The effect of such a proceeding, in the present instance, might have been of the most fatal character.

The 'esprit de corps' might have prompted the immediate followers of the offender to have seized upon their weapons, and, though annihilated, as Horry tells us they would have been, yet several valuable lives might have been lost, which the country could ill have spared.

The mutiny would have been put down, but at what a price! The patience and prudence of Marion's character taught him forbearance.
His mildness, by putting the offender entirely in the wrong, so justified his severity, as to disarm the followers of the criminals.
These, as we have already said, were about sixty in number.

Horry continues: "Their intentions were, to call upon these men for support--our officers well knew that they meant, if possible, to intimidate Marion, so as to [make him] come into their measures of plunder and Tory-killing." The affair fortunately terminated without bloodshed.

The prudence of the general had its effect.