he most naturally drew all the components of his own. His hardihood,
elasticity, great courage and admirable dexterity in war,
were also the natural results of their frontier position.
We do not pretend that his acquisitions were at all peculiar to himself.
On the contrary, we take for granted, that every distinguished person will,
in some considerable degree, betray in his own mind and conduct,
the most striking of those characteristics, which mark the community
in which he has had his early training; that his actions will,
in great measure, declare what sort of moral qualities
have been set before his eyes, not so much by his immediate family,
as by the society at large in which he lives; that he will represent
that society rather than his immediate family, as it is the nature
of superior minds to rush out of the narrow circles of domestic life;
and that his whole after-performances, even where he may appear in
the garb and guise of the reformer, will indicate in numerous vital respects,
the tastes and temper of the very people whose alteration and improvement
he seeks. The memoir upon which we are about to enter, will,
we apprehend, justify the preliminary chapter which has been given
to the history of the Huguenots upon the Santee. Gabriel Marion,
the grandfather of our subject, was one of those who left France in 1685.
His son, named after himself, married Charlotte Cordes,
by whom he had seven children, five of whom were sons and two daughters.*
Francis Marion was the last. He was born at Winyah, near Georgetown,
South Carolina, in 1732; a remarkable year, as, in a sister colony
(we are not able to say how nearly at the same time), it gave birth
to GEORGE WASHINGTON. This coincidence, which otherwise it might seem
impertinent to notice here, derives some importance from the fact
that it does not stand alone, but is rendered impressive by others,
to be shown as we proceed; not to speak of the striking moral resemblances,
which it will be no disparagement to the fame of the great Virginian