Although operations between the main armies were suspended during the hot and unhealthy season, the partisan corps on both sides were actively employed. This it was which added such additional horrors to the war in the South. Houses were plundered and burned and their inhabitants murdered, women and children seldom being spared. One great object of plunder was slaves. Sumter paid his men in this manner. The number of slaves carried off during the war is estimated at 30,000. Lord Dunmore, at the commencement of the struggle, armed the slaves against their masters; and had the British persevered in this plan, and, treating the slaves as men and king’s subjects, converted them into soldiers, the conquest of the Southern States would have been almost inevitable.[41] Lord Rawdon soon after returned to England, in consequence of ill health, and the command devolved upon Colonel Stuart. Before his departure from Charleston, however, a tragical circumstance occurred there which greatly irritated the Carolinians and threw great odium upon the British. This was the execution of Colonel Isaac Hayne, a firm patriot, who, at the commencement of the war, had entered with ardour into the republican struggle and assisted in person at the defence of Charleston. On the surrender of the city, having been offered British protection or rigorous confinement, he was weak enough to choose the former, it being urged in his excuse, that his wife and children were ill of the small-pox, and this was his only alternative to avoid being separated from them. When the British were driven from his neighbourhood, he took up arms against them, and in this condition was taken prisoner and brought before Colonel Balfour, the commandant of the place, who condemned him to death. Every effort was used to save his life; General Greene avowed his determination to retaliate; the loyalists, with the governor at their head, and the most distinguished women of Charleston, begged for his life, as did his little children, dressed in deep mourning. But in vain; Lord Rawdon reluctantly gave his consent to the execution, which accordingly took place, causing a universal execration.