ABSTRACT
As soon as the dawn arose, David perceived he was approaching the cleared country, and therefore ascended a high hill which he saw before him, in order to reconnoitre. At the distance (as he supposed) of about ve or six miles, he descried some habitations of white men on the le , and a good way further o , others on the right: his wish was to avoid all these, if possible, supposing them to belong to the friends of the American cause. He continued however his route, although it was light, and endeavoured to steer his way between them. All day he kept in the deepest covert of the woods, notwithstanding the excessive di culty of penetrating through them; but in the evening he adventured nearer the path. He had not been long there, when he met two little boys with satchels on their/ backs, and these he ventured to address. ey told him they were the sons of one M‘Farlane, a Scotch planter, and that their father was absent with the army; but that their mother was at home, whither they were returning from a little school which another Scotchman kept in the neighbourhood. e innocence of the children could not inform him in which army their father served; but nding that the woman only was at home, he determined to accompany the children, and trust to her humanity for some refreshment; which if she should be so barbarous as to refuse, he thought, armed as he was, he could always secure his retreat. It is a remark pretty universally made, that hospitality is a virtue which they who live in lonely and desolate situations seldom want. David found this exempli ed in the present instance; for the good woman, with her husband, had formerly emigrated from the Highlands – a country famous for hospitality; and with many of their neighbours, who,/ like them, had ed from feudal oppressions34 and inclement skies, had transplanted their national virtues and attachments to the back woods of Carolina, where, had they been permitted to remain in peace, they would doubtless have much amended their situation. But though they were little indebted to the soil which gave them birth, yet their a ection for it could not be shaken; and therefore these honest people had most of them joined with the rest of their countrymen in adhering to the interests of the parent state; and the good man of the house was at this time actually serving in a corps of Loyalists. Nothing could then be more fortunate for poor Morgan than falling in with
the boys, who, in the innocence of their hearts, conducted him to their mother, from whom it is needless to add he met a kind reception. Having refreshed himself here for a few days, until he recovered the extreme fatigue he had undergone ever since the unfortunate day of the engagement, he set forward/ again, but under the conduct of some other young men whose fathers had also emigrated from Scotland, and who remained attached to the royal cause. Every where as they went they had the morti cation to nd that cause declining. e French had now joined the Americans e ectually, and the British forces were obliged to retreat before them, till at last the surrender of the army under Lord Cornwallis may be said to be entirely decisive of the war. Morgan had, however, before this event, rejoined his regiment, in which every o cer rejoiced to hear that there was a chance for Edward’s being still alive; but above all Captain Fanshaw, who, thinking both he and Captain Rivers slain, mourned for them with the a ection of a brother, but now rejoiced that one was still alive, and a possibility yet remaining that he might be restored to his friends and to his country.
