Here is a physician,
with a wife and large family, committed for a debt which he was
unable to pay. His father's name stands among the foremost of the
State--a General of distinction, who offered his life for her in
time of war, and whose name honors her triumphs, and has since
graced the councils of state.
General Hammond, whose name occupies such a conspicuous place in the
military history of South Carolina. The father's enthusiasm for his
country's cause led him to sacrifice his all, and by it he entailed
misfortune upon his descendants. When I consider the case of
Shannon, whose eleven years and seven months' imprisonment for debt,
as it was called, but which eventually proved to be a question
turning upon technicalities of law, gave him, body and soul, to the
vindictiveness of a persecutor, whose unrelenting malignity was kept
up during that long space of time. It was merely a breach of
limitation between merchants, the rights of which should be governed
by commercial custom. Shannon had, amassed about twenty thousand
dollars by hard industry; his health was waning, and he resolved to
retire with it to his native county. The gem proved too glaring for
the lynx eye of a "true Carolinian," who persuaded him to invest his
money in cotton. Moved by flattering inducements, he authorized a
factor to purchase for him upon certain restrictions, which,
unfortunately for himself, were not drawn up with regard to legal
enforcement-one of those singular instruments between a merchant and
an inexperienced man which a professional quibbler can take
advantage of.
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