In two years after he was called to perform more painful duties. He was appointed a judge of the civil and criminal courts of his native state, under the new order of things. Several persons were arraigned before him, charged with a treasonable correspondence with the enemy—they were found guilty, and condemned to be hung in sight of the British lines at Charleston. With feelings of humanity, but with the firmness of a Roman, he performed his duty, and pronounced upon them the penalty of the law.
Judge HEYWARD also participated in the military perils of “the times that tried men’s souls.” He commanded a company of artillery at the battle of Beaufort, and was severely wounded. At the attack upon Savannah he was also actively engaged. At the siege of Charleston he commanded a battalion, and was one of the unfortunate prisoners who were transferred to St. Augustine. During his absence his property was pillaged, and his amiable and accomplished wife, the daughter of Mr. Matthews, whom he had married in 1773, was laid in the grave. The tidings of these heart-rending afflictions did not reach him until he was exchanged and returned to Philadelphia. With the calm and dignified fortitude of a christian, a philosopher, and a hero, he met the shafts of afflictive fate. He mourned deeply, but submissively, the premature exit of the companion of his bosom. His physical sufferings and loss of property he freely offered at the altar of liberty, without a murmur or a sigh.
He again resumed his judicial duties upon the bench, and discharged them ably and faithfully until 1798. He was an influential member of the convention that framed the Constitution of South Carolina in 1790. Old age and infirmity finally admonished him that his mission on earth was fast drawing to a close, and he retired from the public arena, covered with epic and civic honours, lasting as the pages of history. In the full fruition of a nation’s gratitude and of a nation’s freedom he spent his last years, and in March, 1809, went to his final rest, leaving his second wife, Miss E. Savage, and his children, to mourn the loss of a kind husband and tender father; and his country to regret the loss of a devoted patriot, an able judge, and an honest man.