[1674 A.D.]

From France also came great numbers of the best and noblest of her people, men and women of whom she was not worthy, forced from their country by the severity of laws which placed truth, sincerity, and uprightness before God and man on a par with treason and murder. Louis XIV, an old debauchee, sought to atone for a life of profligacy by converting the Huguenots to the Catholic faith, even at the point of the sword; their native land was made intolerable to them, and they sought for peace by flight and voluntary exile. But flight and exile were no longer permitted to them; to leave their native land was made felony. Tyranny, however, is powerless against the human will based on the rights of conscience; and spite of the prohibitions of law, the persecuted Calvinists fled in thousands to that happy land beyond the Atlantic, the noblest privilege of which has ever been that it furnished a safe asylum to the true-hearted and the conscientious of every European land, and where men might worship according to the dictates of their own souls. These refugees were warmly welcomed to New England and New York, but the mild, congenial climate of South Carolina was more attractive to the exiles of France.

Hither came these fugitives from the most beautiful and fertile regions of France-"men," says Bancroft 9 eloquently, "who had all the virtues of the English Puritans without their bigotry, to the land to which the tolerant benevolence of Shaftesbury had invited the believers of every creed. From a land which had suffered its king to drive half a million of its best citizens into exile, they came to the land which was the hospitable refuge of the oppressed; where superstition and fanaticism, infidelity and faith, cold speculation and animated zeal were alike admitted without question." In this chosen home of their exile, lands were assigned to them, on the banks of the Cooper river, and there they soon established their homes. Their church was in Charleston, and "thither," says the same historian, who so keenly feels every beautiful trait of humanity, "on the Lord's Day, gathered from their plantations on the banks of the river, and taking advantage of the ebb and flow of tide, they might regularly be seen, parents with their children, whom no bigot could wrest from them, making their way along the river, through scenes so tranquil that the silence was broken only by the rippling of the oars, and the hum of the flourishing villages that gemmed the confluence of the rivers. Other Huguenot emigrants established themselves on the south bank of the Santee."

Thus was the original scheme of the Huguenot colonisation on this very soil, as entertained by Coligny, at length accomplished, although a century later. Liberal as was the Grand Model constitution as regarded religious toleration, the spirit of the settlers was not equal to it in this respect. The Huguenot colonists were not cordially received by them; persecution was impossible, but hospitality was withheld; and though they formed the most industrious, useful, and sterling portion of the population, it was many years before they were allowed the rights of fellow-citizenship. As striking instances, showing the noble character of these emigrants, Bancroft 9 says: "The United States are full of monuments of the emigrations from France. When the struggle for independence arrived, the son of Judith Manigault intrusted the vast fortune he had acquired to the service of the country that had adopted his mother; the hall in Boston where the eloquence of New England rocked the infant spirit of independence was the gift of the son of a Huguenot; when the Treaty of Paris for the independence of the country was framing, the grandson of a Huguenot, acquainted from childhood with the wrongs of his ancestors, would not allow his jealousies of France to be

lulled, and exerted a powerful influence in stretching the boundary of the [1674-1683 A.D.] states to the Mississippi. On the northeastern frontier state, the name of the oldest college bears witness to the liberality of a descendant of the Huguenots."

The province of South Carolina was divided, in 1683, into three counties: Colleton, including the district around Port Royal; Berkeley, embracing Charleston and its vicinity; and Craven, the district formerly Clarendon, towards Cape Fear, the earliest settlement of the whole. But Berkeley

only as yet was sufficiently populous to afford a county court. West, who governed to the contentment of the settlers, failed to give satisfaction to the proprietaries, and was superseded, in 1683, by Moreton, a relative of Blake, who was also created landgrave; the next year, however, West was re-elected; a new governor was then sent from England, but he died, and West remained in office; a second governor came over, but he was soon deposed by the proprietaries, in consequence of favouring the buccaneers, and Moreton again resumed office. In six years the head of the government was changed five times.

The relationship between the colonists and the proprietaries increased in difficulty every succeeding year. There was little that was straightforward on either side, and where either apparently wished to do right, they were counteracted by the other. For instance, the proprietaries opposed and remonstrated against the practice of the settlers to carry on partisan war with the neighbouring Indians for the purpose of kidnapping and selling them as slaves in the West Indies; but the settlers persisted in it; nay, even Governor West himself was accused of connivance at this barbarous practice. The payment of debts which had been contracted out of the province could not be enforced; nor would the more populous districts of Charleston, where the members of assembly were elected, allow to the other provinces the same privilege, when population extended, which they themselves enjoyed.

THE BUCCANEERS

Another serious charge against them is the favour which they showed to the buccaneers. "These remarkable freebooters," says Hildreth,h “a mixture of French, English, and Dutch, consisted originally of adventurers in the West India seas, whose establishments the Spaniards had broken up. Some fifty or sixty years before, contemporaneously with the English and French settlements on the Caribbee Islands, they had commenced as occasiona' cruisers on a small scale against the Spaniards, in the intervals of the planting season. During the long war between France and Spain, from 1635 to 1660, they had obtained commissions to cruise against Spanish commerce, principally from the governors of the French West India Islands. Almost anything, indeed, in the shape of a commission was enough to serve their purpose. As an offset to that Spanish arrogance which had claimed to exclude all other nations from these West Indian seas, the Spanish commerce in those seas was regarded by all other nations as fair plunder. The means and number of the buccaneers gradually increased. The unquiet spirits of all countries resorted to them. Issuing from their strongholds, the island of Tortugo, on the west coast of St. Domingo, and Port Royal in Jamaica, they committed such audacious and successful robberies on the Spanish American cities. as to win almost the honours of legitimate heroes. They were countenanced for a time by France and England; one of their leaders was appointed governor of Jamaica, and another was knighted by Charles II."

[1683-1685 A.D.]

Charles, spite of the favour he had shown to the buccaneer chief, was compelled, however, by treaties with his allies and by the complaints of his own subjects, whose commerce was injured by these illegal traders, to use his most strenuous endeavours to put an end to them; and his successor was even still more in earnest. In 1684 a law was passed against pirates, which was confirmed by the proprietaries of South Carolina, and their commands issued, that it should be rigorously enforced within their jurisdiction. But this was not an easy matter. The colonists not only favoured the buccaneer, who brought abundance of Spanish gold and silver into their country, but they were irritated against the Spaniards, who, justly perhaps, incensed by the English encroachments on their borders, had destroyed the Scotch settlement at Port Royal, and were glad of any means to make reprisals. Little attention, therefore, was paid by the English to the suppression of piracy. "The pirates," says Hewatt, in his history of South Carolina, "had already, by their money, their gallant manners, and their freedom of intercourse with the people, so ingratiated themselves into the public favour that it would have been no easy matter to bring them to trial, and dangerous even to have punished them as they deserved. When brought to trial, the courts of law became scenes of altercation, discord, and confusion. Bold and seditious speeches were made from the bar in contempt of the proprietaries and their government. Since no pardons could be obtained but such as they authorised the governor to grant, the assembly violently proposed a bill of indemnity, and when the governor refused his assent to this measure, they made a law empowering magistrates and judges to put in force the habeas corpus act of England. Hence it happened that several of those pirates escaped, purchased lands from the colonists, and took up their residence in the country. While money flowed into the colony by this channel, the authority of government was too feeble a barrier to stem the tide and prevent such illegal practices."

The very proprietaries themselves at length, to gratify the people, granted an indemnity to all the pirates, excepting in one case, where the plunder had been from the dominions of the Great Mogul. Very justly does this historian remark, that "the gentleness of government towards these public robbers, and the civility and friendship with which they were treated by the people, were evidences of the licentious spirit which prevailed in the colony." And not only an evidence of this, but of the enmity which existed towards the Spaniards; so great indeed was this enmity that but for the earnest remonstrances of the proprietaries, which in this case were regarded, they would have invaded Florida to drive the Spaniards thence, and that even while the two nations were at peace.

POLITICAL UNREST; ABROGATION OF THE GRAND MODEL

Affairs became still more and more difficult, and in 1685 James II meditated a revocation of the charter itself. The palatine court, wishful not to offend the king at this critical moment, and to satisfy the English merchants who were jealous of the trade of South Carolina, ordered the governor and council to use their diligence in collecting the duty on tobacco transported to other colonies, and to seize all ships that presumed to trade contrary to the acts of navigation. But vain were these orders, which they had no power to enforce. The colonists resisted every attempt of this kind, disregarding the dictates of the proprietaries, and holding themselves independent almost of the English monarch.

[1685-1710 A.D.] At a loss how to manage in these perplexed circumstances, and imagining that the fault existed in the governor as well as in the people, the proprietaries resolved to remedy one error at least by sending out James Colleton, brother of the proprietary, who, to sustain his dignity of governor-landgrave, should be endowed with forty-eight thousand acres of land. This was like the reasoning of the founders of the Grand Model, with whom "the aristocracy was the rock of English principles," and "the object of law the preservation of property." Colleton arrived, armed with all the dignity that could be conferred upon his office, intending to awe the people into submission; and his first act was to come into direct collision with the colonial parliament. A majority of the members refused to obey the Grand Model constitution, and these men were excluded by him from the house, as "sapping the very foundations of government." All returned to their several homes, spreading discontent and disaffection wherever they came. A new parliament was called, and only such members were elected to it as "would oppose every measure of the governor." He next attempted to collect the quit-rents due to the proprietaries; but here again direct opposition met him: the people, in a state of insurrection, seized upon the public records and imprisoned the secretary of the province. Colleton, not knowing how to deal with such refractory elements, pretended danger from the Indians or Spaniards, and, calling out the militia, declared the province under martial law. A more unwise step could not have been taken; for men of their temper were just as likely to use their arms against a ruler whom they at once despised and disliked, as against the general enemy. Any further step in folly was saved him. The English revolution of 1688 took place; William and Mary were proclaimed, and, as if in imitation of the mother-country, Colleton was impeached by the assembly and banished the province.

Political convulsions, however, were not wholly at an end; for in the midst of the ferment, the infamous Seth Sothel, whom we have seen banished from North Carolina, suddenly made his appearance in Charleston, and thinking, probably, that this was a people kindred to himself, seized the reins of government, and for some little time found actually a faction to support him. But after two years' rule, he was not only deposed by the people, but censured severely and recalled by the proprietaries, who, though he was still a member of their own body, treated him as "a usurper of office."

A new governor, Philip Ludwell, was appointed, with orders to "inquire into the grievances complained of and to inform them what was best to be done"; and in this respect they had at last discovered the true dignity of the governor. A general pardon was granted, and in April, 1693, the Grand Model constitution" was abrogated, the proprietaries wisely conceding "that as the people have declared they would rather be governed by the powers granted by the charter, without regard to the fundamental constitutions, it will be for their quiet, and the protection of the well-disposed, to grant their request."u

THE CAROLINAS BOUGHT BY THE CROWN; RICE INTRODUCED

Nothing of importance happened in the northern settlements until 1710, when they received an accession to their numbers by the arrival of some German settlers at Roanoke. In the southern colony, Governor Ludwell, in obedience to the commands of the proprietors, was desirous of allowing the French settlers the same privileges which the English enjoyed; but he was resisted by the assembly and people, and applied to the proprietaries for

[1710-1715 A.D.] further instructions. The answer he received was an order to vacate his office in favour of Thomas Smith. During his administration, the captain of a Madagascar vessel, which touched at Charleston on her voyage to Britain, presented Smith with a bag of seed-rice, which he prudently distributed among his friends for cultivation; who, planting their parcels in different soils, found the result to exceed their most sanguine expectations. From this circumstance Carolina dates the introduction of one of her chief staples.

Archdale, one of the proprietaries, and a Quaker, arrived in Charleston in August, 1695, and, by a wise administration, he quieted the public discontents, and gave such general satisfaction as to receive a vote of thanks from the assembly of the province. He then went to North Carolina, tranquillised that colony, secured the good will and esteem of the Indians and Spaniards, and returned to England at the close of the year 1696. Archdale nominated Joseph Blake as his successor, who governed the colony wisely for four years.

Blake died in 1700, and with his death terminated the short interval of tranquillity which had commenced under Archdale. Under Blake's successors, James Moore and Sir Nathaniel Johnson, the colony was harassed with Indian wars, and involved in debt by an unsuccessful expedition against the Spaniards at St. Augustine. Henceforward, every kind of misrule distracted the colony, until 1729, when the proprietary interests were sold to the crown. [The king paid £2,500 for each of the seven shares. The population was then about ten thousand.]

The first Indian war which signalised this period broke out in 1703, the Spaniards having instigated the Indians to commence hostilities. Governor Moore soon finished the affair, by killing and taking prisoners about eight hundred of the Indians. In 1706 the Spaniards attacked Charleston, but were repulsed by Governor Johnson, leaving one ship and ninety men in the hands of the English. In 1712 the outer settlements of the northern province were attacked by about twelve hundred of the Coree and Tuscarora tribes of Indians. A sudden attack, in which one hundred and thirty-seven of the colonists were massacred in a single night, gave the first notice of the intentions of the Indians. A powerful force was despatched to the field of action by the southern colony, under Colonel Barnwell, who, after overcoming the most incredible obstacles in his march through a wilderness of two hundred miles, suddenly attacked and defeated the Indians in their encampment, killing three hundred of their number, and taking one hundred prisoners. The Tuscaroras then retreated to their town, fortified by a wooden breast work. Barnwell surrounded them, and after killing, wounding, or capturing a thousand Indians, he made peace. The inhabitants of the forest, burning for revenge, soon broke the treaty, and the southern colony was again applied to for aid. Colonel James Moore, with forty white men and eight hundred friendly Indians, was sent to their aid, and finding the enemy in a fort near Cotechny river, he surrounded them, and after a week's siege took the fort and eight hundred prisoners. After suffering these defeats, the Tuscaroras removed north and joined the Five Nations, making the sixth of that confederacy.

The Tuscarora war ended, the Yemassees commenced hostilities against the southern colony. On the 15th of April, 1715, they began their operations by murdering ninety persons at Pocotaligo and the neighbouring plantations. The inhabitants of Port Royal escaped to Charleston. The colonists soon found that all the southern tribes were leagued against them, but they relied upon the assistance of those tribes who inhabited the country west of them. In this they were mistaken, for these Indians were either enemies or remained