Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

lest the public voice should accuse Clinton of having precipitated him, by his orders, into his present dreadful situation. He could not think, without the most bitter regrets, that his death might be laid to the charge of that man, whom he loved and respected the most. He obtained permission to write to him; he used it but to recommend to his protection his unhappy mother and sisters, and to bear testimony that it was not only against his intentions, but even against his positive orders, that he had introduced himself into the camp of the Americans, and had assumed a disguise. The second day of October was destined to be the last of his existence. Brought to the foot of the gibbet, he said; and must I die thus? He was answered, that it could not be otherwise. He did not dissemble his profound grief. At length, after having past a few moments in prayer, be pronounced these words, which were his last; bear witness that I die as a brave man should die.' Such was the just, but melancholy end of a young man deserving in so many respects of a better destiny. It cast a damp of sadness over enemies as well as friends. Arnold gnashed with rage, if, however, that polluted soul was still capable of remorse. The English themselves eyed him with abhorrence, both as traitor, and as original cause of the death of the hapless Andre. In policy, nevertheless, any instrument being thought good provided it serves the end proposed, Arnold was created brigadier-general in the British armies. Clinton hoped that the name and influence of this renegade would induce a great number of the Americans to join the royal standard. Arnold at least was well aware, that since he had abandoned them, he could not show too much fervor for the cause of England. And such being the irresistible ascendant of virtue, that even the most depraved are forced to assume its semblance, he thought fit to publish a memorial, by which he hoped to mask his infamy. He alleged that in the commencement of the troubles, he had taken arms because he believed the rights of his country were infringed; that he had given into the declaration of independence, although he had thought it ill timed; but that when Great Britain, like a relenting and tender mother, had extended her arms to embrace them, offering them the most just and the most honorable conditions, the refusal of the insurgents, and especially their alliance with France, had entirely changed the nature of the quarrel, and transformed a glorious cause into a criminal revolt; that ever since that epoch he had been desirous to resume the relations of ancient allegiance towards England. He declaimed with violence against the Congress; he painted in the most odious colors its tyranny and avarice; he railed against the union with France, affecting a profound grief that the dearest interests of the country had thus been sacrificed to an arrogant, inveterate and perfidious enemy. He represented France as too feeble to establish independence, as the bitterest foe of the protestant faith, as deceitfully

[ocr errors]

pretending a zeal for the liberty of the human race, while she held her own children in vassalage and servitude. Arnold finished with declaring, that he had so long delayed the disclosure of his sentiments, from a wish, by some important service, to effect the deliverance of his country, and at the same time to avoid as much as possible the effusion of blood. He addressed this memorial to his countrymen in general. A few days after, he published another, directed to the officers and soldiers of the American army. He exhorted them to come and place themselves under the banners of the king, where they would find promotion and increase of pay. He vaunted of wishing to conduct the flower of the American nation to peace, liberty and safety; to rescue the country from the hands of France, and of those who had brought it to the brink of perdition. He affirmed that America was become a prey to avarice, an object of scorn for her enemies, and of pity for her friends; that she had exchanged her liberty for oppression. He represented the citizens thrust into dungeons, despoiled of their property; the youth dragged to war, blood streaming in torrents. What,' he exclaimed, 'is America now, but a land of widows, orphans and beggars? If England were to cease her efforts for her deliverance, how could she hope to enjoy the exercise of that religion for which our fathers once braved ocean, climate and deserts? Has not the abject and profligate Congress been seen of late to attend mass, and to participate in the ceremonies of an antichristian church, against the corruptions of which our pious ancestors would have borne testimony at the price of their blood?' These declamations of a traitor proved the more fruitless the more they were insolent and exaggerated. America, moreover, had writers who stepped forward to refute them, in a style as animated as the reasoning was triumphant. They observed, among other things, that none more than Arnold, even subsequent to the rejection of accommodation with England, had been the devoted and obsequious courtier of France, none more than him. had danced attendance upon her generals and agents; that on the first arrival of the minister Gerard at Philadelphia, he had pressed him to inhabit his house; that he had lavished, in his honor, the most sumptuous banquets, the most splendid balls, the most gorgeous galas; that he had been the supple flatterer of Silas Deane, the most servile tool of France, in a word, that on all occasions he had given the French grounds to believe that they had not in all the United States a more sincere friend than himself. But such,' it was said, is the ordinary conduct of the ambitious; alternately cringing and supercilious, they are not ashamed to tax others with their own vices.' Thus Arnold found retorted against himself those arguments from which he had anticipated the most success.

As to the Congress, they deemed it beneath their dignity to appear to take the least notice of the perfidy or the pamphlets of Arnold.

VOL. II.

40

Only to testify their high sense of the noble conduct of the three soldiers who had arrested major Andre, they passed a resolution creating in favor of each of them a life annuity of two hundred dollars, free of all deductions. They also decreed that they should be presented with a silver medal, struck express, bearing upon one face the word Fidelity, and upon the other the following motto; Vincit amor patria. The executive council of Pennsylvania issued a proclamation summoning Benedict Arnold, in company with some other vile men, to appear before the tribunals to make answer for their defection, and declaring them, otherwise, subject to all the pains and penalties usually inflicted on criminals convicted of high treason. This was the only act in which any public authority deigned to make mention of Arnold.

The details of the conspiracy of New York have necessarily diverted our attention for some time from the theatre of war. We proceed now to recount the various success of the British arms in the Carolinas. The month of September approached its close, when the British generals, who had reenforced their troops and recruited their necessary stores and provision, resolved to reenter the field and complete those operations which they had commenced, and which were to be the most important fruit of the victory of Cambden. They flattered themselves that the rumor alone of their march upon North Carolina would suffice to determine the American army to evacuate it immediately. They already beheld in no distant perspective not only the conquest of that province, but also that of Virginia. They calculated that when to the possession of the two Carolinas, of Georgia and New York they should have added this, Virginia, so fertile and so powerful, the Americans, crushed by the burthen of the war, must of necessity submit to the laws of Great Britain. The decline and humiliation of their enemies appeared to them inevitable. Lord Cornwallis and general Clinton were to cooperate simultaneously to bring about this grand result; the first, by advancing from South into North Carolina; the second, by sending a part of his army from New York into the lower parts of Virginia, where, after having passed the Roanoke, it was to operate its junction with the army of Cornwallis upon the confines of North Carolina. In pursuance of this plan, Clinton had detached upon the Chesapeake bay a corps of three thousand men, under the command of general Leslie. He landed his troops as well at Portsmouth as upon the adjacent points of that coast, ravaging and burning all the magazines, and especially those of tobacco, of which an immense quantity was destroyed. Many merchant vessels fell into the hands of the English. In this quarter, they were to wait for news of the approach of Cornwallis, then to push rapidly forward to the banks of the Roanoke, where the junction was to be effected. But the distance being great, and as unforeseen accidents might impede the

[ocr errors][merged small]

contemplated union of the two corps, Clinton had directed Leslie to obey the orders of Cornwallis. His intention was, that if the junction by land was found subject to insurmountable obstacles, Cornwallis might cause a part of that corps to come round to him in the Carolinas, by way of the sea. That general, on his part, had put himself on the march from Cambden upon Charlottetown, a village situated in North Carolina. Nevertheless, to hold South Carolina in check, and to preserve the way open to retreat thither, if it was necessary, he had not contented himself with leaving a strong garrison in Charleston. Several detachments were distributed upon different points of the frontier; colonel Brown was posted at Augusta, colonel Cruger at Ninety Six, and colonel Turnbull with a stronger corps at Cambden. Lord Cornwallis had then advanced, with the main body of the army and some cavalry, by the way of Hanging Rock, towards Catawba, while Tarleton with the rest of the cavalry passed the Wateree and ascended along its eastern bank. The two corps were to rendezvous, and reunite at Charlottetown. They arrived there in effect about the last of September. But the English were not slow in perceiving that they had undertaken a far more arduous enterprise than they had contemplated. The country in the environs of Charlottetown was steril, and broken by narrow and intricate defiles. The inhabitants were not only hostile, but also most vigilent and audacious in attacking detached parties, in cutting off couriers and convoys while on the way from Cambden to Charlottetown. Hence the royalists could not sally into the open country, whether to forage, or gain intelligence, except in strong detachments. Moreover, colonel Sumpter, always enterprising, and prompt to seize any occasion for infesting the British, seemed to be every where at once, upon the frontiers of the two Carolinas. Another partisan corps of similar audacity, had just been formed under the conduct of colonel Marion. Finally, the alarming intelligence was announced, that colonel Clarke had assembled a numerous body of mountaineers from the upper parts of the Carolinas, a most hardy and warlike race of men. Though the valiant defence of colonel Brown had defeated a coup de main which they had attempted against Augusta, yet they still kept the field. Their chief had led them into the mountainous part in order to unite with colonel Sumpter, or, at least, if the corps of Ferguson prevented that, to await new reenforcements of the inhabitants of those regions, whose ardor he well knew.

The royalists thus found themselves surrounded by clouds of republicans. Placed in the midst of a country where every thing combined against them, they more resembled a besieged army than troops marching upon an expedition. An unexpected accident came to aggravate yet more the distress of their position. Colonel Ferguson, as we have already seen, had been detached by lord Cornwallis upon the frontiers of North Carolina, to encourage the loyalists to

take arms. A considerable number had repaired to his standard, but the greater part were of the most profligate and of the most ferocious description of men. Believing any thing admissible with the sanction of their chief, they put every thing on their passage to fire and sword. Excesses so atrocious must have inflamed the coldest hearts with the desire of vengeance; they transported the mountaineers with fury. They descended into the plain by torrents, arming themselves with whatever chance threw within their reach. They foamed at the name of Ferguson; they conjured the chiefs they had given themselves, to lead them upon the track of this monster, that they might make him expiate the ravages and blood with which he had stained himself. Each of them carried, besides his arms, a wallet and a blanket. They slept on the naked earth, in the open air; the water of the rivulets slaked their thirst, they fed on the cattle they drew after them, or on the game they killed in the forests. They were conducted by the colonels Campbell, Cleveland, Selby, Seveer, Williams, Brandy and Lacy. Every where they demanded Ferguson with loud cries. At every step they swore to exterminate him. At length they found him. But Ferguson was not a man that any danger whatever could intimidate. He was posted on a woody eminence which commands all the adjacent plain, and has a circular base. It is called Kings Mountain. An advanced guard defended its approach by the direct road. The mountaineers soon forced them to fail back; then, forming in several columos, they endeavored to make their way good to the summit. The attack and the defence were equally obstinate; some from behind trees, others under the cover of rocks, maintained an extremely brisk fire. At length those commanded by Cleveland arrived upon the brow of the hill. The English repulsed them with the bayonet. But the column of Selby came up at the same instant, and it was necessary to dispute the ground with it immediately. It began to give way, when colonel Campbell took part in the combat. Ferguson received him with gallantry; but what could avail his efforts against assaults incessantly renewed and always with more fury! He was surrounded; and he did all that a man of skill and courage could do to extricate himself. But already the crown of the mount was inundated with Americans. They summoned Ferguson.in vain to surrender; he perished sword in hand. His successor immediately demanded and obtained quarter. The carnage had been dreadful; the royalists had to regret above eleven hundred men in killed, wounded and prisoners, a loss extremely serious in the present circumstances. All the arms and munitions fell into the power of the conquerors. They observed the laws of war towards the English; but they displayed an excessive rigor against the loyalists. They hung several without listening to their remonstrances. They alleged, that this execution was only a just reprisal for that of the republicans put to death by

« AnteriorContinuar »