In this War near 400 of the Inhabitants were destroy'd, with many Houses and Slaves, and great numbers of Cattle, especially to the Southward near Port-Royal, from whence the Inhabitants were entirely drove, and forced into the Settlements near Charles Town.

This Town being fortified, they there had Time to think what to do; and not mustering above 1200 Men, they sent to Virginia and the neighbouring Colonies for Assistance; and for want of Money, of which they have very little in the Country, they formed Bills of Credit, to pass Current in all Payments, of which we shall have Occasion to speak hereafter. This their necessary Defence brought the Publick in Debt near 80,0007. and intail'd great Annual Charges upon them, to maintain Garrisons, which they were forced to keep at great Expences.

In this very great Extremity, they sent Agents to England with an Account of their deplorable State, and to beg Assistance from their Proprietors: But not having very great Expectations from them, as very rightly imagining they would not be brought to expend their English Estates, to support much more precarious ones in America, their Agents were directed to lay a State of their Circumstances before her then Majesty Queen Anne, and to beg the Assistance of the Crown.

Their Agents soon sent them an Account, that they found a Disposition in Her Majesty to send them Relief, and to protect them; but that the Objection was, they were a Proprietory Government; and it was the Opinion of the then Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, that if the Queen was at the Expence of Protecting and Relieving the Province, the Government thereof should be in the Crown.

This first contracted in the Inhabitants in general; an Opinion of their being very unhappy in living under a Government that could not protect them; the Effects of which were also worse, since it hinder'd the Crown from doing what they (the Proprietors) could not do themselves.

The Publick Emergencies had occasion'd the Stamping the aforesaid Sum of 80,000l. in Bills of Credit, to pay their Soldiers, and other Charges the Country was forced to be at; and it was Enacted by the Assembly, They should be Current in all Payments between Man and Man. But the precarious State the Province was in by the Indian War, and the Danger it it was exposed to, by being a Frontier, to the French and Spaniards, gave the Merchants in England who Traded thither, and to whom the Inhabitants were considerably Indebted, so great an Alarm, that they writ to their Correspondents, to make them Returns at any Rate, for fear of losing the Whole.

The great Demand for the Commodities of the Country that this necessarily occasion'd, together with the Scarcity of them by the Peoples being taken from their Labour to defend themselves, and there being no other way of paying their Debts to the Merchants in England but by the Produce of the Country, the Money being National, having no Intrinsick Value in it; all these things concurr'd to raise the Price of the Rice, Pitch and Tar, and other Productions, to such a height, that the Bill that was made for Twenty Shillings, would not purchase what was worth intrinsically more than a Half a Crown. From whence it follow'd, that those who had Money owing them on Bond or otherwise before the War, and who must have been paid in Gold or Silver, or its Value, if those Bills had not been made Current in all Payments, by their being so, lost Seven Eighths of their Money: These Losses fell chiefly on the Merchants and such of the Inhabitants of Charles Town as were Money'd Men; and, on the contrary, the Planters, who were their Debtors, were the Gainers.

This so very great a Loss falling upon the Merchants (tho' I do truly believe it was not foreseen by the People) made very great Clamours in England, from them, who applied to the Lords Proprietors for Redress, and desired that a Stop might be put to the Increase of that sort of Currency, and that some Way might be found for the calling-in, and sinking what was then Current of them. In this Condition and thus Circumstanced, Mr. Johnson found the People on his Arrival, who was appointed Governor by the Lords Proprietors Commission dated 30th of April 1717; and agreeable to an Act of Parliament in that Case provided, he was Approv'd of by His MAJESTY, under his Sign Manual.

At his first coming, he applied himself to the Assembly, to call-in those Bills, which had brought so great Inconveniencies upon themselves, as well as on the Traders; and in Justice and Honour, (he told them) they ought to make good; and so far prevail'd on them, that altho' there were great Contentions in the Assembly, between the Planting and the Mercantile Interest; altho' the Annual Expences of the Country were then very great, the Indian War with some Nations still continuing, Coast very much infested with Pyrates, who had several times block'd up the Harbour for several Weeks together, and taken all the Ships coming in or going out, which had put the Country to great Expences; they having fitted out Vessels twice, and taken two of them, one commanded by Major Steed Bounett, in Cape-Fear River, and the other by Worley, off the Bar of Charles Town; in which last Expedition Mr. Johnson went himself in Person:

I say, notwithstanding they then labour'd under these Difficulties, they passed an Act for Sinking and Paying off all their Paper Credit in three Years, by a Tax on Lands and Negroes, which gave a general Satisfaction.

It will be necessary here to make a Digression, to inform the Reader, that at the first Settling the Country, before it was divided into Parishes, the whole Lower House of Assembly were chosen at Charles Town, and were Representatives of the whole Province; which Custom had continued after the Country was laid out in Parishes, until about a Year before Mr. Johnson arriv'd: When in the Government of Mr. Daniel, who was left Deputy Governour by Mr. Craven when he came for England, they pass'd a Law for Regulating the Elections for Members of the Assembly; wherein amongst other Things it was Enacted, That every Parish should send a certain Number of Representatives, 36 in all, and that they should be Balloted for at their respective Parish-Churches, or some other Place convenient, on a Day to be mention'd in the Writs, which were to be directed to the Church-Wardens, and they to make Return of the Elected Members: and of this Act, the People were very fond; finding it gave them a greater Freedom of Election, and was more easy to them than going out of their respective Countries to Charles Town; at which Elections, there had been very often great Tumults; and besides, that it came nearer the Methods used in England.

On the other hand, as it pleased the Generality of the People, because of the Freedom it gave them in their Choice, it was sure to displease two of the Lords Proprietors Principal Officers; their Chief Justice and Receiver General Mr. Trott, and Mr. Rhett his Brother in Law; who by the former Method of Electing at Charles Town, had used to have a great Sway in the Elections, which they thought would be lessen'd by this new method; and therefore they did what they could to obstruct the Passing the Bill, which they failed in; but so represented it to the Lords Proprietors with whom they had always too much interest, either for their Lordships or the Peoples Good, that just at the Juncture when they had been at the aforesaid great Expence to drive the Pyrates off their Coast, that they were mightily pleas'd with Mr. Johnson for exposing his own Person in that Expedition against them, had pass'd the Law for sinking their paper Currency, and were contriving to pay for their Expeditions against the Pyrates, and their other contingent Debts, and they were never observ'd to be in so good a Disposition towards the Proprietors, but were doing every Thing that could be ask'd of

them. At this Juncture arriv'd an Order to the Governor to Dissolve the Assembly forthwith, and to call a New one to be Elected according to the Ancient Custom, they not acknowledging the New Election Law, because not approv'd and ratified by them in London, as the former was and therefore they insisted; the Legislature of Carolina could not Repeal it, and substitute a New one in the Place, without their Consent, they being (notwithstanding their Impowering their Deputies in Carolina) the Head of the Legislative Body of the Province, and had a Right to put a Negative on such Laws as they did not approve of; at the same time they also Repeal'd an Act of the Assembly for laying a Duty on Negroes, Liquors, &c. imported into the said Province, for raising a Sum of Money to defray the Contingent Charges of the Province, and for other Services therein mention'd.

Mr. Johnson and his Council, (that is, the major part of them for Mr. Trott was of that body) were very much surpris'd at the receipt of these Orders; and after having duly consider'd the Consequences they might produce, resolv'd to suspend the Execution of them, especially that part which directed the Dissolution of the Assembly; but on the contrary, thought it best they should sit until they accomplish'd the Business then before them. But as the Repeal of the Duty-Law was by Order of the King in Council, because of a part of it that laid a Duty on Goods manufactur'd in Great-Britain, the Council therefore resolv'd to acquaint the Assembly with the King's Dislike to that part of the Law, and require them to make a New Act, in which to leave out the part complained of. These Orders and Repeals, altho' all Endeavours were used that they should be kept secret, came to the Knowledge of the Assembly, and begat prodigious Heats and Debates about the Proprietors Right of Repeal, or of their Authority to allow of, or disallow any of the Laws pass'd in that Province; which the Assembly alledg'd being assented to by their Deputies who acted for them; and at that time, by a sort of Deputation, every Proprietor gave in the Nature of a Power of Attorney, to act for him, and in his stead; they insisted, bound them, according to the Tenor of their Charter, as much as if they themselves had been present, and had ratified and confirm'd those Acts.

Just before the arrival of these unhappy Orders, there had been presented to the Assembly, Articles of Complaint against the Chief Justice Trott, being Thirty one in Number, which in the Whole set forth, "That he had been guilty of many Partial Judgments; that he had contriv'd many Ways to multiply and

"increase his Fees, contrary to Acts of Assembly, and to the great Grievance of the Subjects; and that amongst others, he "Contriv'd a Fee for Continuing Causes from one Court (or "Term) unto another, and then had Put off the Hearing for *several Years together; that he took upon him to give Advice "in Causes depending in his Courts, and did not only act as a "Councellor in that Particular, but also had and did draw Deeds "and other Writings between Party and Party, some of which "had been contested before him as Chief Justice; in the deter"mining of which, he had shewn great Partialities, with many "other Particulars; and lastly, complaining that the whole Ju"dicial Power of the Province was lodg'd in his Hands alone; "of which it was evident he had made a very ill Use, he being "at that time sole Judge of the Pleas and King's-Bench, and "Judge of the Court of Vice-Admiralty; so that no Prohibition "could be lodg'd against the Proceedings of that Court, he being in that Case to grant a Prohibition against himself; he was "also, at the same time, one of the Council, and of consequence, "of the Court of Chancery.

These Complaints took their Rise from the Attornies who practis'd in the Courts, and were fully made appear to be Facts to the Commons House of Assembly; but the Judges Commission from the Proprietors being Quam diu se bene gesserit, and he insisting his Actions were not to be tried but before the Proprietors themselves, they were constrained to apply to the Proprietors for Redress; and therefore sent a Message to the Governor and Council, desiring they would join with them in representing his Male-Administration to the Lords, and in supplicating them, that if they did not think fit to remove him entirely from presiding in their Courts of Justice, (which they desired,) then that they would at least leave him only one single Jurisdiction, that they might have the Liberty of Appealing from his sole, and too often, Partial Judgment.

The Governor and a Majority of his Council agreed with them, to represent the Grievances they complain'd of, to the Proprietors; and thinking it might be better done by one of their own Members, who had been present in all their Debates, than by Letters, they agreed on Mr. Yonge to go to GreatBritain, to give their Lordships a true State of this, as well as of their other Affairs, who was accordingly properly instructed, and in the Month of May, 1719, arrived in London.

The Lord CARTERET the Palatine was then just going on his Embassy to the Court of Sweden, who therefore was pleased to refer him to the rest of the Proprietors; and after having waited on them two or three times, he presented them with the following Memorial.