VISIT TO EUROPE: RESIDENCE IN EDINBURGH. 183 

 of incongruities and eccentricities that I have ever met with. 



O 



This, it is said, was always the character of his mind, and 

 that it had been excited almost to a happy delirium by the 

 recent success of his party. In person, the Earl of Buchart 

 was not much above the middle size, and there was very 

 little of dignity in his appearance. His dress was coarse 

 and negligently worn, so that he might have been mistaken 

 for a very common man. Indeed, my friend Codman told 

 me that the Earl was conducted into the kitchen, while the 

 house-servant went to inform the Rev. Charles Lowell of 

 Boston, that a man wished to see him ; and of course an 

 apology was made for the blunder. 



The Earl of Mbira, olim Lord Rawdon. This distin 

 guished nobleman and commander was probably acquainted 

 with no other science than that of war. It was that dis 

 tinction which created a strong interest in my mind to see 

 a man who inflicted much suffering on my country, espec 

 ially in the Southern States, where, as the daring and im 

 petuous Loi d Rawdon, he combated our ablest generals : 

 but a stain remains permanently attached to his character 

 on account of the military execution of Col. Isaac Hayne, 

 in Charleston, in August, 1781. This act of severity, alike 

 cruel and unnecessary, brought so much odium upon Lord 

 Rawdon (then only twenty-seven years old) and his coad 

 jutor, Col. Balfour, that Lord Rawdon in 1813, thirty-four 

 years after the event, wrote an elaborate defence, which 

 was not published until 1824. This defence, with all the 

 most important historical documents relating to the trag 

 edy, is ably analyzed in the " Southern Review," (Vol. L, 

 Art. III.,) for February, 1828. A careful perusal of the 

 article has not served to change my opinion. To say the 

 least, it was a case in which clemency was demanded, and 

 it would have promoted the royal cause far more than the 

 merciless severity which was exercised. But it was in har 

 mony with the spirit which prevailed in the British coun- 



