My uncle was about to invite us to the house; but Marion interrupted him by saying, "This is no time to think of visiting;" and turning to his trumpeter, ordered him to wind his horn, which was instantly done. Then placing himself at our head, he dashed off at a charging lope; with equal speed we followed and soon lost sight of my uncle Horry.
On reaching the woods, Marion ordered the troop to halt and form; when, with his usual modesty, he thus addressed us:
"Well, gentlemen, you see our situation! widely different from what it once was. Yes, once we were a happy people! Liberty shone upon our land, bright as the sun that gilds yon fields; while we and our fathers rejoiced in its lovely beams, gay as the birds that enliven our forests. But, alas! those golden days are gone, and the cloud of war now hangs dark and lowering over our heads. Our once peaceful land is now filled with uproar and death. Foreign ruffians, braving us up to our very firesides and altars, leave us no alternative but slavery or death. Two gallant armies have been marched to our assistance; but, for lack of competent commanders, both have been lost. That under general Lincoln, after having been duped and butchered at Savannah, was at last completely trapped at Charleston. And that under general Gates, after having been imprudently overmarched, is now cut up at Camden. Thus are all our hopes from the north entirely at an end; and poor Carolina is left to shift for herself. A sad shift indeed, when not one in a thousand of her own children will rise to take her part; but, on the contrary, are madly taking part with the enemy against her. And now, my countrymen, I want to know your minds. As to my own, that has long been made up. I consider my life as but a moment. But I also consider, that to fill that moment with duty, is my all. To guard my innocent country against the evils of slavery, seems now my greatest duty; and, therefore, I am determined, that while I live, she shall never be enslaved. She may come to that wretched state for what I know, but MY eyes shall never behold it. Never shall she clank her chains in my ears, and pointing to the ignominious badge, exclaim, "IT WAS YOUR COWARDICE THAT BROUGHT ME TO THIS."
In answer to this, we unanimously assured him, that those sentiments and resolutions were exactly our own: and that we were steadfastly determined to die with him, or conquer for our country.
"Well then, my brave friends," said he, "draw your swords! Now for a circle, emblematical of our eternal union! and pointing your blades to heaven, the bright throne of Him who made us free, swear you will never be slaves of Britain."
Which was all most devoutly done.
Soon as this patriotic rite was performed, we all dismounted, and taking our seats on the trunks of two fallen pines that lay conveniently parallel, we made our simple dinner of cold roots; and for our beverage drank of the lucid stream that softly murmured by.
The reader will please to keep in mind, that our troops consisted of but thirty mounted militia; chiefly gentlemen volunteers, armed with muskets and swords, but almost without powder and ball. How Marion came to be at the head of this little party, it may be amusing to the reader to hear.
Some short time before this date, 1779-80, when the war began to rage in South Carolina, a British captain by the name of Ardeisoff came up to Georgetown in an armed vessel, and filled the country with printed proclamations from lord Cornwallis, calling on the GOOD PEOPLE of South Carolina to submit and take royal protections!! Numbers of the ignorant and pusillanimous sort closed with the offer. But the nobler ones of the district, (Williamsburgh,) having no notion of selling their liberties for a `pig in a poke', called a caucus of their own, from whom they selected captain John James, and sent him down to master captain Ardeisoff, to know what he would be at. This captain James, by birth an Irishman, had rendered himself so popular in the district, that he was made a militia captain under the royal government. But in '75, soon as he found that the ministry were determined to tax the Americans, without allowing them the common British right of representation, he bravely threw up his commission, declaring that he would never serve a TYRANT. Such was the gentleman chosen by the aforesaid liberty caucus, to go on the embassy before mentioned. In the garb of a plain planter, James presented himself before the haughty captain Ardeisoff, and politely asked "on what terms himself and friends must submit?"
"What terms, sir!" replied the angry Briton, "what terms! why, no other terms, you may be sure, than unconditional submission."