he is to any support. Good God! shall it be said that this man has dared to venture near three hundred miles from the sea coast, and about two hundred from any of his Posts, and shall be permitted again to return! I cannot believe it. It is said we want arms. Has not every peasant in Va. and N. Carolina a gun? With what weapons were the battles of Bunker Hill, Bennington, and King's Mountain fought? But I will not dwell on a subject which affords so much Chagrin. I will suppose that the Spirit of America has again roused, and that Saratoga is revived at Saura Town. I have been unwearied in my applications for a maritime force from Rhode Island, and should in my last have informed you that I had at last obtained it through the French Minister, but was afraid to trust it to paper, as it was so profound a secret that no one in Philadelphia, except him and myself, knew it had sailed until we had reason to expect it had arrived. Altho' it had not all the desired effect, it has at least been serviceable in transmitting about Eleven Hundred stand of Arms, some considerable quantity of Clothing, medicines and military stores, which were intended for Virginia, but taken, re-taken and carried into Rhode Island-which was done at the request of the Delegates. *

*

*

it will bring such as have families, and live in any manner suitable to their station, with the utmost economy, above one hundred pounds per annum in debt, -exclusive of travelling home once a year, which is a recess from business.

FROM DR. WM. SHIPPEN, JR., TO R. H. LEE.

Philad'a, 25th Aug., 1770.

We are much disappointed in not seeing you here with your son or sons on your way to Dr. Witherspoon. Your Sister will be very happy when that time comes and prays it may be very soon. I am persuaded there is not such a school on the Continent. Your cousin Henry Lee is in College and will be one of the first fellows in this country.-He is more than strict in his morality; he he has a fine genius and is too diligent.— Charles is in the grammar School and the Dr. expects much from his genius and application too. If you will be here by the 24th of September I will escort you to the Commencement at Princeton, which will be on the 25th.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Philad'a, 14th Aug., 1773. By this time you have received my letters by Lawyer Colston and I expect an answer by your son with Col. Henry Lee in Capt. Coburn. The Col. is coming to see his son take his first degree at Princeton College.

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OF GEN'L WEEDON TO R. H. LEE.

Valley Forge, Feb. 1st., 1778. -Nothing extraordinary between the two armies since my last, except a coup de main attempted by two hundred Brit

ish Light horse on your relation Capt. Harry Lee. That little Hero is quartered about 6 miles below this Post; the Enemy formed a scheme of taking him by surprise, on the 20th Jan'y at night set out upon this Expedition, by a circuitous route of 20 miles eluded the vigilance of his Videttes, and arrived at his Quarters just at day light. By his activity he first secured the doors, which they made many fruitless attempts to force; he then mustered up his garrison which he found to consist of a corporal and 4 men, May or Jamieson, who happened there by chance, his Lieut., Lindsay, and himself, amounting to eight in the whole, and by his judiciously posting his men, tho' he had not a sufficient number to man each window, he obliged them disgracefully to retire after an action of near half an hour. Lieut. Lindsay rec'd a a slight wound in his hand, four or five of his men who were out of the house got taken; five of the Enemy were killed, and several others are licking their sores. When they found forcing the doors was rather hazardous, their next attempt was to take off his horses that were in a stable some small distance from the House, which were enfiladed by the end windows, to which place he immediately drew his troops. Here he found it necessary to perform a manoeuvre, and cheering up his men, called out aloud, "Fire away my dear Fellows, here comes our Infantry, we will have them all by G―.” This produced a precipitate scamper, he sallied, mustered his troops together, which were stationed in different parts of the neighbourhood for the conveniency of Forage, and pursued, but to no purpose. This is allowed to be as brave a thing as has happened this war, and is confessed by all a piece of distinguished merit. Indeed his hidden impulses for military achievements are daily transpiring. * * *

H. LEE, JR., TO R. H. LEE.

Camp on Cape Fear River,
3d, April 1781.

--Lord Cornwallis is on his march to

wards Wilmington; he left Cross Creek on the 1st inst.

Gen'l Greene moves to-morrow; our wants are so many and so pressing that I cannot indulge myself with a long letter.

One of my servants has orders to call on you, on his way to Philad'a with some papers belonging to me, which my servant neglected to send away in due season, and which it is necessary to preserve. I take the liberty to request your care of them. They will serve to inform you more fully of the present, as well as past situation of affairs here than I can do in the compass of one epistle.

Camp on the High Hills of Santee,
July 24th, 1781.

I received your letter in answer to mine by Capt. Carns. The late reinforcement from England and Ireland amounted to 2500 men, and arrived at a most critical juncture. The siege of Ninety Six which had been pushed with the utmost vigor, was nearly at a period, as our approaches were nearly completed. Lord Rawdon lost no time on having his hands strengthened, in moving towards the relief of that most important post. If you examine the Map of this Country you will find Ninety Six especially valuable to the Enemy, as it is centrical to a rich and populous back country, and commands the settlements between the Saluda and Broad Rivers. At the same time it renders the possession of the Country on the Congaree more secure and communicates with Charleston without the intervention of any considerable River. To possess Camden the Santee or the Congaree must be passed to possess Augusta the Savannah must be passed.

These were difficulties which our comparative situations forbid the Enemy to encounter. Every effort was used by Gen'l Greene to harrass the Enemy on their long march and thereby delay the approach. The Militia under Gen. Sumpter were collected the small body of them which arrived in season were joined to the Cavalry of the Army and put under Lieut. Col. Washington, to meet and difficult

the progress of his Lordship. These measures availed naught: and the near appoach of the foe obliged Gen. Greene to relinquish the siege. Previous to which, our works being far advanced, the General attempted a storm. This decision was taken on the wisest principles, and the operation was executed with the most brilliant gallantry. Our success was par tial; and the ensuing morning our troops crossed the Saluda. Lord Rawdon was in fifteen miles and followed us rapidly. The pursuit was vain, and his Lordship after two days advance retired to Ninety Six. General Greene, having received a small reinforcement and gathered some militia, made a forward movement. The Legion was directed to lay close to the Enemy. In this posture of things Lord Rawdon determined to relinquish Ninety Six, and of course the whole back country. This was the great point for which we had been contending: to reduce his Lordship to which all of our measures were pointed. Lord Rawdon moved in two divisions, each equal to our collected strength, only in Cavalry, in which we had a superiority in number as well as quality. Col. Cruger commanded the rear division and continued at Ninety Six till his Lordship gained the Post on the Congaree, formerly fort Granby. Gen. Greene moved with the utmost vigilance to reach the Enemy before a junction could be effected.

While Lord Rawdon lay on the Congaree a squadron of the Legion Cavalry obtained a complete victory over the British horse, made fifty prisoners, and destroyed the whole body, five only excepted. Captain Eggleston has the honour of this enterprise. After this event, his Lordship renewed his march: Col. Cruger was obliged to file off to his right, taking his route on the south side of the Edisto River, Gen. Greene being so far advanced as to intercept the direct road. Our army crossed the Congaree, and followed his Lordship by forced marches, anxious to bring him to battle in his divided state. We came up with the Army at Orangeburg which is a small village on the north side of the Edisto, with a bridge over the River at the town.

The position is most strong, and has one uncommon advantage, a certain retreat by means of the bridges, which circumstance denies the least improvement to victory. A large brick jail commands the bridge, and the ground is so close and broken that Cavalry cannot act. These reasons obliged Gen. Greene to resign his intentions of attacking the Enemy in their Camp, and Lord Rawdon would not hazard an action by advancing on us.

Baffled in this favourite wish, it was necessary to adopt measures which promised to produce the same end; for altho' we had recovered all the back country, and had had the satisfaction of chasing Lord Rawdon from the Congaree, we plainly foresaw that on the junction of Cruger the enemy would advance, and that we should be under the necessity of yielding the Congaree, or risqueing an unequal action. We also wished to force them to leave Orangeburg and to confine them to Charleston and its dependencies, that our wearied soldiers might repose during the hot weather in a healthy country, and that the Enemy might be subject from their position to all the disadvantages of the Climate.

Monk's Corner and Dorchester are the two points which comprehend the Country necessary for the ready support of Charleston. The first is 30 miles distant from the town towards the Santee or Cooper River. The latter is in front of the town, 20 miles distant on Ashley River. At this time the Enemy had 550 infantry and 100 cavalry at Monk's Corner, and a Captain's command at Dor

cester.

Gen. Greene determined, on being disappointed in bringing Lord Rawdon to battle, to move his army to Summer Quarters, and to form a detachment to strike at Monk's Corner. The Army accordingly moved to this place, the most healthy in the State; and the detachment formed under General Sumpter-of which the Legion was part,-marched towards Monk's Corner. To cover Gen. Sumpter fully, and to caution the Enemy as to leaving their interior possessions, I was detatched with a body of horse, with directions to move towards Charleston, and

to act as circumstances should advise, afterwards to join Gen. Sumpter. The full execution of this enterprise ensured to us all our wishes. The troops moved off in high spirits, and the Enemy, as we have experienced, were totally in the dark as to our intentions.

Lord Rawdon continued waiting at Orangeburgh for Col. Cruger, who joined him two days after we moved. Orangeburgh is 80 miles and upwards from Monk's Corner. In my letter of this date to your brother, I will conclude the Journal of Affairs here to the present day.

Among all the numerous sources of dispute and litigation which bave made enemies of neighbours, filled court-houses with clients, and lawyer's pockets with fees, none have ever been more prolific than the boundary lines of property in real estate, and individuals and clans and nations have not unfrequently, from disputes of this kind, lived at open war with those whom it was their interest as well as their duty to conciliate, and, if necessary, to assist and protect.

In the ante-revolutionary history of this country, we have accounts of more than one dispute of this kind, involving protracted negotiations and compromises, sometimes resulting in bloodshed and even loss of life. New York and Connecticut, Virginia and North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia, Delaware and Maryland, and Pennsylvania with Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, have at various times indulged in negotiations and treaties and dissensions until their true boundary lines were decided: the representatives of each colony acting upon the maxim of Hotspur, when he says,

"I'll give thrice so much land to any welldeserving friend,

But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair."
But among all, none occasioned so much
time, expense and trouble in its settle-

ment, or mathematical skill in its determination, as the adjustment of the line which forms the Southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and divides it from Maryland and Delaware, and it is of the history of this line that we propose here to speak.

The phrase, "Mason and Dizon's Line," has been echoing in our ears ever since 1820, when, during the excited debate in Congress on the question of excluding slavery from Missouri, that eccentric son of genius, John Randolph of Roanoke, was continually harping on the words, and those words were as constantly reiterated through every newspaper in the land. The phrase thus became as common and familiar among the people as that other used by old Felix Walker of North Carolina on the same occasion, who, when the "question" was impatiently demanded, declared that his constituents expected to hear from him, and that before the vote was taken he must make a speech for Buncombeone of the counties of his district.

There is perhaps no line, real or imaginary, on the surface of the earth, not excepting even the Equator and Equinoctial, whose name has been oftener in men's mouths during the last forty years. In the halls of legislation, in the courts of justice, in the assemblages of the people, it has been as familiar as a house

hold word. Not that any particular interest was taken in the line itself, but mention of it was always expressive of the fact that the States of the Union were divided into slaveholding and nonslaveholding, into Northern and Southern, and that those who lived on opposite sides of the line of separation, were antagonistic in opinion upon an all-engrossing question whose solution and its consequences involve the gravest considerations, and is supposed to threaten even the integri y of the Republic. Its geographical has thus become lost in its political significance, and men care little when they refer to it, where it runs, what is its history, or whether limited to Pennsylvania: or, as has perhaps been most generally supposed, was bound by the Potomac river. It suggested the idea of negro slavery and that alone was enough to give it importance and notoriety though only as a name.

The consequence of this state of things has been to perpetuate the memory of the old surveyors who established it. A rare good fortune as regards their fame, for, while the engineers who located the road across the Simplon, have been forgotten in the all-absorbing renown of the master whom they servedwhile of the thousands who sail past the Eddystone, not one perhaps knows who it was that erected on a crag, in the midst of the sea, the wondrous lighthouse that has now defied the tempests of a century; while oblivion has been the lot of other benefactors of mankind, whose works of every day utility should have been their enduring monument, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon who, ninety years ago, ran a line through the forest until the Indians forbade the further progress of chain and compass, and whose greatest merit seems to have been that of accurate surveyors, have obtained a notoriety for their names as lasting as the history of our country. An inspection of the map of the United States shows the boundaries in most cases to be either rivers, the crests of mountain ranges, parallels of latitude or meridians of longitude. In but a single instance has the circle, with its geo

metrical accuracy, been employed to indicate a dividing line of contiguous States, and the inquiry at once suggests itself, why the Southern frontier of Pennsylvania was not prolonged to the New Jersey shore; why the Eastern one of Maryland was not made to strike it, and why a circle should be the Northern boundary of Delaware--the odd result of which has been to leave so narrow a strip of Pennsylvania between Delaware and Maryland, that the ball of one's foot may be in the former, the heel in the latter, while the instep forms an arch over a portion of the Keystone State itself then from the initial point of the latitudinal line, near the circle, it stretches away to the West through field and forest, intent only upon preserving its course without being deflected by either the channel of a river or the crest of a mountain. Climbing obliquely the summit of the Alleghanies, it turns its back upon the fountains which feed the Atlantic, and rushing down into the Ohio valley, stoops in its pathway to drink of the crystal waters of the Youghiogheny. Rising refreshed and with its eye fixed to the West, it hurries on regardless of the intersecting line of a sister sovereignty, and stalking across the Cheat and the Monongahela, stops amidst the Fish Creek hills, within half a day's journey of the river Ohio, as if exhausted by the rugged route it has traversed, and unable to reach that great natural boundary recognized by every other State than Pennsylvania which its current laves.

Upon a closer inspection, it will be seen that it is equally regardless of the established lines of admeasurement upon the earth's surface, conforming to neither of the limits of a degree of latitude, nor to any of its easily comprehended parts, and this without being forced into its anomalous position by any object or obstacle of nature, for at neither end does it terminate, nor in any part of its extended course does it touch upon any prominent natural landmark. It is wholly in every part and in all its forms an artificial, arbitrary line without a model or a fellow upon the continent. And yet