The cruelties of the British, who subjected the vanquished to the worst treatment of war, helped his endeavors.

Shortly after the victory over Gates, Lord Cornwallis addressed an order to the British commandants at the several posts throughout the country, of which the following are extracts: "I have given orders that all of the inhabitants of this province who have subscribed, and have taken part in this revolt, should be punished with the greatest rigor; and also those who will not turn out, that they may be imprisoned and their whole property taken from them or destroyed....

I have ordered in the most positive manner that every militia man, who has borne arms with us, and afterwards joined the enemy, shall be immediately hanged!" This gentleman has been called, by some of the American writers, the "amiable Cornwallis".

It is rather difficult to say for which of his qualities this dulcet epithet was bestowed.

The preceding may well justify us in the doubt we venture to express, whether it was not given as much in mockery as compliment.