of the British General
required them to take up arms for his Majesty, and against their
countrymen. This was a hopeful plan by which to fill the British
regiments, to save farther importations of Hessians, farther cost
of mercenaries, and, as in the case of the Aborigines, to employ the
Anglo-American race against one another. The loyalists of the South were
to be used against the patriots of the North, as the loyalists of the
latter region had been employed to put down the liberties of the former.
It was a short and ingenious process for finishing the rebellion; and,
could it have entirely succeeded, as in part it did, it would have
entitled Sir Henry Clinton to very far superior laurels, as a civilian,
than he ever won as a soldier. The value of the Americans, as soldiers,
was very well known to the British General. Some of the most sanguinary
battles of the Revolution were those in which the combatants on both
sides were chiefly natives of the soil, upon which a portion of them
but too freely shed their blood in a sincere desire to bolster up that
foreign tyranny that mocked the generous valor which it employed.

The effect of this second proclamation of the British commander was
such as he scarcely anticipated. The readiness with which numbers of the
people had accepted paroles and protections, declared, at most, nothing
but their indifference to the contest--declared no preference for
British domination. In this lay the error of the conqueror. The natural
feeling of the people, thus entrapped, was that of indignation. Their
determination might have been conjectured by any reasoning mind.
Compelled to take up arms--not permitted to enjoy that repose with
their families, for which they sought the offered immunities of the
British--it was more easy to espouse the cause of their countrymen, to
which their affections were really given, than that of the invader. They
had committed a great and humbling error in the endeavor to escape the
conflict--in taking the proffered protection of a power which had
seized with violence upon their native land. It was with some eagerness,
therefore, that they threw aside its obligations, and, as opportunity
presented itself, girded on their armor, and sallied forth to join their
countrymen. Among the first to do so were the men by whom Marion was
summoned from the camp of Gates. These brave fellows, occupying
a portion of the country stretching from the Santee to the Pedee,
including t