These young men from the beginning of the Stamp Act agitation, when they were just coming of age, sympathized warmly with their oppressed countrymen on the other side of the ocean, and soon after their return home they entered the Continental army and served gallantly throughout the war. In 1780 we find Charles Cotesworth Pinckney writing to his wife in the following noble strain: "Our friend, Philip Neyle was killed by a cannon-ball coming through one of the embrasures; but I do not pity him, for he has died nobly in the defense of his country; but I pity his aged father, now unhappily bereaved of his beloved and only child." To one of his young friends he wrote soon after: "If I had a vein that did not beat with love for my country, I myself would open it. If I had a drop of blood that could flow dishonorably, I myself would let it out." It was the fortune of both these brothers to be held for a long time by the enemy as prisoners of war. The elder was captured upon the surrender of Charleston. The younger was desperately wounded at the battle of Camden, and was about to be transfixed by a bayonet, when a British officer who had known him at college recognized his features, and cried out in the nick of time: "Save Tom Pinckney!" The uplifted bayonet was withheld, and the wounded man was borne from the field a prisoner. After the peace, General C. C. Pinckney was a member of the convention which framed our Constitution. During the Presidency of General Washington, he declined, first a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court, and twice declined entering the cabinet. During the last year of Washington's administration, he accepted the appointment of Minister to France, and it was while residing in Paris, that he uttered a few words which will probably render his name immortal. He was associated with Chief Justice Marshall and Elbridge Gerry, and their great object was to prevent a war between the United States and France. It was during the reign of the corrupt Directory that they performed this mission; and Talleyrand, the Minister of War, gave them to understand that nothing could be accomplished in the way of negotiation unless they were prepared to present to the government a large sum of money. The honest Americans objecting to this proposal, Talleyrand intimated to them that they must either give the money or accept the alternative of war. Then it was that the honest and gallant Charles Cotesworth Pinckney uttered the words which Americans will never forget till they have ceased to be worthy of their ancestors: "War be it, then!" exclaimed General Pinckney, "Millions for defense, sir; but not a cent for tribute!" On his return to the United States, war being imminent with France, he was appointed a Major-general in the army, and in the year 1800 he was a candidate for the Presidency. He lived to the year 1825, when he died at Charleston at the age of seventy-nine.