quarters" was the familiar and bitterly-derisive phrase by which, when the whigs had opportunities of revenge, his bloodthirsty treatment of the overthrown and captive was remembered and requited.
The entire colony in his possession—all opposition, worthy the name, at an end—the victor, the better to secure his conquest, marched an army throughout the county. His presence, for the time, had the desired effect. His appearance quelled disaffection, overawed all open discontents, and his cavalry, by superior skill and rapidity of movement, readily dispersed the little bands of Carolinians that here and there fell in his way. Nor was this exhibition of his power the only proceeding by which he laboured to secure the fruits of his victory. With an excellent judgment, he established garrisons in various eligible points of the country, in order to overawe by his continual presence: these stations were judiciously chosen for independent and co-operative enterprise alike; they were sufficiently nigh for concert—sufficiently scattered for the general control of an extensive territory. Rocky Mount, Ninety-Six, Camden, Hanging Rock, Dorchester, and a large number of military posts besides, were thus created; all amply provided with munitions of war, well fortified, and garrisoned by large bodies of troops under experienced officers.
These precautions for a time compelled submission. The most daring among the patriots were silent—the most indulgent of the loyalists were active and enterprising. To crown and secure all, Sir Henry Clinton, who was at this period commander-in-chief of the southern invading army, proclaimed a general pardon, with some few exceptions, to all the inhabitants, for their late treasonable offences—promising them a full re-instatement of their old immunities, and requiring nothing in return but that they should remain quietly in their homes. This specious and well-time indulgence had its due effect; and, in the temporary panic produced by Lincoln's defeat, the fall of the metropolis, the appearance of an army so formidable as that of the British, and the establishment of military posts and fortresses all around them, the people generally put on a show of acquiescence to the authority of the invader, which few in reality felt, and which many were secretly but resolutely determined never to submit to.
