... Being forced to wade deep through cane swamps or woody
thickets, it proved very troublesome to keep my firearms dry on
which, as a second means, my life depended."
Nevertheless Adair defeated the Governor's attempt to steal his
trade, and later on published the whole story in the Charleston
press and sent in a statement of his claims to the Assembly, with
frank observations on His Excellency himself. We gather that his
bold disregard of High Personages set all Charleston in an
uproar!
Adair is tantalizingly modest about his own deeds. He devotes
pages to prove that an Indian rite agrees with the Book of
Leviticus but only a paragraph to an exploit of courage and
endurance such as that ride and swim for the Indian trade. We
have to read between the lines to find the man; but he well
repays the search. Briefly, incidentally, he mentions that on one
trip he was captured by the French, who were so
"well acquainted with the great damages I had done to them and
feared others I might occasion, as to confine me a close prisoner
...in the Alebahma garrison. They were fully resolved to have
sent me down to Mobile or New Orleans as a capital criminal to
be hanged...BUT I DOUBTED NOT OF BEING ABLE TO EXTRICATE
MYSELF SOME WAY OR OTHER. They appointed double centries over me
for some days before I was to be sent down in the French King's
large boat.
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