172 CHAP XIN. CHARACTER OF EMIGRATION TO SOUTH CAROLINA. Imagination already regarded Carolina as the chosen spot for the culture of the olive; and, in the region where flowers bloom every month in the year, forests of orange-trees were to supplant the groves of cedar; silkworms to be fed from plantations of mulberries: and choicest wines to be ripened under the genial 1679. influences of a nearly tropical sun. For this end Charles II., with an almost solitary instance of munificence towards a colony, provided at his own expense two small vessels, to transport to Carolina a few foreign Protestants, who might there domesticate the productions of the south of Europe.1 April. 1670. to From England, also, emigrations were considerable. 1688. The character of the proprietaries was a sufficient invitation to the impoverished Cavalier; and the unfortunate of the church of England could look to the shores of Carolina as the refuge where they were assured of 1681. favor. Even Shaftesbury, when he was committed to July. the Tower, desired leave to expatriate himself, and become an inhabitant of Carolina.2 Nor did churchmen alone emigrate. The condition of dissenters in England was no longer a state of security or liberty; and the promise of equal immunities tempted many of them beyond the Atlantic, to colonies where their worship was tolerated, and their civil rights asserted. Of these, many were attracted to the glowing clime of Carolina, carrying with them intelligence, industry, and sobriety. A contemporary 1683. historian commemorates with singular praise the company of dissenters from Somersetshire, who were conducted to Charlestown by Joseph Blake, brother to the gallant admiral, so celebrated for naval genius and 1 Chalmers, 541. Ramsay, ii. 5. 2 Lingard's England, xiii. c. vii. Carolina, by T. A. p. 8, 9. CHARACTER OF EMIGRATION TO SOUTH CAROLINA. 173 XIII. love of country. Blake was already advanced in life; CHAP. but he could not endure the present miseries of oppression, and feared still greater evils from a popish successor; and he devoted to the advancement of emigration all the fortune which he had inherited as the fruits of his brother's victories. Thus the plunder of the wealth of New Spain assisted to people Carolina. A colony of Irish, under Ferguson, were lured by the fame of the fertility of the south, and were received with so hearty a welcome, that they were soon merged among the other colonists.2 The condition of Scotland, also, compelled its inhabitants to seek peace by abandoning their native country. Just after the death of Shaftesbury, a 1683. scheme, which had been concerted during the tyranny of Lauderdale, was revived. Thirty-six noblemen and gentlemen had entered into an association for planting a colony in the New World; their agents had contracted with the patentees of South Carolina for a large district of land, where Scottish exiles for religion might enjoy freedom of faith and a government of their own. Yet the design was never completely executed. A gleam of hope of a successful revolution in England, led to a conspiracy for the elevation of Monmouth. The conspiracy was matured in London, under pretence of favoring emigration to America; and its ill success involved its authors in danger, and brought Russell and Sydney to the scaffold. It was, therefore, with but a small colony, that the Presbyterian Lord Cardross, many of whose friends had suffered impris- 1684. onment, the rack, and death itself, and who had him 1 Oldmixon, i. 337, 338, and 341. Oldmixon is here good authority. Comp. Hewat, i. 89. 2 Chalmers, 543. 3 Wodrow, ii. 230. Laing, iv. 133. 174 HUGUENOTS EMIGRATE TO SOUTH CAROLINA. 2 CHAP. self been persecuted under Lauderdale,1 set sail for XIII. Carolina. But even there the ten families of outcasts 1684. found no peace. They planted themselves at Port Royal; the colony of Ashley River claimed over them a jurisdiction which was reluctantly conceded. Cardross returned to Europe, to render service in the approaching revolution; and the Spaniards, taking umbrage at a plantation established on ground which they claimed as a dependency of St. Augustine, 1686. invaded the frontier settlement, and laid it entirely waste. Of the unhappy emigrants, some returned to Scotland; some mingled with the earlier planters of Carolina.3 More than a hundred years had elapsed since Coligny, with the sanction of the French monarch, had selected the southern regions of the United States as the residence of Huguenots. The realization of that design, in defiance of the Bourbons, is the most remarkable incident in the early history of South Carolina, and was the result of a persecution, which not only gave a great addition to the intelligence and moral worth of the American colonies, but, for Europe, hastened the revolution in the institutions of the age. John Calvin, by birth a Frenchman, was to France the apostle of the reformation; but his faith had ever been feared as the creed of republicanism; his party had been pursued as the sect of rebellion; and it was only by force of arms, that the Huguenots had obtained a conditional toleration. Even the edict of Nantz placed their security, not on the acknowledgment of the permanent principle of legislative justice, 1 Laing, iv. 72. 2 Ramsay says, in 1682. Chalmers, 547, 548. Ramsay, i HUGUENOTS EMIGRATE TO SOUTH CAROLINA. 175 XIII. but on a compromise between contending parties. It CHAP. was but a confirmation of privileges which had been extorted from the predecessors of Henry IV. And yet it was the harbinger of religious peace; so long as the edict of Nantz was honestly respected, the Huguenots of Languedoc were as tranquil as the Lutherans of Alsace. But their tranquillity invited from their enemies a renewal of attacks; no longer a powerful faction, they were oppressed with rigor; having ceased to be feared, they were exposed to persecution. When Louis XIV. approached the borders of age, he was troubled by remorse; the weakness of superstition succeeded to the weakness of indulgence; and the flatteries of bigots, artfully employed for their own selfish purposes, led the vanity of the monarch to seek, in making proselytes to the church, a new method of gaining glory, and an atonement for the voluptuous profligacy of his life. Louis was not naturally cruel, but was an easy dupe of those in whom he most confided-of priests, and of a woman. The daughter of an adventurer,-for nearly ten years of childhood a resident in the West Indies, educated a Calvinist, but early converted to the Roman faith,-Madame de Maintenon, had, in the house of a burlesque poet, learned the art of conversation, and, in the intimate society of Ninon de l'Enclos, had studied the mysteries of the passions. Of a clear and penetrating mind, of a calculating judgment, which her calm imagination could not lead astray, she never forgot her self-possession in a generous transport, and was never mastered even by the passions which she sought to gratify. Already advanced in life when she began to attract the attention of the king, whose character she profoundly understood, she sought to inthrall his mind by 176 XIII. HUGUENOTS EMIGRATE TO SOUTH CAROLINA. CHAP. the influences of religion; and, becoming herself devout, or feigning to be so, always modest and discreet, she knew how to awaken in him compunctions which she alone could tranquillize, and subjected his mind to her sway by substituting the sentiment of devotion for the passion of love. The conversion of the Huguenots was to excuse the sins of his earlier years. They, like herself, were to become reconciled to the church; yet not by methods of violence. Creeds were to melt away in the sunshine of favor, and proselytes to be won by appeals to interest. Huguenots were, therefore, to be employed no longer in public office; they were, as far as possible, excluded from the guilds of tradesmen and mechanics; and a Calvinist might not marry a Roman Catholic wife. Direct bribery was also employed; converts were purchased; and, as it seemed not unreasonable that, where money is paid, a bargain should be fulfilled, severe laws punished a relapse. The multitude may always defend itself against the pride of any one, by claiming for itself a collective wisdom superior to that of the wisest individual. The same is true of the moral qualities; there exists in the many a force of will which no violence can break, a firmness of conviction which no bribery can undermine. The first methods of conversion were fruitless. Strange human nature! In men who had taken a bribe for conversion, there often remained a principle strong enough to sustain them in returning to their first opinions, and in suffering for them. Proselytism next invaded the most sacred rights of human nature, and children of seven years old were invited to abjure the faith of their fathers. The Hu |