Marion retires to his Farm, which he finds in Ruins -- Is returned to the Senate from St. John -- His Course on the Confiscation Act --Anecdotes -- Is made Commandant at Fort Johnson -- His Marriage --A Member of the State Convention in 1794 -- Withdraws from Public Life --His Death.
It was with no reluctance but with the cheerful preference which Marion had always given, since manhood, to the life of the farmer, that he returned to its simple but attractive avocations.
But the world with him was, as it were, to be begun anew;no easy matter to one whose habits had been necessarily rendered irregular by the capricious and desultory influences of a military career;still more difficult in the case of one who has entered upon the last period of life. The close of the Revolution found him destitute of means, almost in poverty, and more than fifty years old. His health was good, however; his frame elastic; his capacity for endurance, seemingly, as great as ever. But his little fortune had suffered irretrievably.
His interests had shared the fate of most other Southern patriots, in the long and cruel struggle through which the country had gone.
His plantation in St. John's, Berkeley, lay within a mile of one of the ordinary routes of the British army, and his career was not calculated to move them to forbearance in the case of one, whose perpetual activity and skill so constantly baffled their designs.
His estate was ravaged, and subjected to constant waste and depredation.
One-half of his negroes were taken away, and the rest only saved to him by their fidelity. The refuge in swamp and forest was as natural to the faithful negro, on the approach of the British uniforms, as to the fugitive patriot. Ten workers returned to him, when he was prepared to resume his farm, but he was destitute of everything beside.
The implements of culture, plantation utensils, household furniture, stock, cattle and horses, clothes and provisions for his people, were all wanting, and all to be purchased, and he penniless. He received no compensation for his losses, no reward for his sacrifices and services.
The hope of half pay was held out to him by his more sanguine friends, but this promise was never realized. But, with that cheerful spirit which hopes all things from time, and a meek compliance with what it brings, Marion proceeded to work out his deliverance by manly industry, and a devotion to his interests as true as that which he had yielded to the interests of his country. He had become fond of rural life, and the temporary estrangement of war seemed only to increase his desire for that repose in action, which the agricultural life in the South so certainly secures. But he was not permitted to retire from public service.
The value of his services was too well known, and there was too much yet to be done, towards the repose and security of the country, to suffer them to be dispensed with. He was again returned to the Senate of the State by the people of St. John's. In this situation, he still maintained those noble and disinterested characteristics which had made him equally beloved and venerated. Two anecdotes are preserved of him in his official character, which deserve mention. Both of these grew out of the events of the war. The importance of the Confiscation Act, passed at the session of January, 1782, at Jacksonborough, arose chiefly from the necessity of providing for the emergencies of the State and military, during the continuance of the war. Under existing circumstances, the measure was sustained by our partisan. But the case was altered when the British ministry abandoned their pretensions to the country, and when it was left by their armies. It was then that numerous offenders --those who had been least conspicuous for their Tory predilections --applied for the indulgence and forbearance of the State.
Petitions were poured into the Legislature, sustained by such pleas and friends as the circumstances of the suppliants could procure --excusing their conduct, asserting their repentance, and imploring the restoration of their possessions. Marion's course in regard to these suppliants may be inferred from his previous character.
There was nothing vindictive in his nature. He was superior to the baser cravings of a dogged vengeance, and his vote and voice declared his magnanimity. It so happened that the first of these petitions upon which he was called to act, came from one of that class of timid, time-serving persons, who, with no predilections for virtue, no sympathy for principles or country, simply shape their course with regard to safety. He was a man of wealth, and the effect of wealth in perilous times is but too frequently to render selfishness equally cowardly and dishonest. The amount of his offence consisted in trimming, while the strife was doubtful, between Whig and Tory, and siding with the latter when the British gained the ascendency.
He did not take up arms, took no active part in public affairs, and was content to shelter his person and possessions under a cautious insignificance. About eighteen months before, Marion had met the petitioner at a gathering of the people.
The latter approached and offered our partisan his hand. But the juncture was one in which it behooveth patriotism to speak out at all hazards.
The struggle was for life and death, on the part equally of Whig and Tory.
Marion knew the character of the person, and disdained it.
To the surprise of all, who knew how scrupulous of insult he was, --how indulgent and forbearing, -- he turned away from the trimmer and the sycophant without recognition. This treatment was greatly censured at the time, and when Marion rose in the Senate, to speak on the subject of the petition of the man whom he had so openly scorned, it was taken for granted that he would again give utterance to feelings of the sort which moved him then.
