refusal to accept patents of nobility signed in blank by the Proprietors and sent out to the Colony for sale.

These "Fundamental Constitutions' never having been put in force, the government of the Colony for the first fifty years was regulated by certain temporary rules and instructions prescribed by the Proprietors. The government was of the form which Englishmen naturally adopt. The executive power was represented by the Proprietors who appointed the Governor and other officers, the legislative by a Council, or Upper House, also appointed by the Proprietors, and a Commons House of Assembly chosen by the freeemen.

The government was simple in form but very far from satisfactory in practice, The complicated Constitutions had been got rid of, but the supreme executive power remained the same. I should say rather that it grew yearly worse. With three thousand miles of water between themselves and their Colony even a wise government could with difficulty have directed its local. affairs, and their Lordships' government was not wise. How could it be? The rights of a Proprietor could descend to an infant, and be exercised by his guardian, or be assigned to any purchaser who should desire such an investment. With each change their interests grew more diverse. As a matter of fact when the proprietory claim was finally extinguished the owners of the charter were the following persons: two English peers, the son of a peer, a baronet, a Carolinian, a barrister trustee for another barrister, three trustees for an adult and an infant, while the property in the remaining eighth was in dispute in a chancery suit between the Hon. Henry Bertie of Dorton, in the County of Bucks, Esquire, and Mary Danson, of the Parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, and Elizabeth Moore, of London, widows. The executive power was at once weak and tyrannical. It irritated the Colonists without controlling them, it threatened without punishing, it interfered with without protecting them. With unbounded expressions of good will toward their subjects, their Lordships quarreled with them unceasingly over quit-rents; promising toleration, they tried to enforce uniformity, and claiming the prerogatives of sovereignty without its accompanying responsibilities, they seemed bent-to borrow the

words of their own title-upon rendering themselves "absolute" without thinking it necessary to be "true."

The political history of the Colony during their government is one long story of efforts on the part of the citizens to administer their local affairs in their own way, met by the resistance of the Proprietors intent upon making some profit out of the lands they had granted, and upon keeping in power the office-holders who were subservient to their will. But in spite of the many grievances of which the Colonists complained, they continued to endure them as long as a reasonable measure of prosperity prevailed. It was only when poverty and misfortune were added to misgovernment that the burden became intolerable. They had seen the Proprietors, in violation of their charter, join with a minority of the Colonists in excluding the dissenters from participation in the government though numbering more than twothirds of the population. They had seen them turn away the settlers upon the lands surrendered by the Yemassees, in order to grant them to others, and then take possession of them for themselves without refunding the purchase money; they had seen them repeatedly appoint to office unworthy and incompetent men whose chief qualifications were devotion to the interests of the Proprietors alone.

The Colonists had complained to the Proprietors and to the English Government of these things and of many more, and receiving no redress had borne them. But now the accumulated debts of the expedition against the Spaniards at St. Augustine in 1702, of the expeditions to North Carolina against the Tuscarora Indians in 1712, of the Yemassee war in 1715, and of the attack in 1717 upon the pirates who then infested the coast, were pressing upon the Colonists at once, and their usually abundant harvests had failed them. The Spanish fleet was threatening, and the fortifications of Charlestown, unrepaired since the great storm of 1713, were in ruins. The French too were encroaching upon their territory from the direction of Mobile.

The Proprietors, so far from aiding the Colonists in their hour of need, seemed determined to drive them to extremities. They refused assent to the Tax Act, passed to pay off the Colonial debts and to support the Government. They refused assent to the Act which allowed elections to be held in the country instead of forc

ing the whole voting population to come to Charlestown to cast their votes, and they dissolved the Assembly elected at the country precincts because less subject to their influence and control than an Assembly chosen at the turbulent elections in Charlestown. They repealed the law, which had been in force since 1707, giving to the Assembly the appointment of those officers who received salaries from the Province. They upheld in his tyrannical exactions Chief Justice Trott, who was sole Judge without appeal of the Criminal Court, and of the Common Pleas, of the Court of Admiralty and as a member of the Council-a judge of the Court of Chancery, and they refused to listen to the complaints of the Colonial lawyers who were not afraid to incur the resentment of an unjust Judge. Finally to extend their influence in the Colony, they suddenly enlarged the number of the Council or Upper-House. To the remonstrances of the Colony they paid no heed.

One remedy alone was left to the Colonists-to get rid of the Proprietors altogether. The momentous hour had come, which soon or late comes to every people who would be free-the hour when argument has been exhausted, and the only appeal is to force, when the citizen must stake alike his life and property upon the chance of resistance, must choose to die a freeman or to live a slave. I know of no infallible signs of its arrival, I can not say what signals certainly herald its approach, but woe to that people which mistakes its coming and which fears to submit its fortunes to the perilous test of success!

The Colonists did not hesitate. With great determination and skill they accomplished a revolution, following, in many respects and of course on a much smaller scale, the precedents of the English Revolution of 1688 which had unseated the Stuarts and placed William and Mary upon the throne.

An association was formed throughout the Province for the purpose of "standing by their rights and privileges and of getting rid of the oppression and arbitrary dealings of the Proprietors." The people then bound thmselves to support the representatives newly chosen to the Assembly of the Province, and "to stand by them in whatever should be done in disengaging the Colony from the yoke and burden they labored under from

the proprietors, and in putting the Province under the government of his Majesty."

The Assembly met on the 17th December, 1719. They at once declared the several acts repealed by the Proprietors to be still of force, and passed the following resolution:

“Resolved, That we cannot act as an Assembly, but as a Convention delegated by the people, to prevent the utter ruin of this government, if not the loss of the Province, till his Majesty's pleasure be known. That the Lords Proprietors have by such their proceedings unhinged the frame of government and forfeited their right to the same; and that an address be prepared to desire the Honorable Robert Johnson, Esquire, our present Governor, to take the government upon him in the King's name, and to continue the administration thereof until his Majesty's pleasure be known."

An address to this effect was accordingly delivered to Governor Johnson by Arthur Middleton, the president of the Convention. Governor Johnson was one of the most respected citizens of the Province. He was himself a man of high character and courage, and he was the son of Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who, as Governor in 1706, had saved the Colony from the French and Spaniards. The people had no quarrel with Governor Johnson. As a man they honored and trusted him; as the representative of the government of confusion and misrule they refused to obey him. He chose to uphold the interests of the Proprietors, and he was thrust aside. Col. James Moore, the commander in the second Tuscarora expedition, was elected in his stead; and on the 21st December, 1719, in spite of the threats, remonstrances and entreaties of Governor Johnson, was proclaimed, at the head of the militia of the Colony, Governor of the Province in the name of the King. The Convention at once organized the new government by continuing in place all officers, civil and military, and by electing a new Council to act in the place of the Council hitherto nominated by the Proprietors.

So far as the Province was concerned, the Revolution was complete. But would the Government of George I accept the Province at the hands of the people, or by an adverse decision plunge the Province into confusion once more? The Whig ad

ministration of Lord Stanhope, it was known, was favorable to a purchase of the proprietary rights, but would it tolerate their violent destruction?

In this state of doubt no means were left untried to secure a favorable decision. The Convention addressed by letter the English Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, setting. forth their conduct in casting off "the confused, helpless and negligent government of the Lords Proprietors." Mr. Joseph Boone, the agent of the Colony in London, also presented a statement of their grievances, and Col. John Barnwell, who had commanded the first Tuscarora expedition, was sent as a special agent from the Colonists to lay their case before the Crown. That was not the age of steam and electricity. Sixteen months passsed before the decision of the government was definitely known in the Province. What must have been the feelings of the Colonists during this long delay may well be imagined by the Carolinians of today, who, one hundred and fifty-seven years later, have themselves waited, though but a fifth of the time, in like suspense for a still more important decision. From the 17th December, 1719, to the 9th May, 1721, a "dual government" existed in South Carolina. There was ample time for the encouragement of doubts among the timid as to the legitimacy of the new government, and for strife to spring up between the Revolutionists and the adherents of the Proprietors. The clergy for instance, refused to perform the marriage ceremony without a license from Governor Johnson, and not a few doubted the validity of the taxes laid by the new Assembly, and refused to pay them until actual levy was made.

The Revolutionists did not falter. They removed from office Chief Justice Trott, and all political officers who did not recognize their authority, carefully refraining, however, from interfering with the officers who represented their Lordships' pecuniary interests. When the Spanish fleet was thought to be approaching they calmly prepared for war. Martial law was declared, the fortifications of the town were repaired and a tax was levied to defray the expenses. They were alike unmoved by Governor Johnson's earnest appeal to be allowed to lead the forces against the Spaniards, and by his attempts to encourage disaffection when that danger was over. When, finally, aided by the crews of the