Here they learned to be watchful and circumspect, cool in danger, steady in advance, heedful of every movement of the foe, and--which is of the very last importance in such a country and in such a warfare as it indicates--happily dextrous in emergencies to seize upon the momentary casualty, the sudden chance--to convert the most trivial circumstance, the most ordinary agent, into a means of extrication or offence.

It was in this last respect particularly, in being quick to see, and prompt to avail themselves of the happy chance or instrument, that the partisans of the revolution in the southern colonies, under Marion and others, asserted their vast superiority over the invader, and maintained their ground, and obtained their final triumph, in spite of every inequality of arms and numbers..