Chapter 6.

Times growing squally -- the author sets out a vagrant hunting --
gets into hot water -- narrowly escapes with his life --
catches a host of vagabonds, but learns from experience,
that, though a rascal may do to stop a bullet, 'tis only the man of honor
that can make a good soldier.



"The devil," said George Whitefield, "is fond of fishing in muddy waters" --
hence it is, I suppose, that that grand demagogue has always been
so fond of war -- that sunshine and basking time of rogues,
which calls them out, thick as May-day sun calls out the rattle-snakes
from their stony crannies.

In times of peace, the waters are clear, so that if the smallest Jack
(villain) but makes his appearance, eagle-eyed justice, with her iron talons,
is down upon him in a moment. But let war but stir up the mud of confusion,
and straightway the eyes of justice are blinded -- thieves turn out in shoals:
and devils, like hungry fishing-hawks, are seen by the eye of faith,
hovering over the wretched fry, screaming for their prey.

This was exactly the case in South Carolina. The war had hardly raged there
above a twelvemonth and a day, before the state of society
seemed turned upside down. The sacred plough was every where seen
rusting in the weedy furrows -- Grog shops and Nanny houses