watchful and circumspect, cool in danger, steady in advance, heedful of
every movement of the foe, and -- which is of the very last importance
in such a country and in such a warfare as it indicates --
happily dextrous in emergencies to seize upon the momentary casualty,
the sudden chance -- to convert the most trivial circumstance,
the most ordinary agent, into a means of extrication or offence.
It was in this last respect particularly, in being quick to see,
and prompt to avail themselves of the happy chance or instrument,
that the partisans of the revolution in the southern colonies,
under Marion and others, asserted their vast superiority over the invader,
and maintained their ground, and obtained their final triumph,
in spite of every inequality of arms and numbers.




Chapter 2.

The Marion Family -- Birth of Francis Marion -- His Youth -- Shipwreck.



We have dwelt upon the Huguenot Settlement in Carolina,
somewhat more largely than our immediate subject would seem to require.
Our apology must be found in the obvious importance and beauty of the fact,
could this be shown, that the character of Francis Marion
was in truth a remarkable illustration, in all its parts, of the moral nature
which prevailed in this little colony of exiles: that, from the harmony
existing among them, their purity of conduct, propriety of sentiment,
the modesty of their deportment and the firmness of their virtues,