, that they massacred many of those who offered to surrender. The Americans remembered it with horror. From that time it became with them a proverbial mode of expressing the cruelties of a barbarous enemy; to call them Tarleton's quarter. Artillery, baggage, munitions, colors, every thing, fell into the power of the English. It appears that colonel Buford committed two faults, the most serious of which was the having awaited, on open ground, an enemy much superior in cavalry. If instead of sending his carriages behind him, as soon as he perceived the royal troops, he had formed them into a cincture for his corps, the English would not have attempted to force it, or would have exposed themselves to a sanguinary repulse. The second, was that of forbidding his men to fire at the enemy, till he was within twenty paces; it ensued that Tarleton's cavalry was enabled to charge with more order and efficacy. That officer im

mediately returned, followed by the trophies of his victory, to Camb den, where he rejoined lord Cornwallis. The American division which had advanced to Charlotte, changed its plan, on hearing of the discomfiture of Wacsaw, and fell back with precipitation on Salisbury.

This reverse destroyed the last hopes of the Carolinians, and was soon followed by their submission. General Clinton wrote to London, that South Carolina was become English again, and that there were few men in the province who were not prisoners to, or in arms with the British forces. But he was perfectly aware that the conquest he owed to his arms could not be preserved but by the entire reestablishment of the civil administration. To this end, he deemed it essential to put minds at rest by the assurance of amnesty, and to oblige the inhabitants to contribute to the defence of the country, and to the restoration of the royal authority. Accordingly, in concert with admiral Arbuthnot, he published a full and absolute pardon in favor of those who should immediately return to their duty, promising that no offences and transgressions heretofore committed in consequence of political troubles, should be subject to any investigation whatever. He excepted only those who, under a mockery of the forms of justice, had imbrued their hands in the blood of their fellowcitizens, who had shown themselves adverse to revolt and usurpation. He had then to reflect that a great number of the Carolinians were prisoners of war on parole, and that while they were considered as such, they could not equitably be constrained to take arms in favor of the king. But, in the pride of victory, Clinton thought he might sport with the public faith, and got over this difficulty by declaring, in a proclamation issued on the third of June, that the prisoners of war were free, and released from their parole, with the exception of the regular troops taken in Charleston and Fort Moultrie; he added, that they were reestablished in all the rights and all the duties of British subjects. But that no doubt might remain with regard to his intentions, and to prevent all conjecture, he gave notice that every man must take an active part in support of the royal government, and in the suppression of that anarchy which had prevailed already but too long. For the attainment of this object, he required all persons to be in readiness with their arms at a moment's warning; those who had families, to form a militia for home defence; but those who had none, to serve with the royal forces for any six months of the ensuing twelve, in which they might be called upon to assist, as he said, 'in driving their rebel oppressors, and all the miseries of war, far from the province.' They were not to be employed, however, out of the two Carolinas and Georgia. Thus citizens were armed against citizens, brothers against brothers; thus the same individuals who had been acknowledged as soldiers of the Congress, since they had been comprehended in the capitulation as

prisoners of war, were constrained to take arms for the king of England; a violence, if not unprecedented, at least odious, and which rebounded, as we shall see by the sequel, on the heads of those who were guilty of it. General Clinton seeing the province in tranquillity, and the ardor which appeared universal, of the inhabitants to join the royal standard, distributed his army in the most important garrisons; when leaving lord Cornwallis in command of all the forces stationed in South Carolina and Georgia, he departed from Charleston for his government of New York.

That city, during his absence, had been exposed to a danger as unexpected as alarming. A winter, unequalled in that climate for its length and severity, had deprived New York and the adjoining islands of all the defensive benefits of their insular situation; the Hudson river, with the straits and channels by which they are divided and surrounded, were every where clothed with ice of such a strength and thickness, as would have admitted the passage of armies, with their heaviest carriages and artillery. This change, so suddenly wrought in the nature of the situation, caused the British commanders extreme disquietude; they feared the more for the safety of New York, as its garrison was then very feeble, and the army of Washington not far off. Accordingly, they neglected none of those prudential measures which are usual in similar cases; all orders of men in New York were imbodied, armed and officered. The officers and crews of the frigates undertook the charge of a redoubt; and those of the transports, victuallers and merchantmen, were armed with pikes, for the defence of the wharves and shipping. But Washington was in no condition to profit of this unlooked for event. The small army which remained with him hutted at Morristown, was inferior in strength even to the British regular force at New York, exclusive of the armed inhabitants and militia. He sent lord Sterling, it is true, to make an attempt upon Staten Island, and to reconnoitre the ground; but that. general, observing no movement in his favor on the part of the city, returned to his first position. Thus the scourge of short engagements and the torpor which prevailed at that time amongst the Americans, caused them to lose the most propitious occasion that could have been desired, to strike a blow that would have sensibly affected the British power. If their weakness constrained them to inaction in the vicinity of New York, the English did not imitate their example. As soon as the return of spring had freed them from the danger they had apprehended during the season of ice, they renewed their predatory exploits in New Jersey. Their object in these excursions of devastation and plunder, was to favor the operations in Carolina, in order that the enemy, feeling insecure at various points, might carry suc

cour to none.

About the beginning of June, and a few days previous to the return of general Clinton, the generals Knyphausen, Robertson, and Tryon,

who during his absence commanded the troops cantoned at New York, had entered New Jersey with a corps of five thousand men, and had occupied Elizabethtown; they conducted themselves there with generosity, and abstained from all pillage. They afterwards advanced and took possession of Connecticut Farms, a new and flourishing village. Irritated at the resistance they had experienced in their march, having been harassed incessantly by the country militia, who had risen against them from all the neighboring parts, they set fire to this place; only two houses escaped; even the church was a prey to the flames. This disaster was signalised by a deplorable event, which contributed not a little to redouble the indignation of the republicans against the royalists. Among the inhabitants of Connecticut Farms was a young gentlewoman, as celebrated for her virtues as for the singular beauty of her person. Her husband, James Cadwell, was one of the most ardent and influential patriots in that province. He urged her, and resorted to the entreaties of friends to persuade her to withdraw from the danger; but trusting to her own innocence for protection, she awaited the invaders. She was surrounded by her little children, and near her a nursery maid held in her arms the youngest of her offspring. A furious soldier appeared at the window, a Hessian, as it is said; he took aim at this unfortunate mother, and pierced her breast with an instantly mortal shot; her blood gushed upon all her tender orphans. Other soldiers rushed into the house and set it on fire, after having hastened to bury their victim. Thus, at least, the republicans relate this horrible adventure. The English pretended that the shot had been fired at random, and even that it was discharged by the Americans, since it came from the part by which they retired. However the truth may be, the melancholy fate of this gentlewoman, fired the breasts of the patriots with such rage, that they flew from every quarter to take vengeance upon the authors of so black a deed. The royal troops had put themselves on the march to seize a neighboring town called Springfield. They had nearly reached it, when they were informed that general Maxwell awaited them there, with a regiment of New Jersey regulars and a strong body of militia, impatient for combat. The English halted, and passed the night in that position. The next morning they fell back with precipitation upon Elizabethtown, whether their commanders thought it imprudent to attack an enemy who bore so menacing a countenance, or that they had received intelligence, as they published, that Washington had detached from Morristown a strong reenforcement to Maxwell. The Americans pursued them with warmth, but to little purpose, from the valor and regularity displayed in their retreat.

At this conjuncture, general Clinton arrived at New York, and immediately adopted a plan from which he promised himself the most decisive success. His purpose was to dislodge Washington from the