112 HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SKETCH OF 



the Maham tower, as an efficient and decisive 

 means of reducing the simple forts of the interior. 



Not the least evil attendant upon civil war is, 

 that notions of right and wrong become so con- 

 founded in our minds, that we are more disposed 

 to reconcile morality with practice, than practise 

 morality. They who see acts of aggression and 

 violence practised with applause, are apt to forget 

 that they are commendable only under the severe 

 law of necessity, and that under other circumstances 

 they are rightly considered as crimes. Men, whose 

 opinions are entitled to respect, have not hesitated 

 to ascribe the public crimes, which not long since 

 afflicted England, to the violences which the cir- 

 cumstances of civil war justified or excused ; so that 

 many a marauder and highwayman only continued 

 as a crime that course of life which he had been en- 

 couraged to commence as a duty. 



These consecutive evils of civil war were felt in 

 Carolina. After the revolution, the highways were 

 unsafe. Many now living recollect that persons 

 rarely ventured to travel the Goose Creek road 

 without arms ; and the public execution of a man 

 and his wife, in Charleston, for highway robbery, as 

 late as 1820, bear fearful testimony to the insecurity 

 of life and property, even in the neighborhood of 

 the metropolis. 



Besides highway robbery, horse-stealing was a 

 common crime. Many engaged In it ; but two in- 



