Their friends having left them, Mr. Yonge sent for his daughter to his own plantation. The ladies were obliged to walk three miles, the horses having been taken away; but umbrellas were sent for them, and they were attended by two of Mr. Yonge's negro men armed with clubs. While crossing a place called the Sands, the blacks captured and wounded a negro belonging to the loyalists, who came out of the woods. Mrs. Wilkinson interfered to save his life; and to insure the safety of the poor creature who claimed her protection, and who was dragged on rapidly by his captors—they fearing pursuit—was obliged to walk very fast, leaving the others behind, till she was ready to faint from fatigue and the overpowering heat. They arrived safe at her father's, whence they were driven ere long by another alarm. This time their flight was in darkness, through bogs and woods, stumbling against the stumps or each other. In their new abode they had more security. Parties of friends were out continually, keeping the enemy quiet; and sometimes in the night soldiers would ride up, and bid the negroes tell the ladies they might sleep soundly, for they were to maintain a patrol during the night.
At length the arrival of General Lincoln was announced; and he was joyfully welcomed by the inmates of the house. That night two or three hundred men were quartered on the plantation—some of the officers sleeping in the hall. They refused to have beds made. "Beds were not for soldiers; the floor or the earth served them as well as anywhere else." At daybreak they moved to camp. Another alarm occurred, and General Lincoln's defeat near Stono Ferry, caused the retreat of the family to Willtown. Our writer's pen had thence to record only new aggressions and sufferings.
The siege and capitulation of Charleston brought the evils under which the land had groaned, to their height. The hardships endured by those within the beleaguered city—the gloomy resignation of hope—the submission to inevitable misfortune, have been described by abler chroniclers. The general feeling is expressed in a letter from a soldier to his wife, written twelve days before the event:
"Our affairs are daily declining; and not a ray of hope remains to assure us of our success.... I expect to have the liberty of soon returning to you; but the army must be made prisoners of war. This will give a rude shock to the independence of America; and a Lincolnade will be as common a term as a Burgoynade.... A mortifying scene must be encountered; the thirteen stripes will be levelled in the dust; and I owe my life to the clemency of the conqueror."
After the surrender, Mrs. Wilkinson visited the city, went on board the prison-ship, and drank coffee with the prisoners awaiting an exchange. She saw the departure of her friends who were driven into exile, and indulged herself occasionally in provoking her enemies by sarcastic sallies. "Once," she writes, "I was asked by a British officer to play the guitar.
"'I cannot play; I am very dull.'
"'How long do you intend to continue so, Mrs. Wilkinson?'
"'Until my countrymen return, sir!'
"'Return as what, madam?—prisoners or subjects?'
"'As conquerors, sir!'