Chapter V: The Carolinas (3)

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 “But the Act raising these duties is repealed by the Proprietors.”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.

(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]

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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