to adopt, an incident, not within the calculation of military skill or the control of human power, decided their counsels. Three ships of force, which the Governor of South Carolina had sent to Oglethorpe's aid, appeared off the coast. The agreement of this discovery with the contents of the letter, convinced the Spanish Commander of its real intention. The whole army seized with an instant panic, set fire to the fort and precipitately embarked; leaving several cannon, with a quantity of provisions and military stores. Thus in the moment of threatened conquest, the infant colony was providentially saved. Though the Spaniards threatened to renew the invasion, yet we do not find that after this repulse they ever made any attempt by force of arms to gain possession of Georgia or Carolina.

For the seventy-two years which had passed away since the settlement of South Carolina, there had been repeated reciprocal invasions of the contiguous Spanish and British provinces. Though hostilities occasionally ceased, bickerings were always kept alive from the constant irritation of unneighborly, injurious acts; till by the peace of Paris in 1763, the two Floridas were ceded by Spain to Great Britain. From that period, till the commencement of the revolutionary war, the inhabitants of Florida and those of Georgia and Carolina being all subjects of the same King, lived in harmony with each other. No sooner had the American war began, than the former scenes of plunder and devastation recommenced between the contiguous provinces. The Floridas by remaining a part of the British empire, while Georgia and Carolina became free States, were set in opposition to each other. Hostilities, as is usual among the borderers of contending governments, were rendered more fierce from the circumstance of contiguity. Throughout the war parties from each reciprocally plundered and harrassed the other; ostensibly on one side for the advancement of British, and on the other of American interests; but in both cases for the private emolument of the actors in these disgraceful scenes. Florida also afforded an entrance through which British agents furnished supplies to the Indian tribes adjacent to the new formed American States, and by which they encouraged the former to destroy the latter. Such will ever be the case in the event of war between the sovereigns of Florida, and the citizens of America. Happy are the people whose territories are encircled by obvious natural boundaries, easily distinguished but not easily passed.

SECTION II.

Contests with Indians.

When South Carolina was settled by the English, it was in the occupation of more than twenty nations, or tribes of Indians. Their combined numbers were so considerable that had they been guided by a spirit of union, or directed by a Common Council, they would have been able at any time, for many years after the settlement, to have exterminated the new comers. The Indians in their military capacity, were not so inferior to the whites as some may imagine. The superiority of muskets over bows and arrows, managed by Indians in a woody country, is not great. The savage, quicksighted and accustomed to perpetual watchfulness, springs from his hiding place, behind a bush, and surprises his enemy with the pointed arrow before he is aware of danger. He ranges through the trackless forest like the beasts of prey, and safely sleeps under the same canopy with the wolf and bear. His vengeance is concealed, till he sends the tidings in the fatal blow.

Though the Indians viewed with a jealous eye the encroachments made on their territorial possessions, they took no effectual measures for the defence of their property. Finding many present conveniences to result from their intercourse with the new comers, they acquiesced in their settlement. Destitute of foresight, they did not anticipate consequences; nor did they embitter present enjoyments, with forebodings of future evils. To the Indian, a knife, a hatchet, or a hoe, was a valuable acquisition. He observed with what facility the strangers supplied their many wants by means of the various implements they used. The woods fell before the axe-the earth opened before the hoe and spade-and the knife was useful on numberless occasions. He admired the skill of white men in making these articles of ease and profit, and voluntarily offered to them his deer skins, the only riches he had which could procure them. The love of ease was as natural to the one as the other; and the Indian would rather give to the white settler the profits of a year's hunting, than be without his instruments. Having obtained these, in process of time he found the tomahawk and musket equally useful. These he also coveted, and could not rest till he obtained them. What was at first only convenient, as his wants increased became almost necessary. The original bond was therefore progressively strengthened and confirmed. As the channel of commerce opened, the Indian found that he was not only treated with friendship and civility, but that the

white people were equally fond of his skins, furs, and lands, as he was of their gaudy trinkets and various implements. It was this connection that induced the native inhabitants of the forest peaceably to admit strangers, though differing in complexion, language, and manners, to reside among them and to clear and cultivate their lands.

By these means the first settlers of Carolina readily obtained foothold among the native owners of the soil! The proprietors gave instructions to their tenants to cultivate the good will of the aborigines. They also made many presents to them, but nothing appears on record like a formal purchase or transfer of any part of the low country from the one to the other.* Tradition has informed us that some individuals, from a sense of justice, made private purchases from the Indians; but in general a liberty to settle was neither asked nor given; but was taken by white men, and acquiesced in by the savages. Private contentions between them were frequent, but formal hostilities on national grounds only occasional; many causes of the former existed, and but few of the latter. While the English thought little of Indian rights to lands, the latter were equally regardless of the rights of the former to moveable property. (Accustomed to take wild animals whereever found, they could not readily comprehend the crime of taking such as were tame.) What the English settler called theft, the Indian considered as the exercise of a natural right. The ideas of a civilized and savage man were at greater variance in other important matters. If the former in a fit of drunkenness, in the heat of passion, or even in self defence, killed or wounded the latter, nothing less than scalp for scalp -blood for blood-and death for death, could satisfy the surviving friends of the injured party. If the real criminal could not be found, they claimed the right of retaliating on any person of the same color or nation that came in their way. They also admitted the voluntary substitution of an innocent person

* The people of Carolina hold their lands in the southern and western parts of the State partly by conquest, and partly by treaties with the aborigines. These were valid against the natives. The charters from the sovereigns of England were in like manner good against the grantors and other Europeans, but the rights of the present possessors have a higher origin than either of these sources. The earth was made for man, and was intended by the Creator of all things to be improved for the benefit of mankind. The land which could support one savage in his mode of living, is capable of supporting five hundred under proper cultivation. These wild lands therefore were not the seperate property of the few savages who hunted over them, but belonged to the common stock of mankind. The first who possessed a vacant spot, and actually cultivated it for some time, ought to be considered as the proprietor of that spot, and they who derive their titles from him have a valid right to the same. This doctrine is agreeable to the judicial determination of the courts of South Carolina with respect to rights in lands derived solely from possession, and is the ground on which the claims of Spain to the whole country can be invalidated.

as an atonement for one that was guilty, who thereupon was free.

This conduct and these rules of action, were hostile to peace. As the forgiveness of injuries is so far from being any part of the creed of Indians, that they consider it as pusillanimous not to avenge the death of their friends, one quarrel often produced another. Feuds which were originally private and personal, soon became public and national, and seldom failed to multiply and extend their tragical effects. The Indians made very free with the planters' stock, and these as freely made use of their arms in defence of their property. Lives were frequently lost in these petty contests. If an Indian was killed, his countrymen poured their vengeance indiscriminately on the innocent and guilty. Governor West found it necessary to encourage and reward such of the colonists as would take the field against them for the public defence. Accordingly a price was fixed on every Indian the settlers should take prisoner, and bring to Charlestown. These captive savages were disposed of to the traders, who sent them to the West Indies, and there sold them as slaves. This traffic was an inhuman method of getting rid of troublesome neighbors, yet the planters pleaded necessity in its vindication. It is certain that the reward for Indian prisoners encouraged bold adventurers, and the sale of them made a profitable branch of trade. These advantages weighed with interested persons as an extenuation, if not a justification of the practice. The proceeds of the Indians, when sold in the West Indies, were generally returned to the colonists in rum. This appropriation of the gains of the iniquitous traffic was so injurious, that in many instances it was doubtful whether the evil ultimately suffered or that originally committed was greatest.

The Carolinians soon found out the policy of setting one. tribe of Indians against another, on purpose to save themselves. By trifling presents they purchased the friendship of some tribes whom they employed to carry on war with others. This not only diverted their attention from the white settlers, but encouraged them to bring captives to Charlestown for the purpose of transportation to the West Indies.

A war commenced in the beginning of the year 1680 with the Westoes, a very powerful tribe between Charlestown and Edisto, which well nigh ruined the infant settlement. The cause of hostilities, thus inconvenient and dangerous, may be found in injuries which had been mutually given and received. A peace was concluded in the subsequent year, the old giving security for the good conduct of the young. To prevent the return of similar mischiefs, and to advance justice, the proprietors erected a commission for Maurice Matthews,

William Fuller, Jonathan Fits, and John Boone, to decide all complaints between the English and the Indians. Some complaints were made against these commissioners, the particulars of which have not reached us. They were discharged and the commission abrogated. In lieu thereof the proprietors ordered that the Indians within 400 miles of Charlestown, should all be taken under their protection.

The next Indian war was an offensive one on the part of the Carolinians. The Apalachian Indians, by their connection with the Spaniards, had become troublesome. Governor Moore, in 1702 or 1703, marched at the head of a body of white men and Indian allies into the heart of their settlements. Wherever he went he carried fire and sword. He laid in ashes the towns of those tribes who lived between the rivers Alatamaha and Savannah; captured many savages, and obliged others to submit to the English government. This exertion of power in that quarter filled the savages with terror of the British arms, and helped to pave the way for the English colony afterwards planted between these rivers. The Governor received the thanks of the proprietors, wiped off the ignominy of his expedition against St. Augustine, and procured a number of Indian slaves whom he employed as slaves or sold for his own advantage.

The first serious war with the Indians, in which Carolina participated, took place far to the north of Charlestown. This appears to have been entered upon by the natives with a view of exterminating the English settlers. What they might have accomplished in the first years of the settlement, was beyond their power when forty-two years had given it strength and stability.

In the year 1712, a dangerous conspiracy was formed by the Indians of North Carolina against the settlers in that quarter. The particular cause of the quarrel is unknown; probably they were offended at the encroachments made on their hunting lands. The powerful tribes of Indians, called Corees, Tuscororas, and some others, united and determined to murder or expel the European invaders. They carried on their bloody design with amazing cunning and profound secresy. They surrounded their principal town with a wooden breast-work, for the security of their own families. There the different tribes met together, to the number of twelve hundred bowmen, and formed their horrid plot. From this place of rendezvous they sent out small parties, who entered the settlements, under the mask of friendship, by different roads. All of them agreed to begin their murderous operations on the same night. When that night came they entered the planters' houses, demanded provisions, were displeased with