XII. April 1. of land which still bears his name; and, in the CHAP. following year, George Cathmaid could claim from Sir William Berkeley a large grant of land upon the 1663. Sound, as a reward for having established sixty-seven persons in Carolina. This may have been the oldest considerable settlement; there is reason to believe that volunteer emigrants had preceded them.3 In September, the colony had attracted the attention of the proprietaries, and Berkeley was commissioned to institute a government over the region, which, in honor of Monk, received the name that time has transferred to the bay. The plantations were chiefly on the northeast bank of the Chowan; and, as the mouth of that river is north of the thirty-sixth parallel of latitude, they were not included in the first patent of Carolina. Yet Berkeley, who was but governor of Virginia, and was a joint proprietary of Carolina, obeyed his interest as landholder more than his duty as governor; and, severing the settlement from the Ancient Dominion, established a separate government over men who had fled into the woods for the enjoyment of independence, and who had already, at least in part, obtained a grant of their lands from the aboriginal lords of the soil. Berkeley did not venture to discuss the political principles or dispute the possessions of these bold pioneers. He appointed William1 Drummond, an emigrant to 1 MSS. communicated by D. L. Swain, governor of North Carolina, in 1835. 2 MSS. from D. L. Swain. 3 Chalmers, 519, "For some years." 4 William. Martin, i. 138, says George Drummond. Hening, ii. 226, Act i. identifies the man, and settles the question. Williamson, CHAP. Virginia' from Scotland, probably a Presbyterian, a XIII. man of prudence and popularity, deeply imbued with the passion for popular liberty, to be the governor of Northern Carolina; and, instituting a simple form of government, a Carolina assembly, and an easy tenure of lands, he left the infant people to take care of themselves; to enjoy liberty of conscience and of conduct in the entire freedom of innocent retirement; to forget the 1666. world, till rent-day drew near, and quit-rents might be demanded. Such was the origin of fixed settlements in North Carolina. The child of ecclesiastical oppression was swathed in independence. 29. 4. But not New England and Virginia only turned their eyes to the southern part of our republic. Several planters of Barbadoes, dissatisfied with their con1663. dition, and desiring to establish a colony under their Sept. own exclusive direction, despatched a vessel to to examine the country. What other report could be Dec. made by the careful leaders of the expedition, than that the climate was agreeable, and the soil of various qualities; that game abounded; that the natives were ready to promise peace? They purchased of the Indians a tract of land thirty-two miles square, on Cape Fear River, near the neglected settlement of the 1665. New Englanders, and their employers begged of the proprietaries a confirmation of the purchase, and a separate charter of government. Not all their request 1 Hening, i. 549, ii. 158. 2 Sir Wm. Berkeley's List, &c., 3 Berkeley, as above. And a XIII. was granted; yet liberal terms were proposed; and CHAP. Sir John Yeamans, the son of a Cavalier, a needy baronet, who, to mend his fortune, had become a 1663. Barbadoes planter, was appointed governor, with a jurisdiction extending from Cape Fear to the St. Matheo. The country was called Clarendon. "Make things easy to the people of New England; from thence the greatest supplies are expected;" such were his instructions. Under an ample grant of liberties for the colony, he conducted, in the autumn of 1665, a band of emigrants from Barbadoes, and on the south bank of Cape Fear River laid the foundation of a town, which flourished so little, that its site is at this day a subject of dispute.' Yet the colony, barren as were the plains around them, made some advances; it exported boards, and shingles, and staves, to Barbadoes. The little traffic was profitable, and was continued; emigration increased; the influence of the proprietaries fostered its growth; it absorbed the remains of the New England settlement; and it is said that, in 1666, the plantation already contained eight hundred souls. Many preferred it, as a place of residence, to Barbadoes, and Yeamans, who understood the nature of colonial trade, managed its affairs without reproach.2 Meantime the proprietaries, having obtained minute information respecting the coast, had learned to covet an extension of their domains; and, indifferent to the claims of Virginia, and in open contempt of the garrison of Spain at St. Augustine, the covetous Clarendon and his associates easily 1665. obtained from the king a new charter, which granted 13. to them, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, all 1 See Lawson's Map. Martin, i. 142, 143. 2 Williamson, i. 100. June XIII. CHAP. the land lying between twenty-nine degrees and thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, north latitude; 1665. a territory extending seven and a half degrees from north to south, and more than forty degrees from east to west; comprising all the territory of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, much of Florida and Missouri, nearly all of Texas, and a large portion of Mexico. The soil, and, under the limitation of a nominal allegiance, the sovereignty also, were theirs, with the power of legislation, subject to the consent of the future freemen of the colony. The grant of privileges was ample, like those to Rhode Island and Connecticut. An express clause in the charter for Carolina opened the way for religious freedom; another held out to the proprietaries a hope of revenue from colonial customs, to be imposed in colonial ports by Carolina legislatures; another gave them the power of erecting cities and manors, counties and baronies, and of establishing orders of nobility, with other than English titles. It was evident that the founding of an empire was contemplated; for the power to levy troops, to erect fortifications, to make war by sea and land on their enemies, and to exercise martial law in cases of necessity, was not withheld. Every favor was extended to the proprietaries; nothing was neglected but the interests of the English sovereign and the rights of the colonists.' Thus the most ample privileges and territories were conferred on the corporation of eight; had the lands been divided, each would have received a vast realm for his portion. Yet, when William Sayle, of the 1648. Summer Islands, who, long before, had attempted to 1 Carolina Charters, 4to. Reprinted often. Williamson, i. 230. XIII. plant a colony of Puritans from Virginia in the Baha- CHAP. ma Isles,1 returned from a later voyage of discovery, which had embraced the isles in the Gulf of Florida, 1667. of these too, the "Eleutheria" of a former day, then almost a desert, comprising the land in America on which Columbus first kneeled, and including all the islands within a belt of five degrees, possession was solicited and obtained. With the new charters the designs of the company 1668. expanded. The germs of colonies already existed; imagination encouraged in futurity every extravagant anticipation. It was deemed proper to establish a form of government commensurate in its dignity with the auspices of the colony and the vastness of the country; Clarendon was no longer in England; and Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, the most active and the most able of the corporators, was deputed to frame for the dawning states a perfect constitution, worthy to endure throughout all ages. Shaftesbury was at this time in the full maturity of his powers; celebrated for eloquence, philosophic. genius, and sagacity; high in power, and of aspiring ambition. Born to great hereditary wealth, the pupil of Prideaux had given his early years to the assiduous pursuit of knowledge; the intellectual part of his nature had from boyhood obtained the mastery over the love of indulgence and luxury. Connected with the great landed aristocracy of England, cradled in politics, and chosen a member of parliament at the age of nineteen, his long public career was checkered by the greatest varieties of success. It is a very common error of the incurious observer, to attribute frequent change to statesmen who have held the helm 1 Winthrop, ii. 334, 335. 2 Hewat's S. Carolina, i. 48. |