articles, brought by way of ballast, have sometimes sold for less in Charlestown than in London.

The colonists were also allowed bounties on several articles of produce exported. For the encouragement of her colonies, Great Britain laid high duties on such as were imported from foreign countries, and gave the colonists premiums on the same commodities. The bounties on naval stores, indigo, hemp and raw silk proved an encouragement to industry, and all terminated in favor of the planters. The colonial merchants enjoyed perfect freedom in their trade with the West Indies, where they found a convenient and most excellent market for Indian corn, rice, lumber and salt provisions. In return they had rum, sugar, coffee and molasses cheaper than their fellow subjects in the mother country.

Great Britain laid the colonists under some restraints with respect to their domestic manufactures and their trade to foreign ports. Though this policy affected the more northern colonies, it was not prejudicial to Carolina. It served to direct the views of the people to the culture of lands, which was more profitable both to themselves and the mother country. Though they had plenty of beaver skins, and a few hats were manufactured from them, yet the price of labor was so high that the merchant could send the skins to England, import hats made of them, and undersell the manufacturers of Carolina. The province also furnished some wool and cotton, but before they could be made into cloth, they cost the consumers more money than the merchant demanded for the same goods imported. It afforded leather, but boots and shoes made from it at home were of an inferior quality, and often dearer than the same articles imported from Britain. In like manner, with respect to many other commodities, it was for the advantage of the province, as well as the mother country, to export the raw materials and import the goods manufactured. Cultivation was, therefore, the most profitable employment. It was the interest of such a flourishing colony to be always in debt to Great Britain, for the more laborers were sent the more rapidly the colony advanced in riches. If, from an unfavorable season, the planters were rendered unable to pay for the slaves they had purchased, the merchants generally indulged them another year, and sometimes allowed them to increase their debt by addititional purchases. This was often found the most certain method of obtaining payment. In like manner the merchant had indulgence from England, the primary source of credit. By these forbearances the planter preserved, and often increased, his capital, while the difference of interest between the mother country and the province,

amounting at first to five, and always to three, per cent., was clear gain to the merchants.

Such was the general course of prosperity with which the royal province of South Carolina was blessed in the interval between the termination of the proprietary government in 1719, and the American revolution in 1776. No colony was ever better governed The first and second Georges were nursing fathers to the province. They performed to it the full orbed duty of Kings, and their paternal care was returned with the most ardent love and affection of their subjects in Carolina. The advantages were reciprocal. The colonists enjoyed the protection of Great Britain, and in return she had a monopoly of their trade. The mother country received great benefit from this intercourse, and the colony, under her protecting care, became great and happy. In South Carolina. an enemy to the Hanoverian succession, or to the British Constitution, was scarcely known. The inhabitants were fond of British manners even to excess. They, for the most part, sent their children to England or Scotland for education, and spoke of these countries under the endearing appellation of home. They were enthusiasts for the government under which they had grown up and flourished. All ranks and orders of men gloried in their connection with the mother country, and in being subjects of the same king. The laws. of the British Parliament, confining their trade for the benefit of the protecting parent state, were generally and cheerfully obeyed. Few countries have, at any time, exhibited so striking an instance of public and private prosperity as appeared in South Carolina between the years 1725 and 1775. The inhabitants of the province were, in that half century, increased seven fold. None were indigent but the idle and unfortunate. Personal independence was fully within the reach of every man who was healthy and industrious. All were secure in their persons and property. They were also contented with their colonial state, and wished not for the smallest change in their political constitution.

In the midst of these enjoyments, and the most sincere attachment to the mother country, to their king and his government, the people of South Carolina, without any original design on their part, were, step by step, drawn into a defensive revolutionary war, which involved them in every species of difficulty, and finally dissevered them from the parent state. But before we proceed to relate these interesting events, some more early periods of the history of South Carolina must be surveyed.

THE MILITARY HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA,

FROM 1670 TO 1776.

CHAPTER V.-SECTION I.

Contest with Spaniards.

All the forms of government, hitherto of force in Carolina, agreed in this particular: that every subject or citizen should also be a soldier. There was a nightly watch maintained in Charlestown ever since it was five years old, and, for the most part, by men hired for the purpose. But in all other times and situations the defence of the country rested solely on the militia, except in cases of great pressing and continued danger. The laws required every freeman of a suitable age, with a few necessary exemptions, to be enrolled as a member of some militia company and to be equipped and trained for public service. The necessity of this was so evident, that till about the middle of the 18th century, the practice was common and the men were enjoined by law to carry their arms to church.* The people could not brook a standing army in time of peace, but were required to be always ready to defend themselves. This was indispensably necessary, in their peculiar situation. The province was not only constantly exposed to internal danger; but its peace was early and repeatedly disturbed by Spaniards, Indians, and pirates. Carolina, with the English, was the southern part of Virginia; with the Spaniards it was the northern part of Florida. Both claimed by virtue of prior discovery, but the title of the Spaniards was supposed to be strengthened by a grant of the territory from his holiness the pope. Though the validity of the title of either could not be supported, before an impartial tribunal, yet a century passed away and much mischief was done before the controversy was compromised. The Spaniards considering the settlement of Carolina as an encroachment on Florida, were not scrupulous about the means of inducing its relinquishment. They encouraged indented servants to leave their masters, and fly to St. Augustine for protection. They impressed the Indians with unfavorable ideas of the English heretics, and encouraged

*The province was saved from much impending distress and desolation by an armed congregation sallying_forth from the Presbyterian church at Wiltown in 1740, as has been related. The practice of going armed to church, was revived for a short time in the revolutionary war. For fifteen or twenty years before that event, and ever since, it has not been observed; but a formal repeal of the law cannot be recollected.

the former to obstruct the settlements of the latter. To these unneighborly acts were added occasional hostilities. In about three years after the first settlement of the province an armed party of Spaniards, from the garrison of St. Augustine, ad-. vanced as far as the island of St. Helena to dislodge or destroy the settlers. Fifty volunteers under the command of Colonel Godfrey marched against the invaders, who, on his approach, evacuated the island and retreated to Florida.

About the year 1682, Lord Cardross led a small colony from Scotland which settled on Port Royal Island. These claimed, by an agreement with the proprietors, a co-ordinate authority with the Governor and Council at Charlestown; but their claims were overruled. The Spaniards sent an armed force in 1786, and dislodged these solitary scotch settlers and most of them returned to their native country.*

These hostilities of the Spaniards were retaliated. In 1702, Governor James Moore proposed to the Assembly of Carolina an expedition against the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine. A majority of the Assembly declared for the expedition, and two thousand pounds sterling were voted for the service. They agreed to raise six hundred provincial militia, an equal number of Indians were procured, and vessels impressed to carry the forces. Port Royal was fixed on as the place of rendezvous, and from it in September 1702 the Governor at the head of his warriors embarked.

In the plan of operations it had been agreed that Colonel Daniel, with a detached party, should go by the inland passage and make a descent on the town from the land; while the Governor, with the main body, should proceed by sea and block up the harbor. Colonel Daniel accordingly advanced against the town, entered and plundered it before the Govenor arrived. But the Spaniards having laid up provisions for four months in the castle, retired to it with their money and most valuable effects. Upon the arrival of Governor Moore the place was invested with a force which the Spaniards could not face, and therefore kept themselves shut up in their stronghold. The Governor finding it impossible to dislodge them, without suitable artillery, dispatched colonel Daniel with a sloop to Jamaica to bring cannon, bombs, and mortars for attacking the castle. In the meantime the appearance of two Spanish ships, one of twenty-two guns, and the other of six. teen, near the mouth of the harbor, induced the Governor to raise the siege, abandon his ships and retreat to Carolina by land. The Spaniards in the garrison were not only relieved

The governmental seal, used for this settlement, was carried to Scotland; but, in the year 1793, it was politely returned by the Earl of Buchan as an object of curiosity, and is now placed in the Museum of the Charleston Library.

but the ships, provisions, and ammunition, belonging to the Carolinians, fell into their hands. Colonel Daniel, on his return, standing in for the harbor of St. Augustine, found to his surprise the siege raised, and with difficulty escaped from the enemy.

The Governor lost no more than two men in this expedition, yet it entailed on the colony a debt of six thousand pounds sterling which, at that period, was a grievous burden. The provincial assembly met to concert ways and means for discharging it. A bill was brought in for stamping bills of credit, to answer the public exigence, which were to be sunk in three years by a duty on liquors, skins, and furs. This was the first paper money issued in the province, and, for five or six years, it passed at the same value and rate with the sterling money of England. Thus war, debt, and paper money, were coeval in Carolina; and connected as cause and effect in the order in which they are mentioned.

Four years after the termination of Moore's expedition against St. Augustine the Spaniards and French, then at war with Great Britain, projected a combined attack on Charlestown; with a view of recovering the province claimed by the Spaniards as a part of Florida. Sir Nathaniel Johnson, then Governor, had been a military man and was well qualified to conduct its defence. No sooner had he received intelligence of the designs of the enemy, than he set every one to work upon the fortifications, appointed a number of gunners to each bastion, and diligently trained the men to the use of arms. A small fort, called fort Johnson, was erected on James Island and several cannon mounted thereon. Intrenchments were made on White Point, and other suitable places. A guard was stationed on Sullivan's Island, with orders to kindle a number of fires opposite the town equal to the number of ships they might see on the coast.

Carolina was at this juncture the southern frontier of the British empire in America; and though it had acquired some degree of strength, was in a feeble state to resist an enemy of force. From its situation there was reason to apprehend that the French and Spaniards would attack it, as it would be an easier conquest than the more populous northern settlements. Before this time a plan had been concerted at the Havanna, for invading it. Monsieur Le Feboure, with a french frigate and four armed sloops, encouraged and assisted by the Spanish Governor of Cuba, sailed for Charlestown. To facilitate the conquest, Monsieur Le Feboure had directions to touch at St. Augustine and carry from it such a force as he judged adequate to the enterprise. Upon his arrival there, he received intelligence of an epidemical distemper, which raged at Charles