`penny wit and pound foolishness'! What sir, keep a nation in ignorance,

rather than vote a little of their own money for education!
Only let such politicians remember, what poor Carolina has already lost

through her ignorance. What was it that brought the British, last war,
to Carolina, but her lack of knowledge? Had the people been enlightened,

they would have been united; and had they been united,
they never would have been attacked a second time by the British.

For after that drubbing they got from us at fort Moultrie, in 1776,
they would as soon have attacked the devil as have attacked Carolina again,

had they not heard that they were `a house divided against itself';
or in other words, had amongst us a great number of TORIES;

men, who, through mere ignorance, were disaffected to the cause of liberty,
and ready to join the British against their own countrymen.

Thus, ignorance begat toryism, and toryism begat losses in Carolina,
of which few have any idea.

"According to the best accounts, America spent in the last war,
seventy millions of dollars, which, divided among the states according to

their population, gives to Carolina about eight millions; making, as the war
lasted eight years, a million a year. Now, it is generally believed,

the British, after their loss of Burgoyne and their fine northern army,
would soon have given up the contest, had it not been for the foothold

they got in Carolina, which protracted the war at least two years longer.
And as this two years' ruinous war in Carolina was owing to

the encouragement the enemy got there, and that encouragement to toryism,
and that toryism to ignorance, ignorance may fairly be debited

to two millions of loss to Carolina.
"Well, in these two extra years of tory-begotten war, Carolina lost,

at least four thousand men; and among them, a Laurens, a Williams, a Campbell,
a Haynes, and many others, whose worth not the gold of Ophir could value.

But rated at the price at which the prince of Hesse sold his people to
George the Third, to shoot the Americans, say, thirty pounds sterling a head,

or one hundred and fifty dollars, they make six hundred thousand dollars.
Then count the twenty-five thousand slaves which Carolina certainly lost,

and each slave at the moderate price of three hundred dollars,
and yet have seven millions five hundred thousand. To this add

the houses, barns, and stables that were burnt; the plate plundered;
the furniture lost; the hogs, sheep, and horned cattle killed;

the rice, corn, and other crops destroyed, and they amount,
at the most moderatecalculation, to five millions.

"Now, to say nothing of those losses, which cannot be rated
by dollars and cents, such as the destruction of morals

and the distraction of childless parents and widows, but counting those only
that are of the plainest calculations, such as,

1st. Carolina's loss in the extra two years' war. $2,000,000
2d. For her four thousand citizens slain in that time, 600,000

3d. For twenty-five thousand slaves lost, 7,500,000
4th. For buildings, furniture, cattle, grain, &c. &c. destroyed, 5,000,000

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$15,100,000

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Making the enormous sum of fifteen millions and odd dollars CAPITAL;

and bearing an annual interest of nearly ten hundred thousand dollars besides!
and all this for lack of a few free schools, which would have cost the state

a mere nothing."
I sighed, and told him I wished he had not broached the subject,

for it had made me very sad.
"Yes," replied he, "it is enough to make any one sad.

But it cannot be helped but by a wiser course of things; for, if people
will not do what will make them happy, God will surely chastise them;

and this dreadful loss of public property is one token of his displeasure
at our neglect of public instruction."

I asked him if this were really his belief. "Yes, sir," replied he,
with great earnestness, "it is my belief, and I would not exchange it

for worlds. It is my firm belief, that every evil under the sun
is of the nature of chastisement, and appointed of the infinitely" target="_blank" title="ad.无限地；无穷地">infinitely good Being

for our benefit. When you see a youth, who, but lately,
was the picture of bloom and manly beauty, now utterly withered and decayed;

his body bent; his teeth dropping out; his nose consumed;
with foetid breath, ichorous eyes, and his whole appearance most putrid,

ghastly, and loathsome, you are filled with pity and with horror;
you can hardly believe there is a God, or hardly refrain

from charging him with cruelty. But, where folly raves, wisdom adores.
In this awful scourge of lawless lust, wisdom discerns the infinite price

which heaven sets on conjugal purity and love. In like manner,
the enormous sacrifice of public property, in the last war, being no more,

as before observed, than the natural effect of public ignorance,
ought to teach us that of all sins, there is none so hateful to God

as national ignorance; that unfailing spring of NATIONAL INGRATITUDE,
REBELLION, SLAVERY, and WRETCHEDNESS!

"But if it be melancholy to think of so many elegant houses, rich furniture,
fat cattle, and precious crops, destroyed for want of that patriotism

which a true knowledge of our interests would have inspired,
then how much more melancholy to think of those torrents of precious blood

that were shed, those cruel slaughters and massacres, that took place
among the citizens from the same cause! As proof that such hellish tragedies

would never have been acted, had our state but been enlightened,
only let us look at the people of New England. From Britain, their fathers

had fled to America for religion's sake. Religion had taught them
that God created men to be happy; that to be happy they must have virtue;

that virtue is not to be attained without knowledge, nor knowledge
without instruction, nor public instruction without free schools,

nor free schools without legislative order.
"Among a people who fear God, the knowledge of duty is the same as doing it.

Believing it to be the first command of God, "let there be light,"
and believing it to be the will of God that "all should be instructed,

from the least to the greatest," these wise legislators
at once set about public instruction. They did not ask,

how will my constituents like this? won't they turn me out?
shall I not lose my three dollars per day? No! but fully persuaded

that public instruction is God's will, because the people's good,
they set about it like the true friends of the people.

"Now mark the happy consequence. When the war broke out, you heard of
no division in New England, no toryism, nor any of its horrid effects;

no houses in flames, kindled by the hands of fellow-citizens,
no neighbors waylaying and shooting their neighbors,

plundering their property, carrying off their stock, and aiding the British
in the cursed work of American murder and subjugation. But on the contrary,

with minds well informed of their rights, and hearts glowing with love
for themselves and posterity, they rose up against the enemy, firm and united,

as a band of shepherds against the ravening wolves.
"And their valor in the field gave glorious proof how men will fight

when they know that their all is at stake. See major Pitcairn,
on the memorable 19th of April, 1775, marching from Boston,

with one thousand British regulars, to burn the American stores at Concord.
Though this heroicexcursion was commenced under cover of the night,

the farmers soon took the alarm, and gathering around them
with their fowling pieces, presently knocked down one-fourth of their number,

and caused the rest to run, as if, like the swine in the gospel,
they had a legion of devils at their backs.

"Now, with sorrowful eyes, let us turn to our own state,
where no pains were ever taken to enlighten the minds of the poor.

There we have seen a people naturally as brave as the New Englanders,
for mere lack of knowledge of their blessings possessed,

of the dangers threatened, suffer lord Cornwallis, with only
sixteen hundred men, to chase general Greene upwards of three hundred miles!

In fact, to scout him through the two great states of South and North Carolina
as far as Guilford Courthouse! and, when Greene, joined at that place

by two thousand poor illiteratemilitia-men, determined at length
to fight, what did he gain by them, with all their number,

but disappointment and disgrace? For, though posted very advantageously
behind the corn-field fences, they could not stand a single fire

from the British, but in spite of their officers, broke and fled