The Life of Gen. Francis Marion, a Celebrated Partisan Officer in the Revolutionary War, Against the British and Tories in South Carolina and Georgia (Notable American Authors)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 edition. Excerpt: ... to be hung. Every body in Charleston, Britons as well as Americans, all heard this sentence with horror, except colonel Haynes himself. On his cheek alone, all agree, it produced no change. It appeared that the deed which he had done, signing that accursed paper, had run him desperate. Though the larger part, even of his enemies, believing that it was done merely from sympathy with his wife and children, felt the generous disposition to forgive him, yet he could never forgive himself. It had inflicted on his mind a wound too ghastly to be healed. To their own, and to the great honor of human nature, numbers of the British and loyalists, with governor Bull at their head, preferred a petition to lord Rawdon in his behalf. But the petition was not noticed. The ladies then came forward in his favor with a petition, couched in the most delicate and moving terms, and signed by all the principal females of Charleston, tories as well as whigs. But all to no purpose. It was then suggested by the friends of humanity, that if the colonel's little children, for they had no mother, she, poor woman! crushed under the double weight of grief and the small-pox, was just sunk at rest in the grave. It was suggested, I say, that if the colonel's little children, dressed in mourning, were to fall at the knees of lord Rawdon, he would pity their motherless condition, and give to their prayers their only surviving parent. They were accordingly dressed in black, and introduced into his presence: they fell down at his knees, and, with clasped hands and tear-streaming eyes, lisped their father's name, and begged his life: but in vain. So many efforts to save him, both by friends and generous foes, could not be made, unknown to colonel Haynes. But he appeared...