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a clergyman, William Tennent, to counteract. The CHAP. opposing parties prepared for war; Fort Augusta in Georgia was taken and held by the Americans; the 1775. possession of the fort at Ninety-six was disputed. Quiet was restored by a truce rather than by the Oct.. submission of the royalists. It was on this occasion that Andrew Pickens was first heard of as a captain in arms; a puritan in religion; a patriot in thought and deed. On the other hand, Moses Kirkland, who had accepted a commission from the council of safety, changed sides, came down to Campbell with the assurance, that on the that on the appearance of a British force, it would be joined by four thousand men, and was sent to the commander in chief at Boston for the purpose of discussing an expedition against the South. The inhabitants of the interior desired to be let alone; if compelled to take sides, a large body of them, probably a majority, inclined to the royal standard.

This deep and seemingly irreconcilable division was a fearful embarrassment to the patriots; the danger from the savages was more terrible; and the discovery that a large body of them stood ready to seize the hatchet and the scalping knife at the king's behest, set the community in a blaze. Stuart, the Indian agent for the Southern department, knew the Red Men too well to advise calling them down; but he loved his office, and had withdrawn from Charleston to St. Augustine, where he was open to the worst suggestions of the most reckless underlings, who yet were always clamoring at his dilatoriness and inef ficiency. The quickening authority of Gage was invoked; and one of the last acts of that commander was to write to him from Boston: "The people of

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CHAP. Carolina in turning rebels to their king have lost all XLVI. faith; improve a correspondence with the Indians to 1775. the greatest advantage, and even when opportunity to offers, make them take arms against his majesty's enemies, and distress them all in their power; for no terms are now to be kept with them; they have brought down all the savages they could against us here, who, with their riflemen, are continually firing upon our advanced sentries; in short, no time should be lost to distress a set of people so wantonly rebellious; supply the Indians with what they want, be the expense what it will, as every exertion must now be made on the side of government." On receiving this order, in which Indians and riflemen of the backwoods were purposely confounded, Stuart promised the strictest obedience; he sent by way of Pensacola to the Lower Creeks and even to the Chickasaws; he looked with impatience for answers to his messages to the different nations. To the Upper Creeks he despatched his own brother as confidential envoy, "to say publicly, that the want of trade and ammunition was entirely owing to the rebels;" that, "if they would attach themselves to the king's interest, they should find plenty pouring in upon them;" and he was also to bribe Emistisico, the great chief of the Upper Creeks, by promising him "in private the greatest honor and favor, if he would exert himself to bring the king's rebellious white subjects to reason and a sense of their duty." The same method was pursued with the Second Man of the Little Tallassees, and with the Overhill Cherokees and their assembled chiefs; to whom, as well as to the Upper Creeks, ammunition was distributed, that they might be ready "to act in the execution of

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any concerted plan for distressing the rebels." Cam- CHAP. eron, the deputy agent, shrunk from the thought, saying: "I pray God there may be no intention to in- July volve the Cherokees in the dispute; for should the Indians be prompted to take up the hatchet against the colonies, they could not be restrained from committing the most inhuman barbarities on women and children. I am averse to acts of this nature, though my duty to my sovereign exceeds all other considerations."

But the greatest danger to the planters was from the sea, and the council of safety slowly and reluctantly admitted the necessity of defending the harbor of Charleston. During the summer, ships were boarded off Savannah river, and near St. Augustine, and more than twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder were obtained. The export of rice was allowed on no other terms than that it should be exchanged for arms and ammunition, which were obtained from Hispaniola and from the French and Dutch islands. The governor was all the while urging the ministry to employ force against the three southernmost provinces; and the patriots were conscious of his importunities. A free negro man of property, charged with the intention of piloting British ships up the channel to the city, perished on the gallows, though protesting his innocence. All who refused the association were disarmed, even though they were in the service of the crown. On the thirteenth of September, just after a full discovery of the intrigues of the governor with the country people, his arrest was proposed; yet, on the opposition of Rawlins Lowndes, the motion was defeated in the general committee by a vote of twenty

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CHAP. three against sixteen; but the council of safety order ed William Moultrie, colonel of the second regiment, 1775. to take possession of Fort Johnson on James Island. July to Aware of the design, the governor sent a party to Oct. throw the guns and carriages from the platform; and

on the fifteenth of September, having suddenly dissolved the last royal assembly ever held in South Carolina, he fled for refuge to comfortless quarters on board the small man-of-war, the Tamer. During the previous night, three companies commanded by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Bernard Elliott, and Francis Marion, under Lieutenant Colonel Motte, dropped down with the ebb tide from Gadsden's wharf, landed on James Island and entered the fort, in which but three or four men remained. Lord William Campbell sent Innis, his secretary, in the boat of the Tamer, to demand "by what authority they had taken possession of his Majesty's fort;" and an officer appeared and answered: "We are American troops, under Lieutenant Colonel Motte; we hold the fort by the express command of the council of safety." "By whom is this message given?" Without hesitation the officer replied: "I am Charles Cotesworth Pinckney;" and the names of Motte and Pinckney figured in the next despatches of the governor. Moultrie was desired to devise a banner; and as the uniform of the colony was blue, and the first and second regiments wore on the front of their caps a silver crescent, he gave directions for a large blue flag with a crescent in the right-hand corner. A schooner was stationed between Fort Johnson and the town, to intercept the man-ofwar's boats. A post was established at Haddrell's Point, and a fort on Sullivan's Island was proposed.

They were

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The tents on James Island contained at least five hun- CHAP. dred men well armed and clad, soldier-like in their deportment, and strictly disciplined. taught not merely the use of the musket but the exercise of the great guns. The king's arsenal supplied cannon and balls. New gun carriages were soon constructed, for the mechanics, almost to a man, were hearty in the cause. Hundreds of negro laborers were brought in from the country to assist in work. None stopped to calculate expense.

The heroic courage of the Carolinians, who, from a generous sympathy with Massachusetts, went forward to meet greater danger than any other province, was scoffed at by the representatives of the king as an infatuation. Martin, of North Carolina, making himself busy with the affairs of his neighbors, wrote in midsummer: "The people of South Carolina forget entirely their own weakness and are blustering treason, while Charleston, that is the head and heart of their boasted province, might be destroyed by a single frigate, and the country thereby reduced to the last distress. In charity to them and in duty to my king and country, I give it as my sincere opinion, that the rod of correction cannot be spared." A few weeks later, Lord William Campbell chimed in with him, reckoning up the many deadly perils by which they were environed; "the Indians;" "the disaffected back country people;" their own social condition, "where their slaves were five to one;" and the power of Britain from the sea. Before the world they offered their fortunes, the safety of their families, and their own lives in witness to their love of freedom. From Charleston harbor Campbell wrote in October: "Let