We must now revert to 1704, and relate the occasion of these

estrangements. The governor and dominant faction favored Episcopacy.

Lord Granville, the new Palatine, was an uncompromising zealot for

the Church of England. It was determined to establish that Church in

South Carolina. This was not contrary to the charter; but most of the

colonists were dissenters, and it would be useless at that juncture

to endeavor to win over a majority of the assembly to the support of

such a project. The assembly stood prorogued to the 10th of May. They

were summoned earlier; and on the 4th a bill was proposed and read,

requiring “all persons that shall hereafter be chosen members of the

Commons House of Assembly, and sit in the same, to take the oaths and

subscribe the declaration appointed by this bill, and to conform to

the religious worship of this Province, according to the Church of

England, and to receive the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according

to the rites of said Church.”[759] Some of the members called for the

reading of the charter: but the opposition was soon overcome; the bill

passed and was ordered to the governor and council, who passed it and

returned it to the House; Landgrave Morton, of the council, being

denied leave to enter his protest against it. It was pushed through

the requisite proceedings and ratified under date of the 6th. It was

passed by one majority,—twelve for it and eleven against it; seven

members being absent. Some who voted in the negative are said to have

been Episcopalians. The assembly was then prorogued till October.

It was required by this law that in case a representative elected

refused to qualify as directed, the next on the sheriff’s return should

be entitled to the seat, or the next, and so on till the list was

exhausted; then only should a new writ be issued. The effect was not

only to exclude dissenters, but ten men could elect a member against

the votes of a thousand. Another tyrannical abuse of party power was

exhibited in an Act establishing Religious Worship (passed on the

reassembling of the Commons), which authorized a lay commission for the

trial of ecclesiastical causes. Dalcho says in his _Church History_,

that they “were authorized to sit in the judgment-seat of spiritual

officers, and thus to wrest the ecclesiastical authority out of the

hands of the Bishop of London.” This gave offence to Churchmen. The

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, by whose liberality the

colony had been greatly benefited, resolved not to send or support any

missionaries in South Carolina, till the law, or at least that clause

of it, should be repealed. The dissenters, already elected members

of assembly, were not allowed (on reassembling in October) to enter

their protests against the conduct of the Church party. The Rev. Mr.

Marston was called to account by the commission and deprived of his

benefice, for opposing the action of the oligarchy. But the case was

carried to a higher tribunal, the House of Lords in England. Upon an

able representation of the matter, redress having been refused by the

Proprietors (under lead of Granville), a report was made to the queen,

which caused the annulment of these two provincial laws. Nor was this

all; the Board of Trade recommended the annulment of the proprietary

charter (April, 1706). Since the accession of James II. there had been

a disposition in the English authorities to revoke the charters to

companies or individuals, and bring all the American colonies into a

closer dependence on the Crown. Though the surrender of the Carolina

charter was not on this occasion effected, yet it was manifest to the

colony that an authority more potent than that of their lordships was

interested in their welfare.

Lord Granville was succeeded in the Palatinate by Lord William Craven,

and Colonel Edward Tynte was made governor. The once dominant faction,

which had been transmuted, said Archdale, by Johnson’s “chemical

wit, zeal, and art” into a High Church party, now fell asunder. Much

attention had been awakened in England to the fortunes of the colony

by the publications of Archdale and of Oldmixon and the “Case of the

Protestant Dissenters;” and Governor Tynte entered upon his duties

with kindly assurances and the wish to “render Carolina the most

flourishing colony in all America.” He did not live long, and Colonel

Charles Craven, brother of the Palatine, and previously an officer in

the colony, was appointed in his place (December, 1710). Since the days

of Joseph West, “moderate, just, pious, valiant” (says Archdale), no

man more capable and beloved than Charles Craven had governed South

Carolina. A sentence from an address of his to the Commons (April,

1712) shows the spirit of his administration. However great the honor

of this office might be, “yet I shall look on it as a greater glory

if, with your assistance, I could bring to pass so noble designs as

the safety of this province, the advancement of its riches, and, what

is more desirable” than riches, the unanimity and quiet of its people.

“To what a prodigious height hath the united provinces risen in less

than a century of years, to be able to create fear in some, envy in

others, and admiration in the whole world!” The people, aroused by the

expectation or apparent reality of their increasing importance, voted

£1,500 for the erection of a State House and £1,000 for a residence for

the governor. Unparliamentary altercations gave place to a generous

emulation for the public welfare. The governor expressed the “greatest

tenderness” towards all dissenters and assured them that nothing

should ever be done by him injurious to their liberties. Though the

law excluding them from the assembly was repealed, yet the Episcopal

party retained ascendency and the public support of the Church (by

a new Church Act) was continued. The parish system was inaugurated,

and the representatives were increased to thirty-six. The turbulence

of elections at Charles Town gave place to unmolested elections in

the respective parishes. Libraries and a free school were open to

all, and religious and educational advancement was promoted. Under

Craven’s prosperous administration, it even seemed likely that the

public debt would be liquidated, which had begun with the unlucky

expedition against St. Augustine. But fresh expenditures were demanded

in assisting North Carolina in her conflicts with the Tuscaroras; and

scarcely had Barnwell and Moore rested from that campaign, when the

most disastrous Indian war that South Carolina ever had to encounter

broke suddenly upon her unsuspecting inhabitants. The Yemassees had

been employed against the Apalatchees, and, at a later date, against

the Tuscaroras. Being enticed by the Spaniards, whom their chiefs

often visited, and being largely in debt to the English traders and

irritated by their oppressive misconduct, they turned their experience

in war against those who had taught them to fight, and, hoping for help

from St. Augustine, began an indiscriminate slaughter on the line of

settlements westward from Charles Town. Knowing the colonists to be

formidable opponents, they had allured into conspiracy with them other

Indian nations, notably the Creeks. So wide-spread was the combination

formed that the governor asked assistance from other colonies. North

Carolina in response sent aid under Colonel Maurice Moore (brother of

James Moore), a friendly service which was gratefully appreciated and

acknowledged by the assembly. But “expedition is the life of action,”

said Craven; and not awaiting assistance, he fought the foe at once,

and Colonel Mackay, in another direction, surprised their town, in

which they had vast quantities of provisions and plunder, and attacking

a fort to which they had betaken themselves carried it by assault and

completely routed them. This effectually checked the Yemassees, and

dispirited the tribes engaged to assist them. The assembly met, and,

despatching such business as was necessary, adjourned to take up their

muskets. All available forces were raised and placed under command

of Lieutenant-General James Moore and Colonels John Barnwell and

Alexander Mackay. The Yemassees, though joined by the Apalatchees, were

forced beyond the Savannah, and took up their residence in Florida.

We have not space to narrate the heart-rending or romantic incidents

of this contest. The Yemassees had acted prematurely; otherwise the

disasters to the colony would have been far greater. Many lives were

lost (estimated at 400), an immense amount of cattle, produce, and

other valuable property destroyed, and it was said that the traders

alone lost £10,000 in debts due them. But the invincibility of the

colonists was so forcibly impressed upon the minds of the Indians that

they entered into no more combinations, and never again, except in

straggling parties, penetrated to the vicinity of the fortified English

settlements.

On account of the death of Sir Anthony Craven, the governor returned

to England, leaving Colonel Robert Daniel to be deputy (1716) till the

arrival of Robert Johnson (son of Sir Nathaniel), who was appointed

to succeed him. At this time the French were extending their cordon

of forts from Canada down to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico, and

courting the alliance of the Indians who dwelt on the outskirts of

the whole line of English colonies. In view of these new dangers and

of the deserted condition of the westward parishes of the colony, the

Carolinians were compelled to keep up garrisons and troops of rangers

from the Santee to the Savannah. The expense of defending themselves

and their great losses in the recent Indian war caused an application

to the Proprietors for relief. Lord Carteret, Palatine in place of

the Duke of Beaufort (who, before, had offered on his part to give

up the colony rather than have it in need of adequate relief and

protection), wrote to the Board of Trade, “We, the Proprietors, having

met on this melancholy occasion, to our great grief find that we are

utterly unable of ourselves to afford our colony suitable assistance

in this conjuncture; and unless his majesty will graciously please

to interpose, we can foresee nothing but the utter destruction of

his majesty’s faithful subjects in those parts.” The board asked if

such of the Proprietors as were not minors were “willing to surrender

the government to the king.” There was no king upon the throne now

gratefully sensible of the distinguished services of a Clarendon,

Monk, Berkeley, Carteret, or Craven. It was not, on the other hand,

the influences of a Danson, Amy, Blake, or even the descendants of the

original Proprietors, that formed a barrier to the manifest interests

of the whole British nation; but it was the admirable love of justice

in the rulers of England that saved to the Proprietors the lavish gift

of Charles II., even after their confession of utter inability to help

their colonists. It was evident, however, that the termination of the

proprietary authority must come. The colonists made it come. We shall

now relate how this was done.

The assembly had been forced to issue bills of credit; at first to

meet the debts incurred by Moore’s expedition against St. Augustine.

This easy method of making money was continued, and of course the

bills depreciated. The London merchants complained, and the bills were

ordered to be called in and cancelled. To do this required £80,000.

This large sum the assembly undertook to pay in three years by a

tax on the lands and negroes of the colonists. Before this could be

effected the colonial income, applicable to other expenses, was reduced

by a royal order to cease the tax of ten per cent on importations of

British manufactures; and at the same time an expensive expedition

became necessary to suppress the pirates who infested the coasts,

and at times seized every ship leaving the harbor of Charles Town.

If the Proprietors were unwilling “to expend their English estates

to support much more precarious ones in America,”[760] whom were the

colonists to ask for aid, except the king? When Governor Johnson met

his first assembly, he inveighed against addresses sent to England

without consulting the Proprietors as “disrespectful,” “unjustifiable

and impolitic.” He then offered the distressed colonists a “donative”

from their lordships of a small remission of quit-rents. The assembly

declined the donative. They instructed their committee “to touch

slightly (but not by way of argument or submission) on what the last

two assemblies have done heretofore in addressing his majesty to take

this province under his protection.” The governor was anxious they

should accept the donative; and equally anxious they should, in return,

order a rent-roll for the benefit of the Proprietors. He said, “As the

assembly is to pass wholesome laws even to private persons, much more

to the Lords Proprietors, who are our masters.” The assembly replied,

“We cannot but approve of your honor’s care of their lordships’

interest, who are, as you say, _your_ masters.” “If you look over their

charters,” was the answer, “you will find them to be your masters

likewise.” (December, 1717.)

The assembly elected Colonel Brewton powder-receiver. The governor,

as military chief, required the assembly to order forthwith the keys

to be delivered to Major Blakeway, whom he had commissioned. The

House refused. The governor offered a compromise: “My officer shall

keep the magazines and give receipts to your officer for all powder

delivered into his keeping.” “What is the use,” replied the House,

“of a powder-receiver who does not keep the powder?” “But I insist

upon keeping it,” said the governor, “for I am his majesty the king’s

lieutenant.” He soon saw an advertisement by the House, signed by their

Speaker, declaring their right to appoint “all officers who receive a

settled salary out of the public treasury of this province,” and to

“put out, call to account, and put in place,” at discretion, all such

officers; and commanding, under penalty, the powder-tax to be paid by

all ships to the officer elected by the assembly.

The people, however, were fond of Governor Johnson. They did not

always harmonize with strangers sent over to govern them. But Johnson

was almost one of themselves, and they admired him for his conspicuous

bravery. He had gone personally in pursuit of the pirate Worley, and

after a desperate encounter brought in alive only the chief and one

of his crew, they having been smitten down with dangerous wounds;

and he had immediately caused them to be tried and executed. At this

time, too, Colonel Rhett had captured Bonnet, pursuing him into Cape

Fear River, and brought him and about thirty of his crew to Charles

Town, for speedy execution. The people knew that the governor was in

duty bound to promote the cause of the Proprietors. But some of his

adherents they justly regarded with ill-will. There had been, as before

mentioned, a change, very acceptable to the people, in the mode of

electing their representatives. Trott and Rhett had had great control

in elections while the ballot was in Charles Town; and the former had

been writing to their lordships against the new method of election by

parishes. To the surprise of the governor and of all but Trott, orders

came from London to disallow that method, to dissolve the assembly, and

to summon another to be chosen by the old method; to repeal also the

act for electing the powder-receiver, and other laws, such as that for

the rehabitation of the Yemassee lands by bringing over Irish settlers

to live there, which the people deemed of great importance to the

welfare of the colony.[761] The argument was, with their lordships,

What right have the assembly to alter anything determined by us? It is

true our deputies sanctioned these laws; but we are not bound by what

our deputies do, being ourselves the head and source of legislative

power in our colony. The people thought, on the other hand, that an

enactment by the assembly ratified by the governor and council, the

appointed agents of the Proprietors, should not be set aside by the

mere whim of a few persons on the other side of the Atlantic, or by

the dictation of a man like Nicholas Trott. This gentleman had now to

confront the long-delayed denunciation of Whittaker, Allein, and other

prominent lawyers, who had for years endured his arrogance and tyranny

in court. Thirty-one articles of complaint against him were presented

to the assembly, and by them communicated to the governor and council.

They knew the allegations to be well founded, and united with the

assembly in requesting the Proprietors to restrict their favorite’s

power. It had even been ordered from London that no quorum of the

council should sanction a law unless Trott was one of the quorum. For a

time, too, the whole judicial power was in his hands. Francis Yonge, a

member of the council, deputy of Lord Carteret, and surveyor-general,

was deputed, with suitable instructions, to proceed to London and

confer with the Proprietors (May, 1719). Lord Carteret was absent on

an embassy. The others kept Mr. Yonge waiting, without conference, for

three months; then sent him back with sealed orders. In fact, some

of the Proprietors were minors; others lived away from London; the

few who exercised authority left many matters to their secretary: and

thus, says Yonge, “a whole province was to be governed by the caprice

of one man.” If the secretary managed the Proprietors, Trott and

Rhett managed him. When the sealed orders were opened, it was found

that Chief Justice Trott was thanked, the governor reprimanded, his

brother-in-law, Colonel Broughton, turned out of the council, together

with Alexander Skene and James Kinloch; Mr. Yonge alone being permitted

to remain, in courtesy to the absent Palatine (Carteret) whose deputy

he was. A new council was appointed, and the governor again ordered

to dissolve the assembly and call a new one under the old method of

election.

The deputies excluded from the council and other prominent gentlemen

now became active among the people. The arguments they used must

have been: Have not the Proprietors, spurning all appeals, protected

a tyrannical judge, and continued him in power over the lives and

property of the people? Have they not refused to part with an acre of

their immense uncultivated domains for public use in supporting the

garrisons? Have they not obstructed our efforts to bring an increase

of settlers here for the strengthening of our frontiers, and divided

out the land, by thousands of acres, for their own emolument? To foster

the power of a few favorites, have they not annulled our laws for the

equitable representation of the people by fair and peaceful elections?

Have they helped the colony in its distress, beat back the Spaniards,

resisted the invasion of the French, suppressed the pirates, or quelled

at any time an Indian horde? Can they now, masters as they claim to

be, protect us in any emergency? And if, after all these provocations,

we choose to rebel and throw off their vaunted absolutism, where are

their forces to check our revolt? Will King George, our sovereign, to

whom we appeal for protection, furnish them with an army to reduce us

to submission? Influenced by such sentiments, the people came again

to the polls at Charles Town, to elect their last assembly under the

proprietary government. Mr. Yonge, who was there, tells us, “Mr.

Rhett and Mr. Trott found themselves mistaken, in fancying they could

influence the elections when in town, so as to have such members chosen

as they liked, for it proved quite the contrary; they could not get so

much as a man chosen that they desired. The whole people in general

were prejudiced against the Lords Proprietors to such a degree that it

was grown almost dangerous to say anything in their favor.”

It happened at this conjuncture that war was again declared by England

against Spain, and an attack from Havana was in preparation either

on Charles Town or the island of Providence. Advices being sent to

the colony, the governor called together the council and such members

elect of the assembly as he could collect, to provide for repairing

the fortifications; and as the recent repeals had left him without

adequate funds, he proposed an immediate voluntary subscription. The

members of the assembly whom he consulted told him the duties provided

by law would suffice. “But the Act raising these duties is repealed by

the Proprietors.” They replied, “They did not and would not look on

_their_ repeal as anything,” and dispersed to their homes. The governor

then ordered a muster of all the provincial troops. This afforded an

admirable opportunity for a complete combination. An association of

leading citizens was secretly formed; the people assembled at the

muster; they almost unanimously signed the resolutions submitted to

them by the association, and agreed to support whatever measures they

should adopt. The first notice the governor had of these proceedings

was a letter signed by Mr. Skene, Colonel Logan, and Major Blakeway

(28th November), telling him the whole province had entered into an

agreement “to stand by their rights and privileges, and to get rid of

the oppression and arbitrary dealings of the Lords Proprietors,” and

inviting him to hold his office in behalf of the king. The members

elect of the assembly, in the mean while, held private conferences and

matured their plans.

On meeting at the time required by their writs (December 17), they

waited upon the governor, as was customary; and Mr. Middleton, in their

name, informed him that they did not look upon his present council as

a legal one (the Proprietors having appointed twelve members, instead

of seven, the usual number of deputies), and would not act with them

as a legal council. Anticipating, it appears, a dissolution, they

had resolved themselves into a convention, delegated by the people,

and passed resolutions so revolutionary in character as to alarm the

governor and his few adherents, who resorted to every menace and

means of persuasion without moving the assembly or convention from

their fixed purposes. The governor, therefore, issued a proclamation

dissolving them. The proclamation was torn from the marshal’s hands;

and the convention issued a proclamation, in their own names, ordering

all officers, civil and military, to hold their offices till further

orders from them. Having failed to win Johnson to their interest, they

elected their own governor, Colonel James Moore.

Johnson, who had gone up to his plantation, hearing that the people

intended to proclaim Moore governor in the king’s name, hastened back

and used every effort to prevent it. But he found the militia drawn

up, colors flying at the forts and on all the ships in the harbor,

drums beating, and every preparation made for proclaiming the new

governor. An eye-witness says it would be tedious to tell all the

frantic ex-governor did. But the leaders of the revolution had sent

Mr. Lloyd to keep with him under pretence of friendship and adherence,

and prevent any rash action on his part. The troops began their march,

inspirited by patriotic harangues, and escorted the members of the

convention to the fort: where, by the united acclamations of the

people, James Moore was proclaimed governor of South Carolina in the

name of the king of England (December 21, 1719).

A council of twelve was chosen, as in other colonies under the royal

government; and the convention then resumed its functions as a

legislative assembly, and proceeded to enact such laws as the state

of the province required. They addressed a letter to the Board of

Trade explanatory of their action, and their agent in England (Mr.

Boone, with whom also Colonel Barnwell was sent to act) laid before

the king an account of the misrule of the Proprietors and implored

his protection. Johnson and the Proprietors were equally active, and

the decision of the English government was anxiously awaited by both

parties. During nearly a year such anxiety continued; and as the

clergy in the province were unwilling to perform the marriage ceremony

without, as previously, a license from Johnson as governor, and a

large number of people followed his advice and example in not paying

taxes until executions were issued against them, he supposed he had

a party ready to reinstate him. But it was not till he received aid

from the crews of several English men-of-war that he formed a plan of

seizing the government. The Spanish fleet (to resist which the people

had been mustered) had not come to Charlestown, but had gone to the

island of Providence, and had been there repulsed by Governor Rogers.

The “Flamborough,” Captain Hildesley, and “Phœnix,” Captain Pearce,

arrived in Charlestown harbor in May, 1721; and chiefly, it appears,

by the advice of Hildesley, Johnson appeared in arms with about 120

men, mostly sailors from the “Flamborough,” and marched against the

forts, whose garrisons were obeying the orders of Governor Moore. The

forts opened fire upon them. Whereupon, Captain Pearce was deputed

by Johnson, together with some of his council, to negotiate with

the revolutionists. They refused to negotiate; for they knew from

their agents that the regency in England had determined to protect

the colony, and that General Francis Nicholson had been appointed

provisional royal governor. Johnson requested to see the orders of

the regency and the despatches from the agents. As soon as he read

them, he disbanded his men and gave up all opposition to the existing

government. Nicholson’s commission is dated 26th September, 1720.

He arrived in the colony 23d May, 1721, and was gladly received by

Governor Moore, the assembly, and the people. The revolution was now

complete; although the surrender of the proprietary charter, for such a

sum of money as was finally agreed upon, was not effected till 1729.

ROYAL GOVERNMENT.—We have before us the ninety-six articles of

instruction to Nicholson (30th August, 1720) and the additional ones to

Governor Johnson (1730), detailing the method of the royal government,

and which continued in force, with some modifications, till the

separation of the colony from the mother country. It is not necessary

to give a full synopsis of this method. The enacting clause is “by the

governor, council, and assembly;” and the assembly had the same powers

and privileges as were allowed to the House of Commons in England.

The Episcopal was the established Church, under jurisdiction of the

Bishop of London. School-masters were licensed by the bishop or by the

governor. If the governor died or left the province, and there was no

commissioned lieutenant-governor, the eldest councillor, as president,

acted in his stead. Special care was enjoined for the encouragement

of the Royal African Company for the importation of negro slaves. If

any part of the instructions was distasteful to the people, it was

that which conferred equal legislative authority with the assembly

upon the council; a council of twelve, nominated (or suspended) by the

governor, and three of whom, with the governor, could form a quorum,

in emergencies. On this point contests soon arose, the assembly

thinking that the governor and three or more of their own neighbors

or relatives, who happened to be councillors, ought not to have the

power to counteract the deliberate will of the entire body of the

representatives of the people; that is, of the freeholders who alone

voted for members of the assembly.

But, for the time being, all were happy at their release from “the

confused, negligent, and helpless government of the Lords Proprietors.”

Governor Nicholson, on his arrival, found in all parties a cheerful

allegiance to the king and zeal for the advancement of the colony.[762]

Ex-Governor Moore was made Speaker of the assembly, with Nicholson’s

cordial approbation, and all laws demanded by the condition of the

province were promptly enacted. Peace having been declared between

England and Spain, the new governor applied himself to the regulation

of Indian affairs, and succeeded in bringing the tribes on the

frontier into alliance with British interests. With peace and security

everywhere, he addressed himself to forming new parishes, building

churches and obtaining clergymen by the help of the London Society for

the Propagation of the Gospel. Additional free schools were established

by bequests from three benevolent citizens, and the people generally

emulated the public spirit of their good governor. In 1725 he returned

to England, and the administration of his office devolved upon Arthur

Middleton as president of the council. He had it not in his power to be

the generous benefactor Nicholson had been, and his views of duty to

the royal authority placed him in opposition to the progressive spirit

of those with whom he had been associated in the recent revolution. His

stubborn contest with the assembly prevented the enactment of any laws

for three years. They thought it necessary for the good of the people

to pass a bill for promoting the currency of gold and silver in the

province. The council rejected it as contravening an act of Parliament

in the reign of Queen Anne; and insisted on the passage of a supply

bill by the assembly, to meet the expenses of the government. This

the assembly refused unless their bill was first agreed to. Middleton

resorted to prorogations and dissolutions. This availed nothing; for

the people supported their representatives by reëlecting them. From

1727 to 1731 the same bill was eight times sent up to the president and

his council, and always rejected. He prorogued them six times, and six

times ordered new elections. Among other things in this contest, the

assembly claimed the right to elect their clerk without consulting the

council;[763] ordered an officer of the council to their bar, and put

him under arrest for delay in making his appearance; and maintained

that—as in Nicholson’s time—members elect should qualify by holding

up the hand in taking the oath before the council, if they thought that

best, instead of swearing on the Holy Evangelists, as the governor

required them to do. The contest was not terminated until the arrival

of Governor Johnson (December, 1730) as successor to Nicholson.

Sir Alexander Cumming had been sent to form a treaty with the Cherokees

who lived near the head of the Savannah River and far westward,—a

powerful nation with 6,000 warriors. They sent a deputation of their

chiefs to England with Cumming to visit King George. It was important

to secure the friendship of these Indians before the French should

allure them to their interest. The chiefs returned from England in

company with Governor Johnson. Middleton had before sent agents among

the Creeks and Cherokees, to avert, if possible, the influence of

the French, whose enterprise and energy were likely to become more

formidable to the English settlements than the hostility of the

Spaniards had been. While guarding against danger in this direction,

they had to contend against molestations from their inveterate enemy

in Florida. Runaway slaves were always welcomed there, were made free,

and formed into military companies. Roving bands of the defeated

Yemassees from the same refuge-place plundered the plantations on

the frontier. No compensation could be obtained for such ruthless

spoliation. At length Colonel Palmer was sent to make reprisals; and

with about 300 men, militia and friendly Indians, he completely laid

waste the enemy’s country up to the gates of St. Augustine, and taught

them their weakness and the superior power of the English colonists.

Unfortunately, no definite boundaries were settled upon between the

claims of Spain and England.

[Illustration: PLAN OF CHARLESTOWN, S. C., 1732.

(From Popple’s _British Empire in America_.)

[This was reëngraved in Paris in 1733, “avec privilège du Roi.” There

is a fac-simile of a plan of Charleston (1739) in the _Charleston Year

Book_, 1884, p. 163-4.—ED.]]

The colonial government, however, had erected in Governor Nicholson’s

time Fort King George on the Altamaha, and were determined to keep

the Spaniards to the westward of that river. A Spanish embassy came

to Charlestown to confer with President Middleton about the erection

of this fort. But the only definite understanding reached was in the

avowal by the ambassadors that his Catholic majesty would never consent

to deliver up runaway slaves, because he desired to save their souls

by converting them to the Christian faith. Cunning emissaries from St.

Augustine continued to tamper with the slaves, and rendered many of

them dangerous malcontents. Not long after (1738) an armed insurrection

was attempted in the heart of the English settlement; the negroes

on Stono River marching about plundering, burning farm-houses, and

murdering the defenceless. The planters at that time went to church

armed. It was Sunday. Lieutenant-Governor Bull, riding alone on the

road, met the insurgents, and escaping them by turning off on another

road gave the alarm. The male part of the Presbyterian congregation

at Wiltown—notified of the insurrection by a Mr. Golightly—left the

women in church, and hastening after the murderous horde found them

drinking and dancing in a field, within sight of the last dwelling they

had pillaged and set on fire. Their leader was shot, some were taken

prisoners and the rest dispersed. More than twenty persons had been

murdered. It might have been an extensive massacre, if so many armed

planters had not attended divine service that day.[764]

[Illustration: CHARLESTOWN IN 1742.

[This follows a steel plate, “The city of Charleston one hundred years

ago, after an engraving done by Canot from an original picture by T.

Mellish, Esq.” A long panoramic view of Charlestown in 1762 is given in

the _Charleston Year Book_, 1882; and in Cassell’s _United States_, i.

355. The name “Charleston” was substituted for “Charlestown” in the act

of incorporation of 1783.—ED.]]

There were in the colony above 40,000 negro slaves. The necessity for

increasing the number of white inhabitants had long been apparent

to the English authorities. Some of the German Palatines in England

(1729) and more of them in 1764 were sent over to the colony. Mr.

Purry, of Neufchatel, and his Swiss were granted (1732) an extensive

tract of land near the Savannah River. Some Irish colonists settled at

Williamsburgh (1733). Colonel Johnson, before he came over as royal

governor, proposed to the Board of Trade a plan for forming a number

of townships at convenient points, with great inducements to both

foreigners and Englishmen to remove to the province. Above all, the

proposal by Lord Percival (1730) to establish the colony of Georgia

(between the Savannah and Altamaha), and the carrying of the project

into effect under General Oglethorpe (1733), gave promise of adding

materially to the security and strength of South Carolina. With a new

fort at Beaufort (Port Royal), and abundant artillery and ammunition

furnished by his majesty, and ships of war protecting the harbor, we

have but to look forward a few years to the settlement and improvement

of the healthy and fertile “up country” by overland immigration

from Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the moving up of population

from the coast, to reach the period of permanent prosperity and the

greater development of the material resources of the province. Many

families moved to the upper part of South Carolina when Governor Glen

established peace with the Cherokees; many came when Braddock’s defeat

exposed the frontiers of the more northern colonies to the French and

Indians; while by way of Charlestown Germans came up to Saxegotha and

the forks of the Broad and Saluda—as the Scotch-Irish had come to

Williamsburg.

From 200 to 300 ships now annually left Charlestown. In addition to

rice, indigo, pitch, turpentine, tar, rosin, timber of various kinds,

deer-skins, salted provisions, and agricultural products grown along

the coast, the interior plantations raised wheat, hemp, flax, and

tobacco; fruits, berries, nuts, and many kinds of vegetables were

abundant; and fish from the rivers, and turkeys and deer and other game

from the forest, furnished luxuries for the table, without counting the

ever-present supplies from swine, sheep, and cattle. But we must now go

back a few years.

Governor Johnson died 3d May, 1735, and Lieutenant-Governor Thomas

Broughton on 22d November, 1737. William Bull, president of the

council, succeeded to the administration till the arrival of Governor

James Glen (December, 1743).[765] The lieutenant-governor was a prudent

ruler. He assisted in the settlement of Savannah and in the war of

Georgia upon St. Augustine (sending the Carolina regiment under Colonel

Vanderdussen), and managed wisely in every emergency. Governor Glen

with greater energy and activity extended the fortification of the

province,—visiting every portion of his government, going among the

Cherokees, obtaining a surrender of their lands for the erection of

forts, and erecting them; as Prince George on the upper part of the

Savannah, 170 miles above Fort Moore, and Fort Loudon on the Tennessee

among the Upper Cherokees, 500 miles from Charlestown. These forts

and those at Frederica and Augusta in Georgia were garrisoned by his

majesty’s troops for the protection of both provinces. When Glen, in

1756, was superseded by Governor William Henry Lyttleton, war was

declared between England and France. On the termination of hostilities,

the Cherokees, who had aided the British troops in the more northern

colonies, were returning home through Western Virginia, and committed

depredations, appropriating to their use such horses as came in their

way, and were set upon and some of them murdered. In retaliation they

killed the whites wherever they could, indiscriminately. Among their

victims in Carolina were a few of the garrison of Fort Loudon. This

was done by roving bands of headstrong young Indians. The troops at

Prince George despatched the news to Governor Lyttleton, who instantly

began preparations for war. The Cherokees sent thirty-two of their

chiefs to settle the difficulty, as the nation at large desired

peace and the continuation of their old friendship with the English.

Lyttleton kept the chiefs under arrest, and took them with him along

with his troops. His ill-usage of them and his folly involved the

province in a disastrous war with the whole Cherokee nation. Then,

being appointed Governor of Jamaica, he left the calamities he had

caused to the management of Lieutenant-Governor Bull. Not till 1761

were hostilities ended by the help of Colonel Grant, of the British

army. Dr. Hewatt, who had the advantage of the acquaintance of the

last Lieutenant-Governor Bull, and probably his assistance in the

compilation of his history, gives a detailed and graphic narrative of

this deplorable conflict, carried on in pathless forests, hundreds

of miles from Charlestown. So wasted were Colonel Grant’s men “by

heat, thirst, watching, danger, and fatigue” that when peace was

made “they were utterly unable to march farther.” In the provincial

regiment assisting Grant were Middleton, Laurens, Moultrie, Marion,

Huger, Pickens, and others who became distinguished in the war of the

Revolution.

The Peace of Paris (1763) happily put an end forever to hostilities

arising from French possessions in America. The succeeding royal

governors of South Carolina were Thomas Boone (1762), Lord Charles

Greville Montague (December, 1765), and Lord William Campbell (1773).

The most interesting and continuous thread of events running through

all the colonial history of South Carolina is the development of the

power of the assembly or representatives of the people. Taking up this

subject where we left it at the close of Middleton’s contest with the

assembly, we observe that the choice of their clerk was conceded to

them by the succeeding governor. In the policy both of the proprietary

and royal government, the elective franchise was granted to the people

or freeholders only in choosing members of the assembly. We do not find

that they balloted for any executive or other officer. The success of

the assembly in electing a few administrative officers and holding

them accountable to themselves was an important acquisition, and was

followed by a further gain of power in the same direction. Governor

Glen, addressing the authorities in England (October 10, 1748),

said in substance “that a new modelling[766] of their constitution,”

in South Carolina, “would add to the happiness of the province and

preserve their dependence upon the Crown, any weakening [of the] power

of which and deviation from the constitution of the mother country is

in his opinion dangerous. Almost all the places of profit or of trust

are disposed of by the general assembly.” “Besides the treasurer they

appoint also the commissary, the Indian commissioner, the comptroller

of the duties upon imports and exports, the powder-receiver, etc.

The executive part of the government is lodged in different sets of

commissioners,” “of the market, the workhouse, of the pilots, of

the fortifications, etc. Not only civil posts, but ecclesiastical

preferment, are in the disposal or election of the people, although

by the king’s instructions to the governor” this should belong to the

king or his representative. The governor is not prayed for, while the

assembly is, during its sittings, the only instance in America where

it is not done. “The above officers and most of the commissioners are

named by the general assembly, and are responsible to them alone; and

whatever be their ignorance, neglect, or misconduct, the governor

has no power to reprove or displace them. Thus the people have the

whole of the administration in their hands, and the governor, and

thereby the Crown, is stripped of its power.” In the next place, the

assembly claimed, and with success, the sole power of originating tax

bills, notwithstanding instructions to the contrary. They refused to

the council even the power to amend such bills. In the words of the

Journals of the House (no. 21, 1745), they asserted their “sole right

of introducing, framing, and amending subsidy bills,”—which they based

on the English Constitution as _paramount to the royal instructions_.

It was furthermore intimated that the council had no right to

legislative functions at all,—a view soon after ably advocated by Mr.

Drayton. It was contended that the council was not a counterpart of the

House of Lords, but simply a body advisory to the governor. It was even

argued that, similarly with the mother country, colonial usages and

precedents were to be regarded as constitutional in South Carolina.

The last development of the power of the assembly tended to check the

governor’s prerogative of dissolution and prorogation. In a contest

with Governor Boone, beginning in 1762 and continued to May, 1763,

dissolution and prorogation failed entirely as a means of controlling

the actions or sentiments of the representatives of the people, where

the people were of one mind with the assembly. The subject of dispute

involved the assembly’s sole right to judge of the validity of the

election of its own members, and the argument on the part of the House

was conducted chiefly by Rutledge and Gadsden. But about this time came

proposals that committees from all the colonial assemblies should meet

to consider the British Stamp Act. We conclude this brief narrative

with the remark that in the Continental Congress that ensued the

leading statesmen of the South Carolina popular assembly stepped as

veterans to new battlefields with the dust of recent victories still

upon them.[767]

[Illustration]

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

BY THE EDITOR.

IT is claimed that Sir Robert Heath conveyed his rights under the

grant of 1630 to the Earl of Arundel, and that these eventually became

invested in Dr. Coxe, as presented in a memorial to William III., and

assumed in the _Carolana_ of his son, Daniel Coxe.[768] The Heath

grant,[769] however, was formally annulled August 12, 1663.[770]

De Laet’s map, showing the coast of what was subsequently North

Carolina at the period of Heath’s grant, 1630, is given in fac-simile

elsewhere.[771]

Dr. Hawks, in his _North Carolina_, prints from Thurloe’s _State

Papers_ (ii. p. 273) a letter dated at Linnehaven, in Virginia, May

8, 1654, from Francis Yardley to John Farrar, giving an account of

explorations during the previous year along the seaboard. In 1662

(March) the king granted the first charter, and this was printed the

same year, but without date, as _The first Charter granted by the King

to the Proprietors of Carolina, 24 March_.[772] In 1665 (June 30) the

second charter extended the limits of the grant. Both charters are

found in a volume printed in London, but without date, and called _The

two Charters granted by King Charles to the Proprietors of Carolina,

with the first and last Fundamental Constitutions of that Colony_.

Issues of this book seem to have been made in 1698, 1705, 1706, 1708,

etc.[773]

[Illustration]

Mr. Fox Bourne, who in his _Life of John Locke_ (London, 1876,

vol. i. pp. 235, etc.) gives the most satisfactory account of

Locke’s connection with the new colony, writes of the Fundamental

Constitutions that Locke had a large share in it, though there can

be hardly any doubt that it was initiated by Lord Ashley, modified

by his fellow-proprietors. He adds: “The original draft, a small

vellum-covered volume of seventy-five pages, neatly written, but with

numerous erasures and corrections, is preserved among the Shaftesbury

Papers (series viii. no. 3), and this interesting document has been

printed, _verbatim et literatim_, by Mr. Sainsbury, in the Appendix to

the _Thirty-third report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records_

(1872), pp. 258-269.”

The same author refers to a draft extant in Locke’s handwriting, dated

21 June, 1669, which varies in some respects from that later issued by

the Proprietors, in print.

There is, or was, in 1845, in the Charleston Library, presented to it

by Robert Gilmor, of Baltimore, in 1833, a MS. copy in Locke’s own

handwriting, dated July 14, 1669; but the earliest printed copy is one

entitled thus: _The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, in number a

Hundred and Twenty, agreed upon by the Palatine and Lords Proprietors,

to remain the sacred and unalterable form and rule of government of

Carolina forever_. _March 1, 1669._[774] Printed first in 1670, the

document was reissued, with some modifications, in 1682, and again,

with more important modifications, in 1698.[775] It is also contained

in _A Collection of several pieces of Mr. John Locke, never before

printed, and not extant in his works_. London, 1720.[776]

It would seem from a map which is given in fac-simile in the

_Proceedings_ of the Massachusetts Historical Society, December, 1883

(p. 402), that it describes the “Discovery made by William Hilton of

Charles Towne in New England, Marriner, from Cape Hatteraske, Lat: 35°

30′, to the west of Cape Roman in Lat. 32° 30′, In y^e yeare 1662,

And laid down in the forme as you see by Nicholas Shapley of the

town aforesaid, November, 1662.” A small sketch of the map, which is

annexed, shows that he passed along the islands which form a barrier to

Pamlico Sound, without noticing, or at least indicating, that interior

water, and then entering Cape Fear River tracked its shores up to a

point where he designated three branches, which he called East, North,

and West. The fac-simile given in the _Proceedings_ by Mr. Hassam, from

a photograph of the original in the British Museum,[777] is too obscure

to make out all the names which occur along the river, while only

“Hatterask” and “C. Romana” are noted on the coast. The intervening

points, Cape Lookout and Cape Fear, are not named.

Hilton had come to Plymouth (Mass.) while a child, in 1623, whence

he followed his father to Piscataqua, but later settled in Newbury

and Charlestown, and in the latter place he died in 1675. Shapley

is supposed to have been the same who was clerk of the writs in

Charlestown in 1662, dying in that town in May, 1663. Although the

New England antiquary, James Savage, and others have not supposed

this Massachusetts Hilton to have been the same who led the Barbadoes

party to Cape Fear the next year, this map and its record would seem

to indicate that when the merchants of that island determined to

accept the proposals of the Proprietors of Carolina to furnish them

with colonists, they placed the expedition which they sent out in

August, 1663, under the charge of one who had already explored parts

of this coast,—no other than this William Hilton of New England.

This exploring party landed at St. Helena and Edisto, and returned to

Barbadoes after an absence of five months. Hilton’s _True Relation_ was

published in London in 1664.[778]

[Illustration: SHAPLEY’S DRAFT.]

The year before (1663), according to Hawks,[779] the Proprietors had

issued proposals for the encouragement of settlers within their grant,

and we have, as Mr. Rivers has stated, the outcome of the Sandford

expedition (1665) preserved in a manuscript among the Shaftesbury

Papers, and the results of this seem to have been embodied in what is

considered a second and expanded edition of their original proposals,

which was now published in London, in 1666,—a mere tract of twelve

pages, called _A brief description of the Province of Carolina, on

the coasts of Floreda; and more perticularly of a New Plantation

begun by the English at Cape Feare on that river now by them called

Charles-River, the 29th of May, 1664. Together with a most accurate map

of the whole province_.[780]

[Illustration: A SKETCH OF THE 1666 MAP.

As indicative of the changes in the North Carolina coast since it was

first explored, Mr. Wm. L. Welsh (_Bulletin Essex Institute_, xvii.

nos. 1, 2, and 3, and separately Salem, 1885), in a paper called _An

Account of the cutting through of Hatteras Inlet, Sept. 7, 1846_, says

that the present inlet of that name was made by the storm of that date,

and that the explorers of 1584 entered through Caffey inlet, since

disappeared, and that all the inlets of that day are closed, except the

little-used Ocracoke inlet.]

It was under the incentive of Sandford’s explorations and this

districting of the country that the Proprietors entered upon the

expedition which reached the Ashley River in 1670, for whose guidance

Locke had prepared his plan of government. The more common knowledge

of the geography of the Carolina coast at this time is seen in the map

of North Carolina in Ogilby’s _America_ (1671), which is reproduced in

Hawks’ _North Carolina_ (ii. p. 53).

In 1671 Sir Peter Colleton wrote to Locke that Ogilby was printing a

“Relation of the West Indies,” and desired a map of Carolina, and asked

Locke to get the drafts of Cape Fear and Albemarle from “my lord,” and

suggest to him also “to draw up a discourse to be added to this map, in

the nature of a description such as might invite people without seeming

to come from us, as would very much conduce to the speedy settlement.”

There remains, in Locke’s handwriting, a list of books to be consulted

for this task, but otherwise he does not seem to have done anything to

produce such a description.

Meanwhile another explorer had approached this region from the north,

entering a country which no European had visited since the incursions

of Lane’s company in the preceding century. We have record of this

expedition in a tract of the following title: _The discoveries of

John Lederer in three several marches from Virginia to the west of

Carolina, March, 1669-Sept., 1670_. _Collected out of the latine from

his discourse and writings by Sir William Talbot._ London, 1672.[781]

[Illustration: LEDERER’S MAP (1669-1670).

Fac-simile of the original in the Harvard College library copy. There

is a sketch of it in Hawks’ _North Carolina_, ii. 52.]

Lederer was a German, and was sent out by Governor Berkeley, of

Virginia. He seems to have penetrated westward “to the top of the

Apalatœan mountains.” He announced his disbelief in the views of such

as held the distance from the Atlantic to the Pacific to be but eight

or ten days’ journey, as shown in the “Mapp of Virginia discovered to

the Hills,”[782] but was nevertheless inclined to believe that the

Indian ocean may indeed stretch an arm into the continent as far as the

Appalachian range.

It was on the second of Lederer’s expeditions, going west and southwest

from the falls of the James, that he extended his course into North

Carolina, and Hawks has endeavored to trace his track. Following him by

his names of places, as Ogilby adopted them in his map of 1671, Lederer

would appear to have traversed the breadth of South Carolina. “We

cannot believe this,” says Dr. Hawks. “The time occupied would not have

been sufficient for it. Lederer’s itinerary presents difficulties which

we confess we cannot satisfactorily solve.” It seems at least certain

that Lederer did not penetrate far enough to encounter the new-comers

who were about founding the commonwealth of Locke.

The earliest account which we have of the English settlers at Port

Royal, before their removal to the west bank of the Ashley River, is in

Thomas Ash’s _Carolina, or a description of the present state of that

country_. London, 1682. The author was clerk on board his majesty’s

ship “Richmond,” which was on the coast 1680-82, “with instructions to

enquire into the state of the country.”[783]

During the next few years several brief accounts of the new settlements

were printed which deserve to be named: Samuel Wilson’s anonymous

_Account of the Province of Carolina in America; together with

an abstract of the Patent and several other necessary and useful

particulars, to such as have thoughts of transporting themselves

thither_. London, 1682 (text, 26 pp.).[784] John Crafford’s anonymous

_New and most exact Account of the fertile and famous Colony of

Carolina.... The whole being a compendious account of a voyage made

by an ingenious person, begun Oct., 1682, and finished 1683_. Dublin,

1683.[785] Crafford is called supercargo of the ship “James of Erwin.”

_Carolina described more fully than heretofore ... from the several

relations, ... from divers letters from the Irish settled there

and relations of those who have been there several years._ Dublin,

1684.[786]

The first edition of Blome’s _Present state of his majesty’s isles

and territories in America_, London, 1687,[787] gave “A new map of

Carolina by Robert Morden” (p. 150), and through translations it became

a popular book throughout Europe, and did something to bring the new

colony to their attention.

Courtenay, in the _Charleston Year Book_, 1883, p. 377, gives a

fac-simile of a map (with a corner map of Charlestown and vicinity)

which marks the lots of settlers, and is thought by him to be earlier

than 1700.

For the next fifteen years there is little in print about the history

of Carolina; but not long after 1700, the attempt of the High-Church

party, led by Nicholas Trott, the chief justice, and James Moore, to

enforce conformity produced a controversy not without results.

[Illustration: MORDEN’S CAROLINA (1687.)

Cf. “A Generall Mapp of Carolina describeing its Sea Coast and Rivers.

London, printed for Ric. Blome,” which appeared in Blome’s _Description

of the Island of Jamaica, with the other Isles and Territories in

America, to which the English are related_. London, 1678.]

The establishment of the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

in Foreign Parts,” which had been chartered June 16, 1701, had

given a certain impulse to the movement; and the society had its

historiographer in David Humphreys, who in 1730 published at London his

_Historical Account_[788] of it. This and the abstracts of the early

reports of the society, published with their anniversary sermons,

afford data of its work in the colonies.

The first Episcopal church had been built in Charlestown about 1681-2,

and its history and that of those later founded in the province, as

well as of the movement at this time in progress, can be followed in

Frederick D. Dalcho’s _Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal

Church in South Carolina, from the First Settlement of the Province to

the War of the Revolution; with Notices of the Present State of the

Church in each Parish, and some Account of the Early Civil History of

Carolina never before published_. (Charleston, 1820.)[789]

The early years of the century were distinguished by the sharp

retaliatory attacks of the Carolinians and the neighboring Spanish.

The letter which Colonel Moore sent to the governor respecting his

plundering incursion into Florida is fortunately printed in the

_Boston News-Letter_, May 1, 1704, whence Carroll copied it for his

_Hist. Collections_ (ii. 573). Of this and of later attacks, we can

add something from the _Report_ of the committee of the South Carolina

Assembly, in 1740, on Oglethorpe’s subsequent failure, and from the

narratives of Archdale and Oldmixon, later to be mentioned. Of the

French and Spanish naval attack on Charlestown in 1706,[790] Mr. Doyle,

in his _English in America_, says that the MS. reports preserved

in the Colonial Papers confirm the contemporary account (Sept. 13,

1706) printed in the _Boston News-Letter_, and the statements in the

_Report_ of 1740 on Oglethorpe’s later defeat at St. Augustine. The

_News-Letter_ account was reprinted in the _Carolina Gazette_, at a

later day.

[Illustration: PLAN OF CHARLESTOWN, 1704. (_Survey of Edward Crisp._)

The Key: A, Granville bastion. B, Craven bastion. C, Carteret

bastion. D, Colleton bastion. E, Ashley bastion. F, Blake’s bastion.

G, Half-moon. H, Draw-bridge. I, Johnson’s covered half-moon. K,

Draw-bridge. L, Palisades. M, Lieut.-Col. Rhett’s bridge. N. Smith’s

bridge. O, Minister’s house. P, English Church. Q, French Church. R,

Independent Church. S, Anabaptist Church. T, Quaker meeting-house. V,

Court of guard. W, First rice patch in Carolina.—Owners of houses as

follows: 1, Pasquero and Garret. 2, Landsack. 3, Jno. Crosskeys. 4,

Chevelier. 5, Geo. Logan. 6, Poinsett. 7, Elicott. 8, Starling. 9, M.

Boone. 10, Tradds. 11, Nat. Law. 12, Landgrave Smith. 13, Col. Rhett.

14, Ben. Skenking. 15, Sindery.

This same map is one of the three side maps given in H. Moll’s _Map

of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain in America_, 1715. It

is repeated in Ramsay’s _South Carolina_, vol. ii., and in Cassell’s

_United States_, i. 432.]

Rivers points out that Ramsay (i. 135) adds a few details, perhaps

from tradition. Professor Rivers had earlier contributed to _Russell’s

Mag._ (Charleston, Aug., 1859, p. 458) a paper from the London State

Paper Office, entitled “An impartial narrative of y^e late invasion of

So. Carolina by y^e French and Spanish in the month of August, 1706.”

Governor John Archdale printed at London, in 1707, _A new Description

of that fertile and pleasant province of Carolina, with a brief account

of its discovery, settling, and the government thereof_ (pp. 32).[791]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The next year (1708) we have an account of the condition of the colony

in a letter signed by Sir Nathaniel Johnson, and dated September 17.

It is quoted in large part by Rivers in his _Sketches_.[792] The name

of John Oldmixon (died in England in 1742) is signed to the dedication

of the _British Empire in America_, London, 1708, and it passes under

his name. A second corrected and amended edition appeared in 1741.[793]

Herman Moll made the maps which it contains, including one of Carolina,

and some have supposed that he wrote the text. Dr. Hawks says of the

book that it contains almost as many errors as pages, and unsupported

is not to be trusted (ii. p. 481).

In 1708 John Stevens began in London to issue in numbers a work, which

when completed in 1710 and 1711 (copies have both dates) was called

_A new Collection of Voyages and Travels into several parts of the

world, none of which ever before printed in English_. The second of

this series, “printed in the year 1709,” was _A new Voyage to Carolina,

containing the exact description and natural history of that country,

together with the present state thereof and a Journal of a thousand

miles travel’d thro’ several nations of Indians, giving a particular

account of their customs, manners, etc., by John Lawson, Gent.,

Surveyor-General of North Carolina_. Other issues of the same sheets,

with new title-pages, are dated 1714 and 1718.[794]

Lawson was a young Englishman, who arrived in Charleston in September,

1700. After a few months’ tarry in that settlement, he started with

five white men and four Indians, and went by canoe to the Santee, where

he turned inland afoot, and as he journeyed put down what he saw and

experienced. In North Carolina he was made Surveyor-General, and this

appointment kept him roaming over the country, during which he came

much in contact with the Indians, and made, as Field says,[795] acute

and trustworthy observations of them. With this life he practised a

literary craft, and wrote out his experiences in a book which was

taken to London to be printed,—an “uncommonly strong and sprightly

book,” as Professor Tyler calls it.[796] His vocation of land-surveyor

was not one calculated to endear him to the natives, who saw that the

compass and the chain always harbingered new claims upon their lands.

Three years after his book had been printed he was on a journey (1712)

through the wilds with the Baron de Graffenreid, when the two were

seized by the Tuscaroras, who suffered the German to agree for his

release. The Englishman, however, was burned with pine splinters stuck

in his flesh, as is generally believed, though Colonel Byrd, in his

_History of the dividing line between Virginia and Carolina_, says he

was waylaid and his throat cut.[797]

[Illustration: WAR MAP, 1711-1715.]

Of about this time we also find a number of tracts, incentives to and

records of German and Swiss emigration.[798] For the Carey rebellion

and the Indian war of 1711,[799] Hawks used a transcript from an early

copy of Governor Spotswood’s letter-book, which had been in his family

and was placed by him in the State Department of North Carolina, where

it had apparently originally belonged. In 1882, the Virginia Historical

Society published the first volume of the Spotswood letters, and the

student finds this material easily accessible now.[800]

In 1715 the General Assembly of North Carolina revised and reënacted

the body of statute law then in force,[801] and twelve MS. copies were

made, one for each precinct court. About a quarter of a century ago,

says Mr. Swain, the State Historical Agent, in his _Report_ of 1857,

two of these copies, moth-eaten and mutilated, were discovered, and

about 1854 a third copy, likewise imperfect, was found. From these

three copies the body of laws was reconstructed for the State Library.

The authorities for the Yamassee war of 1715-16, so far as printed,

are the account in the _Boston News-Letter_ (June 13, 1715), reprinted

in Carroll (ii. 569), where (ii. 141) as well as in Force’s _Tracts_

(vol. ii.) is one of the chief authorities for this and for that other

struggle which shook off the rule of the Proprietors, published in

London in 1726, under the title of _A narrative of the Proceedings

of the People of South Carolina in the year 1719, and of the true

causes and motives that induced them to renounce their obedience to

the Lords Proprietors, as their governors, and to put themselves under

the immediate government of the Crown_.[802] Yonge, who professes to

write in this tract from original papers, is thus made of importance

as an authority, since in 1719 the records of South Carolina seem to

have been embezzled, as Rivers infers from an act of February, 1719-20,

whose purpose was to recover them “from such as now have the custody

thereof,” and they are not known to exist. We get the passions of the

period in _The liberty and property of British subjects asserted: in

a letter from an assembly-man in Carolina to his friend in London_.

London, 1726.[803] It is signed N., and is dated at Charleston, January

15, 1725, and sustains the discontents, in their criticism of the

Proprietary government. The preface, written in London, gives a history

of the colony.

In 1729 all of the Proprietors, except Lord Granville, surrendered

their title in the soil to the Crown;[804] and in 1744 his eighth part

was set off to him,[805] being a region sixty-six miles from north to

south, adjoining the southern line of Virginia and running from sea to

sea. Lord Granville retained this title down to the Revolution, and

after that event he endeavored to reëstablish his claim in the Circuit

and Supreme Courts, till his death, during the continuance of the war

of 1812, closed proceedings.

Meanwhile some sustained efforts were making to induce a Swiss

immigration to South Carolina. Jean Pierre Purry, a leader among

them, printed in London in 1724 a tract, which is very rare: _Mémoire

presenté à sa Gr. Mylord Duc de Newcastle sur l’état présent de la

Caroline et sur les moyens de l’ameliorer_. Londres, 1724.[806] In

1880 Colonel C. C. Jones, Jr., privately printed an English version of

it at Augusta, Georgia, as a _Memorial ... upon the present condition

of Carolina and the means of its amelioration by Jean Pierre Purry of

Neufchâtel, Switzerland_.

The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of August, September, and October, 1732,

contained an English rendering of a description of Carolina, drawn up

by Purry and others, at Charlestown in September, 1731. This last paper

has been included by Carroll in his _Historical Collections_ (vol.

ii.), and by Force in his _Tracts_ (vol. ii.).[807] Purry’s tracts

were in the interest of immigration, and his and their influence seem

to have induced a considerable number of Swiss to proceed to Carolina,

where they formed a settlement called Purrysburg on the east side of

the Savannah River. Hardships, malaria, and unwonted conditions of life

discouraged them, and their settlement was not long continued.[808]

Bernheim, _German Settlements in Carolina_ (p. 99), points out how the

busy distribution of the rose-colored reports of Purry doubtless also

led to the German and Swiss settlement at Orangeburg, S. C., in 1735,

the history of which he derives from the journals of the council of the

province in the state archives, and from those church record-books,

which are preserved. It is to Bernheim we must look for the best

accounts of the other German settlements in different parts of the

province.

In 1851 the Lutheran synod of South Carolina put the Rev. G. D.

Bernheim in charge of its records, and in 1858 he began to collect

the minutes of the synod of North Carolina, and to interest himself

generally in the history of the German settlements of both States. From

1861 to 1864 he printed much of the material which he had gathered

in the _Southern Lutheran_. He found that the writers in English of

the histories of the Carolinas had largely neglected this part of the

story, perhaps from unacquaintance with the tongue in which the records

of the early German settlers are written. The settlements of these

people at Newbern and Salem had not indeed been overlooked; but their

plantations in the central and western parts of the State, comprising

more than three fourths of the German population, had been neglected.

In the histories of South Carolina the settlements of Purrysburg and

Hard Labor Creek had alone been traced with attention. In 1872 Mr.

Bernheim recast his material into a _History of the German settlements

and of the Lutheran church in North and South Carolina, from the

earliest period_ [to 1850], and published it at Philadelphia. It may be

supplemented by a little volume, _The Moravians in North Carolina_, by

Rev. Levin T. Reichell, Salem, N. C. 1857.[809]

We find some assistance in fixing for this period the extent of the

domination of the English Church in a map which accompanies David

Humphreys’ _Historical Account of the Society for the Propagation of

the Gospel in Foreign Parts_, London, 1730, which is called “Map of

the Province of Carolina, divided into its parishes, according to the

latest accounts, 1730, by H. Moll, geographer.” It has a corner “map of

the most improved parts of [South] Carolina,” which shows the parish

churches and the English and Indian settlements. A fac-simile of this

lesser map is annexed. George Howe’s _History of the Presbyterian

Church in South Carolina, from 1685 to 1800_, Columbia, S. C., 1870, is

another local monograph of interest in the religious development of the

province.[810]

[Illustration: INDIAN MAP, 1730.

In the Kohl collection (no. 220). The original is in the British

Museum, describing the situation of the Indian tribes in the northwest

parts of South Carolina, and drawn by an Indian chief on a deer-skin,

and presented to Gov. Nicholson.]

The Huguenot element in Carolina became an important one, and as

early as 1737 these French founded in Charleston the “South Carolina

Society,” a benevolent organization, which in 1837 celebrated its

centennial, the memory of which is preserved in a descriptive pamphlet

published at Charleston in that year, containing an oration by J.

W. Toomer, and an appendix of historical documents. There is no

considerable account yet published of these Carolina Huguenots, and the

student must content himself with the scant narrative by Charles Weiss,

as given in the translation of his book by H. W. Herbert, _History

of the French Protestant Refugees_ (New York, 1854), which has, in

addition to the narrative in Book iv. on refugees in America, an

appendix on American Huguenots, not, however, very skilfully arranged.

There is a similar appendix by G. P. Disosway[811] at the close of

Samuel Smiles’ _Huguenots_ (New York, 1868); and briefer accounts in

Mrs. H. F. S. Lee’s _Huguenots in France and America_ (Cambridge,

1843, vol. ii. ch. 29), and in Reginald Lane Poole’s _History of the

Huguenots of the Dispersion_ (London, 1880).[812]

Professor Rivers contributed to _Russell’s Magazine_ (Charleston,

Sept., 1859) a paper on “The Carolina regiment in the expedition

against St. Augustine in 1740.”

The natural aspects of the country, as they became better known, we

get from Mark Catesby’s _Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and

the Bahama Islands_, etc., which was published in London, from 1732

to 1748, and again in 1754;[813] and a German translation appeared at

Nuremberg in 1755. The English text was revised in the second edition

by Edwards, and again printed at London in 1771.

The files of the early newspapers of the Carolinas afford needful, if

scant, material. Thomas, in his _History of Printing_, records all

there was. The _South Carolina Gazette_, beginning in January, 1731-2,

was published for little more than a year as a weekly; but this title

was resuscitated in new hands in February, 1734, when the new journal

of this name continued its weekly issues up to the Revolutionary

period. No other paper was begun in that province till 1758, when a new

weekly, the _South Carolina and American General Gazette_, was started.

Three years before this, the first paper had been established at

Newbern, _The North Carolina Gazette_, which lived for about six years.

To Governor Glen is attributed _A description of South Carolina_, which

was printed in London in 1761,[814] and is reprinted in Carroll’s

_Historical Collections_, vol. ii. It gives the civil, natural, and

commercial history of the colony. It is the completest survey which had

up to this time been printed.

In the war with the Cherokees some imputations were put upon the South

Carolina rangers, under Henry Middleton, by Grant, the commander

of the expeditions against those Indians; and this charge did not

pass unchallenged, as would seem from a tract published in 1762 at

Charleston, entitled _Some Observations on the two Campaigns against

the Cherokee Indians in 1760 and 1761_.[815]

For the geography of this period we have two maps in the _New and

complete History of the British Empire in America_, an anonymous

publication which was issued in parts in London, beginning in 1757.

One is a map of Virginia and North Carolina, the other of South

Carolina and Georgia, both stretching their western limits beyond the

Mississippi.

[Illustration: THE SOUTH CAROLINA COAST.

Cf. the Carolina of Moll in his _New Survey_, no. 26 (1729), and a

reproduction of Moll in Cassell’s _United States_, i. 439. A map of

Carolina and Charlestown harbor (1742) is in the _English Pilot_, no.

19.]

At the very end of the period of which we are now writing the MS.

description of South Carolina by the engineer William De Brahm,

which is preserved in the library of Harvard University, becomes of

importance for its topographical account, and its plans and maps,

executed with much care. It is included in a volume, containing also

similar descriptions of Georgia and Florida, which portions are noticed

in the following chapter. There are transcripts of this document which

have an early date,[816] and some at least have a title different from

the Harvard one, and are called _A Philosophico-historico-Hydrography

of South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida_. From such a one, which

is without the drawings, that portion relating to South Carolina was

printed in London in 1856, by Mr. Plowden Charles Jennett Weston, in a

volume of _Documents connected with the History of South Carolina_. An

engraved map by De Brahm, _Map of South Carolina and a part of Georgia,

composed from surveys taken by Hon. Wm. Bull, Capt. Gascoigne, Hugh

Bryan, and William De Brahm_, published in four sheets by Jefferys,

also appeared in the _General Topography of North America and the West

Indies_, London, 1768. The map itself is dated Oct. 20, 1757, and gives

tables of names of proprietors of land in Georgia and Carolina.[817]

* * * * *

The earliest account of the history of South Carolina cast in a

sustained retrospective spirit is the anonymous _Historical Account of

the rise and progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia_

(London, 1779), which is known to have been prepared by Dr. Alexander

Hewatt,—as his signature seems to fix the spelling of his name, though

in the bibliographical records it appears under various forms.[818]

Carroll, in reprinting the book in the first volume of his _Historical

Collections_, added many emendatory notes.[819] The next year (1780)

produced a far more important book, in respect to authority, in George

Chalmers’ _Political Annals of the Present United Colonies, from their

Settlement to the Peace of 1763_ (London), the first volume of which,

however, was the only one published.[820] Chalmers, who was born in

1742, had practised law in Maryland, but he could not sympathize with

the revolution, and at the outbreak returned to England, where in time

(August, 1786) he became the clerk of the Board of Trade and died in

office, May 31, 1825, at the age of eighty-two.

When Williamson was engaged on his _History of North Carolina_ (i. p.

9), he applied for assistance to Chalmers, whose _Political Annals_

shows that he had access to papers not otherwise known at that time,

but was refused. Grahame, in his _Colonial History of the United

States_ (i. p. xii.), says he got ready access to Chalmers’ papers,

but as he disclosed in his text little new, it was conjectured that

before Grahame’s opportunity much had passed out of Chalmers’ hands.

Sparks, in a letter (1856) to Mr. Swain, the historical agent of

North Carolina, says of Chalmers that “he undoubtedly procured nearly

the whole of his materials from the archives of the Board of Trade.

His papers, after having been bound in volumes, were sold by his

nephew a few years ago (1843) in London. I purchased six volumes

of them, relating mostly to New England. They are not important,

being memoranda, references, and extracts, used in writing his

_Annals_.”[821] Two large volumes of Chalmers’ notes and transcripts

also came into the hands of George Bancroft, and were entrusted by him

to the care of Dr. Hawks and Mr. Rivers, when they were at work upon

their histories of North and South Carolina. Bancroft, from his own use

of them, and of Chalmers’ printed _Annals_, and speaking particularly

of the Culpepper revolution (1678), in the original edition (ii. p.

162) of his _United States_, says: “Chalmers’ account in all cases

of the kind must be received with great hesitancy. The coloring is

always wrong; the facts usually perverted. He writes like a lawyer

and disappointed politician, not like a calm inquirer. His statements

are copied by Grahame,[822] obscured by Martin, and, strange to say,

exaggerated by Williamson.” Dr. William Smyth, in his _Lectures on

Modern History_, calls the work of Chalmers an “immense, heavy, tedious

book, to explain the legal history of the different colonies; it should

be consulted in all such points, but it is impossible to read it.”[823]

[Illustration]

Near the close of the Revolutionary War Chalmers began the printing

of another work, a succinct sketch of the history of the colonies. A

very few copies exist of the first volume, which is without title or

preliminary matter, and in the copy before us a blank leaf contains

a manuscript title in Chalmers’ own handwriting as follows: _An

Introduction to the History of the Colonies, giving from the State

Papers a comprehensive view of the origin of their Revolt. By George

Chalmers, Vol. I. Printed in 1782, But suppressed_. This volume,

beginning with the reign of James I. and ending with that of George

I., was the only one printed. The present copy[824] is marked as being

the one from which Mr. Sparks printed an edition published in Boston

in 1845,[825] in which the preface says that the original issue was

suppressed, “owing to the separation of the colonies, which happened

just at the season for publication, December, 1782, or the prior cause

in April precedent, the dismission of a tory administration.”[826]

When Chalmers’ papers were sold, a manuscript continuation of this

_Introduction_ in the handwriting of the author was found, completely

revised and prepared for the press. When Sparks reprinted the single

volume already referred to, he added this second part to complete the

work, and it was carefully carried through the press by John Langdon

Sibley. Sparks in his introductory statements speaks of the book

as “deduced for the most part from the State Papers in the British

offices, or to speak with more precision, from the confidential

correspondence of the governors and other officers of the Crown in the

colonies.” In regard to its suppression he adds that “no political ends

could now be answered by its publication, and it is probable that he

thought it more politic to sacrifice the pride and fame of authorship

than to run the hazard of offending the ministers.”[827]

Of the later histories it is most convenient to treat each province

separately, as will be done in the annexed note.

NOTE.

THE LATER HISTORIES OF THE CAROLINAS.

=I.= NORTH CAROLINA.—The first published of the general accounts

of this State was the _History of North Carolina_, by Hugh

Williamson,[828] at Philadelphia, in 1812, in two volumes. Dr. Hawks,

the later historian, says (ii. p. 540) that North Carolinians do

not recognize Williamson’s work as a history of their State. It is

inaccurate in a great many particulars, and sometimes when there is

proof that the original record was lying before him. Sparks calls it

“meagre and unsatisfactory,” and adds that it contains but few facts,

and these apparently the most unimportant of such as had fallen in his

way.[829] More care and discrimination, though but little literary

interest, characterized another writer. François Xavier Martin had

a singular career. He was born in Marseilles, became a bankrupt in

Martinique, went friendless to Newbern, in North Carolina, and rose to

distinction as a jurist, after beginning his career in the State as a

translator and vendor of French stories. He had removed to Louisiana,

when he published at New Orleans his _History of North Carolina_, in

1829 (two volumes), and in that State he rose to be chief justice, and

published a history of it, as we have seen. Martin’s accumulation of

facts carries no advantage by any sort of correlation except that of

dates. A painstaking search, as far as his opportunities permitted,

and a perspicuous way of writing stand for the work’s chief merits.

He stops at the Declaration of Independence. Up to Martin’s time

Bancroft[830] might well speak of the carelessness with which the

history of North Carolina had been written.

Next came John H. Wheeler’s _Historical Sketches of North Carolina from

1584 to 1851, compiled from original records, official documents, and

traditional statements, with biographical sketches of her distinguished

Statesmen, Jurists, Lawyers, Soldiers, etc._, Philadelphia, 1851. It

is not unfairly characterized by Mr. C. K. Adams, in his _Manual of

Historical Reference_ (p. 559), as “a jumble of ill-digested material,

rather a collection of tables, lists, and facts than a history.”

David L. Swain,[831] who had been governor of the State, had done much

to collect transcripts of documents from the archives of the other

States and from England, and in 1857, as historical agent of the State,

he made a report, which was printed at Raleigh, in which, speaking of

the statutes at large, which Virginia and South Carolina had published,

he referred to “both of these collections, especially the former, the

earlier and better work, as deeply interesting in connection with North

Carolina history.”

Of the _History of North Carolina_, by Francis Lister Hawks, D. D.,

LL. D., the second volume, published at Fayetteville in 1858, covers

the period of the Proprietary government from 1663 to 1729, the first

volume being given to the Raleigh period, etc. He availed himself of

the fullest permission by state and local authorities to profit by

the records within his own State; and he had earlier himself procured

in London many copies of documents there. The author claims that more

than three fourths of this volume has been prepared from original

authorities, existing in manuscript. He tells at greater length than

others the story of the law and its administration, of the industrial

and agricultural arts, navigation and trade, religion and learning.

The latest local treatment is that of Mr. John W. Moore’s _History of

North Carolina from the earliest discoveries to the present time_,

Raleigh, 1880, in two volumes. There is not much attempt at original

research, and he does not reprint documentary material, as Hawks did,

in too great profusion to make a popular book. Mr. Moore aims to give a

better literary form to the story; but his style somewhat overlays his

facts.

=II.= SOUTH CAROLINA.—To turn to the more southern province,—Dr.

David Ramsay, who was a respectable physician from Pennsylvania,

domiciled and married in Charleston, gained some reputation in his

day as a practised writer, and as an historical scholar of zeal and

judgment. He published first, in 1796, a _Sketch of the Soil, Climate,

etc., of South Carolina_; and later, in 1809, at Charleston, a _History

of South Carolina_, 1670-1808, in which he made good use of Hewatt, as

far as he was available.

In 1836 Carroll republished many of the early printed tracts upon

South Carolina history in his two volumes of _Historical Collections_.

Referring to this publication, a writer in the _Southern Quarterly

Review_, Jan., 1852, p. 185, says: “But for a timely appropriation by

the legislature of two thousand dollars for his relief, Carroll would

have been seriously the sufferer by his experiment on public taste and

sectional patriotism.”

Grahame in 1836 had published the first edition of his _Colonial

History of the United States_, including the early history of the

Carolinas, and Bancroft, in 1837, published the second volume of his

_History of the Colonization of the United States_, and in chapter

xiii. he discussed how Shaftesbury and Locke legislated for South

Carolina,—a chapter considerably changed in his last edition (1883).

The South Carolina novelist, William G. Simms, first published a small

history of the State in 1840, which served for school use. This he

revised in 1860 as a _History of South Carolina_, which was published

in New York. It was spirited, but too scant of detail for scholarly

service.[832]

The South Carolina Historical Society was formed in 1855, Mr. Rivers,

the writer of the preceding chapter, being one of the originators. The

first volume of their _Collections_, published in 1857, contained,

beside an opening address by Professor F. A. Porcher, the beginning

of a list and abstracts of papers in the State Paper Office, London,

relating to South Carolina. This enumeration was continued in the

second and third volumes.[833] There are also in the second volume,

beside Petigru’s oration, a paper on the French Protestants of the

Abbeville district, an oration by J. B. Cohen, and O. M. Lieber’s

vocabulary of the Catawba language. In vol. iii. we find an oration by

W. H. Trescott. No further volumes have been printed.

Mr. Rivers’ _Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close of

the Proprietary Government by the Revolution of 1719_, published in

Charleston in 1856, was continued by him in _A Chapter in the Early

History of South Carolina_, published at Charleston in 1874, which

largely consists of explanatory original documents. This section of

a second volume of his careful history was all that the author had

accomplished towards completing the work, when the civil war of 1861

“rendered him unable to continue its preparation.” Mr. Rivers says,

in a note in this supplementary chapter, that an examination of the

records at Columbia has shown him that, to perfect this additional

task, it would be necessary to make examination among the records of

the State-Paper Office in London.

Of these latter records Mr. Fox Bourne, in his _Life of John Locke_

(London, 1876), says: “Locke’s connection with the affairs of the

colony lasted only through its earliest infancy. Down to the autumn of

1672 he continued his informal office of secretary to the Proprietors.

Nearly every letter received from the colony is docketed by him; and

of a great number that have disappeared there exist careful epitomes

in his handwriting. We have also drafts, entered by him, of numerous

letters sent out from England, and his hand is plainly shown in other

letters. Out of this material it would be easy to construct almost the

entire history of the colony during the first years of its existence.”

It was some time before the period of Mr. Fox Bourne’s writing that

the Earl of Shaftesbury deposited with the deputy keeper of the Public

Records the collection of documents known as the _Shaftesbury Papers_,

the accumulation which had been formed in the hands of his ancestor,

and which yield so much material for the early history of the Carolina

government.[834]

The latest use made of these and other papers of the State-Paper

Office is found in _The English in America, Virginia, Maryland, and

the Carolinas_ (London, 1882), written by Mr. John A. Doyle, librarian

of All Souls, Oxford. In a note to his chapter on the “Two Carolinas,”

Doyle says (p. 427), respecting the material for Carolinian history

in the English archives: “To make up for the deficiency of printed

authorities, the English archives are unusually rich in papers

referring to Carolina. There are letters and instructions from the

Proprietors, individually and collectively, and reports sent to them by

successive governors and other colonial officials. It is remarkable,

however, that while we have such abundant material of this kind, there

is a great lack of records of the actual proceedings of the local

legislatures in North and South Carolina. In North Carolina we have

no formal record of legislative proceedings during the seventeenth

century. In South Carolina they are but few and scanty till after the

overthrow of the Proprietary government.[835] Moreover, the early

archives of Carolina, though abundant, are necessarily somewhat

confused. The northern and southern colonies, while practically

distinct, were under the government of a single corporation, and

thus the documents relating to each are most inextricably mixed up.

Again, while the Proprietors were the governing body, the colonies

in some measure came under the supervision of the Lords of Trade and

Plantations, and at a later day of the Board of Trade. Thus much which

concerns the colony is to be found in the entry books of the latter

body, while the Proprietary documents themselves are to be found

partly among the colonial papers,[836] partly in a special department

containing the Shaftesbury Papers.”

In the _Fifth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission_ there

is a calendar of the Shelburne Papers, belonging to the Marquis of

Lansdowne, which shows a considerable number of documents of interest

in the history of Carolina: as, for instance (p. 215), Governor

Barrington’s account of the State of North Carolina, January 1,

1732-33; Governor Glen’s answers with respect to inquiries about

South Carolina; an offer (p. 218) of a treaty for the sale of Lord

Granville’s district in North Carolina to the Crown, signed by the

second Lord Granville; and (p. 228, etc.) various reports of law

officers of the Crown on questions arising in the government of the

colonies.