refused to renew their obligations, and to give reasonable security,
or when justly suspected of intentions to leave the province,
or to defraud their creditors; and they appointed committees
in the several districts and parishes in the state, which were called
committees of public safety, to carry these acts into effect.
These exercised high municipal authority, and supported generally
by a population sometimes intemperate, inflicted singular punishments**
upon such as were not only guilty, but even suspected, of infringing
the association. The provincial congress also, after receiving
the news of the battle of Lexington, determined upon a defensive war,
and resolved to raise two regiments of infantry, and one of cavalry.
Marion was elected a captain in the second regiment of these two,
of which William Moultrie was colonel. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,
and Thomas Pinckney, since so much distinguished, were likewise elected
captains in this regiment at the same time. The first of Captain Marion's
appearing in arms against the British, was in the latter part of this year,
when he acted as one of three captains under Colonel Motte,
in taking possession of Fort Johnson, on James Island. On this occasion
much resistance was expected, but the garrison abandoned the fort,
and escaped to two British vessels, the Tamar and Cherokee,
then lying in Charleston harbour. In the autumn of the same year
a post was established at Dorchester, where it was thought prudent
to send part of the military stores, and the public records out of Charleston;
and here Captain Marion had the command. This is only worthy of remark
in the circumstance, that as the climate of this place is remarkably bad
in autumn, it shows that our patriots had already so much enthusiasm
in the cause in which they had embarked, that they refused no station,
however perilous. As the provincial congress and committees of public safety
exercised all the legislative and judicial powers in the state,
as might have been expected, they soon became too complicated for them,