with the blood of the helpless Americans. Though it may be true that neither Lord Rawdon nor Col. Balfour took any part, personally, in such proceedings, yet these outrages passed under their eyes, and if they did not see them, it was because they deemed it politic to turn away from the scene, and purposely to keep themselves in ignorance of practices, of which it became them to know nothing but the benefits of which they hoped to reap. The British had stipulated that the prisoners on parole should be protected in their persons and their property, but with the full power of extending this protection, they suffered them to be indiscriminately plundered; their estates to be devastated; their slaves carried away; their stock driven off; their houses burnt; and their crops destroyed. Even the persons of the Americans were treated with as little ceremony as their property; every species of insult was heaped upon their heads; their wives and daughters were insulted in their presence, and on the slightest attempt at resistance by the heads of families, they were cruelly beaten and often savagely butchered. One of the oldest and most respectable inhabitants of this city, who was an eyewitness of many of these outrages, declares, in a paper now before us, "that the bare recollection of them, even at this day, almost curdles the blood in his veins."* We have now before us a file of the Royal Gazette, for the years 1780 and 1781, published "by authority" in Charleston, an examination of which, shews that the Commandant had deliberately adopted a system of coercion, by which, all those who had taken part in the Revolution were to be compelled to come back to their allegiance to the British Government. We all know (what fully appears from these papers) that prisoners, on parole, were often arrested and put into loathsome dungeonsthat the prison-ships were crowded with gentlemen of the highest character and standing, denied the comforts, and often the necessaries of life; that all prisoners were, by proclamation, prevented from disposing of their property, or following any pursuit or profession, and heavy penalties were threatened to those persons who should employ them in any species of labour. Turned out of their own houses, deprived of their property, prohibited to labour, and treated with every species of insult and contumely, it is not surprising that the spirit was sometimes broken, and the wretched and starving American compelled to seek bread for himself and his children, by swearing allegiance to the British Government. Against such as with more than Roman fortitude, bore up against these unjust and cruel persecutions-was prepared one still more cruel, which was to fill up their cup of bitterness. While they were themselves arrested and confined in the prison-ships, or sent to St. Augustine, an order was issued by Colonel Balfour, directing that the families of all such as did not forthwith return to their allegiance should depart from the city; but whither they were to fly, or how they were to procure the means of subsistence, it was impossible to conjecture. In the midst of this state of things, Mr. Hayne found himself in the beginning of the year 1781-the whole country, in and about his plantation, being in the actual occupation of the Royal militia. The small-pox, then the most dreadful pestilence known in America, had broken out in his family. His wife and several of his children lay at the point of death. At this unhappy and critical period, he was imperiously required by the Commander of the British forces in his immediate neighbourhood, to take up arms as a British subject, or to repair immediately to Charleston as a prisoner. A separation from his family, by which he must have left a beloved wife and helpless children, in the last stages of a fatal disease, to the humanity of an enemy, on whose tender mercies he well know how little reliance could be placed, seemed now to be inevitable. Resistance was, of course, out of the question, and enchained by his affections to the dying bed of an amiable wife and two lovely children, flight was impossible. His conduct, on this trying occasion, is thus related by Lee :"Colonel Bellingall, of the Royal militia, in the district of Hayne's residence, waited on him from personal respect, and communicated the orders he had received. Hayne asserted his inviolability under the capitulation of Charleston, represented that the small-pox was then raging in his family, that all his children were ill with the disease, that one of them had already died, and his wife was on the verge of dissolution. Finding the remonstrance unavailing, he declared to Bellingall that no human force should remove him from the side of his dying wife." A discussion followed, and Mr. Hayne was at length assured, that on proceeding to Charleston, he should be permitted to return to his family, on merely engaging to "demean himself as a British subject, so long as that country should be covered by the British army." Thus seduced, he repaired to Charleston, and "presented himself to Brigadier General Paterson, with the written agreement of Colonel Bellingall, and solicited permission to return home." The request was refused, and he was then told that he must either become a British subject, or submit to close confinement. In this cruel and unexpected dilemma, Mr. Hayne was reduced to the alternative of abandoning his wife and children to their fate, or of swearing allegiance to the British crown. He had, by an unworthy artifice, been drawn into the hands of his enemies, and he was now to decide between his duties as a husband and a father, and his obligations as a citizen. In the agony of his soul, he waited on his friend Dr. Ramsay, and addressed him in the following words :" If the British would grant me the indulgence, which we, in the day of our power, gave to their adherents, of removing my family and property, I would seek an asylum in the remotest corner of the United States, rather than submit to their Government; but, as they allow no other alternative than submission, or confinement in the capital, at a distance from my wife and family, at a time when they are in the most pressing need of my presence and support, I must, for the present, yield to the demands of the conquerors. I request you to bear in mind, that previous to my taking this step, I declare that it is contrary to my inclination, and forced on me by hard necessity. I never will bear arms against my country. My new masters can require no service of me but what is enjoined by the old militia law of the Province, which substitutes a fine in lieu of personal service.— That I will pay, as the price of my protection. If my conduct should be censured by my countrymen, I beg that you will remember this conversation, and bear witness for me, that I do not mean to desert the cause of America." * Keating Simons. 1 "In this state of duress," continues the historian, "Colonel Hayne subscribed a declaration of his allegiance to the King of Great Britain, but not without expressly objecting to the clause which required him 'with his arms to support the Royal Government.' The commandant of the garrison, Brigadier General Paterson, and James Simpson, Esq. Intendant of the British police, assured him that this would never be required, and added further 'that when the regular forces could not defend the country without the aid of its inhabitants, it would be high time for the Royal army to quit it." We must here pause in our narrative, to inquire whether a sufficient apology can be offered for the conduct of Colonel Hayne in thus "taking protection ?" The Earl of Moira asks, with seeming incredulity, "where was the British officer to be found," who could have admitted of this "conditional fidelity!" And in the same spirit, he censures General Lee's credulity in believing it possible "that a principal staff-officer of the British army," could have promised to the prisoner, “a Court of General Officers," when there were none such in the Province; and yet, we shall presently quote the order itself, in which, under the signature of "C. Fraser, Townmajor," the promise is expressly made. The Earl of Moira states that the original record of all the proceedings in the case of Colonel Hayne, were thrown overboard and lost; but, fortunately, copies of the most material of them were carefully preserved by Colonel Hayne himself, and the package containing them, was (at that awful moment, when, in the presence of an assembled multitude, he was about to give an example of "how an American could die") solemnly deposited in the hands of his son. In assuming the principle that it is not possible for a British officer to be ignorant or unmindful of his duty, Lord Moira attempts to establish for his countrymen, an admirable standard of morals, and doubtless, a very convenient test of historical truth; against the adoption of which, however, at least in this country, the records of our history, and the testimony of the surviving soldiers of the Revolution, will, we apprehend, oppose an insuperable bar. It is absolutely certain, that Colonel Hayne did declare in the presence of Brigadier General Paterson, and the Intendant of Police, "that he would never bear arms against America," and, that he was assured by them "it should never be required of him." The fact was known to all the American party in Charleston; it was personally known to the historian Ramsay, who records it, and could be even now established in a Court of Justice:-and, that Major Fraser did promise "a Court of General Officers," (meaning, probably, a General CourtMartial) is equally certain. We shall not enter into an elaborate argument in vindication of the conduct of Colonel Hayne in "taking protection." The mere statement of the case, in shewing the necessities of his situation, carries with it the only vindication of which the act is susceptible. As a husband and a father, a separation from all that he held most dear, in the awful condition in which they were placed, was, perhaps, impossible; and, as he had formerly declared, "that no human force should separate him from his dying wife," so now, he felt a monitor within, which constrained him to submit to the compulsion of circumstances. Men who sit down in their closets to decide on questions of sentiment and feeling, are little qualified to come to a correct conclusion: yet we have never met with any person, who had read the simple and touching account of this part of Colonel Hayne's story, who did not admit that he was under a species of moral necessity to act as he did. Having thus made his peace with the British Government, on the only terms of which they would admit, he returned to his family, only to receive the last breath of his expiring wife, and to commit to the grave another of his children. A man less scrupulous than Mr. Hayne was, would now have considered himself as totally absolved from all his obligations to the British Government, first, by the artifice by which he had been seduced into the garrison VOL. 1. NO. 1. 11 at Charleston; and, secondly, by the moral compulsion by which he had been constrained (to use the language of that day) to "take protection." But he was a man of the most scrupulous regard to honour, and though his heart was full, almost to bursting, with indignation at the base artifices of which he had been made the victim, he resolved, most religiously, to observe the terms of the compact on his part, so long as the British Goverment should be faithful to it on theirs. The The clouds which had hung so darkly over the cause of America, now began to disperse. Greene, not more emphatically, than justly called, "the Saviour of the South," once more unfurled the banners of freedom, and rallied around him the scattered remnants of the Southern army. whigs, goaded almost to madness by the insolence and oppressions of the enemy, flew to arms, and a series of brilliant actions, in the most rapid succession, spread dismay in the British ranks and British councils, equalled only by the joy and exultation with which the emancipated Americans beheld the dawn of another glorious day. As Greene advanced in his career of conquest, the British commanders, compelled to retreat before him, like lions driven from their prey and their accustomed haunts, wreaked their indiscriminate vengeance on every thing, animate and inanimate, that fell within their reach. Colonel Hayne, whose residence was in a district originally occupied by the British troops, now found himself placed in a situation of great and peculiar embarrassment. Lord Rawdon had sought refuge in Charleston, and though the British troops, with diminished numbers, still kept the field; -the line of posts, by which they had enclosed the lower portion of the State, had been broken through, and redoubt after redoubt, fell before the arms of the advancing Americans. Parties of the mounted Militia penetrated into Colonel Hayne's neighbourhood, and he found himself at length encompassed by his former friends. An interesting anecdote is related by Lee, that at this crisis, a detachment of the American horse surrounded the house of Colonel Hayne, and the late Paul Hamilton, one of the beloved companions of his youth, endeavoured to persuade him to take part at once with his countrymen, or, at least, to aid them by a supply of horses. In his reply, he "stated frankly the change which had taken place in his political condition, refused to unite with his friends in support of a cause, the success of which was the most ardent wish of his heart," and declined to furnish the horses, declaring his fixed resolution to be faithful to his engagement to the British Government, so long as they should perform their part of the contract. At this time, the residence of Colonel Hayne |