** Preparatory to the evacuation, commissioners were appointed to make arrangements to prevent the carrying away of slaves on the departure of the British. All was made satisfactory; but the promises of the enemy were shamefully violated. Moultrie says that more than eight hundred slaves, employed on the works in the city, were sent to the West Indies and sold. It has been estimated that between the years 1775 and 1783 the state of South Carolina was robbed of twenty-five thousand negroes, valued at about twelve million five hundred thousand dollars.
Destruction of the "Council Tree."—Departure from Charleston.—Wilmington.—British Occupation there.
pear, the owner of the land, and of the house shaded by the tree wherein he and his mother were born, had just felled it for fire-wood.
Instead of being its destroyer, who, in like circumstances, would not have been its defender? and when rude hands were laid upon it,
"Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,