CHAPTER 11.
Marion's Camp at Snow's Island--The Character of his Warfare--Of his Men--Anecdotes of Conyers and Horry--He feasts a British Officer on Potatoes--Quells a Mutiny.
Marion's career as a partisan, in the thickets and swamps of Carolina, is abundantly distinguished by the picturesque; but it was while he held his camp at Snow's Island, that it received its highest colors of romance.

In this snug and impenetrable fortress, he reminds us very much of the ancient feudal baron of France and Germany, who, perched on castled eminence, looked down with the complacency of an eagle from his eyrie, and marked all below him for his own.

The resemblance is good in all respects but one.

The plea and justification of Marion are complete.
His warfare was legitimate.

He was no mountain robber,--no selfish and reckless ruler, thirsting for spoil and delighting inhumanly in blood.
The love of liberty, the defence of country, the protection of the feeble, the maintenance of humanity and all its dearest interests, against its tyrant--these were the noble incentives which strengthened him in his stronghold, made it terrible in the eyes of his enemy, and sacred in those of his countrymen.