e operations upon the north-western border.

The chronicles of the time inform us that the British general lay at
Camden until the 8th of September, at which date he set forward towards
North Carolina. His movement was slow and cautious, and for some time,
his head-quarters were established at the Waxhaws, a position directly
upon the border of the province about to be invaded. At this post our
story now finds him, the period being somewhere about the commencement
of the last quarter of the month.

A melancholy train of circumstances had followed the fight at Camden,
and had embittered the feelings of the contending parties against each
other to an unusual degree of exasperation. The most prominent of these
topics of anger was the unjust and severe construction which the British
authorities had given to the obligations which were supposed to affect
such of the inhabitants of South Carolina, as had, after the
capitulation of Charleston, surrendered themselves as prisoners on
parole, or received protections from the new government. A
proclamation, issued by Sir Henry Clinton in June, annulled the paroles,
and ordered all who had obtained them to render military service, as
subjects of the king. This order, which the prisoners, as well as those
who had obtained protections, held to be a dissolution of their contract
with the new government, was disobeyed by a large number of the
inhabitants, many of whom had, immediately after the proclamation,
joined the American army.

Cornwallis permitted himself, on this occasion, to be swayed by
sentiments unworthy of the character generally imputed to him. Many of
the liberated inhabitants were found in the ranks of Gates at Camden,
and several were made prisoners on the field. These latter, by the
orders of the British general, were hung almost without the form of an
inquiry: and it may well be supposed that in the heat of war and ferment
of passion, such acts of rigor, defended on such light grounds, were met
on the opposite side by a severe retribution.

Almost every day, during the British commander's advance, some of the
luckless citizens of the province whom this harsh construction of duty
affected, were brought into the camp of the invaders, and the soldiery
had grown horribly familiar with the frequent military executions that
ensued.

It was in the engrossment of the occupations and cares presented in this
brief reference to the history of the time, that I have now to i