Its possession, with that of Savannah, would not only enable them to complete their ascendency in the two provinces to which these cities belonged, but would probably give them North Carolina also.

Virginia then, becoming the frontier, it would be easy, with the cooperation of an army ascending the Chesapeake, to traverse the entire South with their legions, detaching it wholly from the federal compact.

Such was the British hope, and such their policy.

There was yet another motive for the siege of Charleston, considered without reference to collateral or contingent events.

Esteemed erroneously as a place of great security--an error that arose in all probability from the simple fact of the successful defence of Fort Moultrie--it was crowded with valuable magazines.