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'I've thought of nothing else all the way from Savannah here. But I haven't found the answer.'

'We shall have to seek help,' said Moultrie; 'and, after all, it's your duty to Pinckney and Laurens, and one or two others, to let them know of this.'

'The fewer we tell, the better.'

'Of course. Of course. A half-dozen at most, and those men that are well above suspicion.'

Later on in the course of that day six gentlemen of prominence in the colonial party repaired to Colonel Moultrie's house on Broad Street in response to his urgent summons. In addition to Laurens and Pinckney, there was Christopher Gadsden, long and lean and tough in the blue uniform of the newly established First Provincial Regiment, to the command of which he had just been appointed. A veteran firebrand, President of the South Carolina Sons of Liberty, he was among the very few who at this early date were prepared to go the length of demanding American Independence. With him came the elegant, accomplished William Henry Drayton, of Drayton Hall, who like Latimer was a recent convert to the party of Liberty, and who brought to it all the enthusiasm and intolerance commonly found in converts. His position as President of the Secret Committee entitled him to be present. The others making up this extemporaneous committee were the two delegates to the Continental Congress, the Irish lawyer John Rutledge, a man of thirty-five who had been prominent in the Stamp-Act Congress ten years ago, and famous ever since, and his younger brother Edward.