.

Ireland. Many of these invested their commercial gains in a planting interest, settled and raised up families in the province. Several of them passed through all the grades between clerks, or shopmen, and wealthy merchants or substantial planters, in the interval between their youth and the period of their attaining or soon after their passing the meridian of life. They did not consider Carolina as a place of exile from the delights of Europe till they had amassed the means of enjoying life in their native lands, but took it for their home and acted with that liberality towards their adopted countrymen which might be expected from permanent inhabitants. Several of the present generation have derived their origin from merchants of this description.

All the little commerce which was carried on in the revolutionary war was forced against apparently insurmountable obstacles. The State had no adequate means for protecting its trade. Soon after the declaration of independence, some adventurous individuals began to send vessels to the Dutch and French West India Islands. It was early foreseen that the public would suffer most from the want of salt. To obviate this inconvenience eight gentlemen entered into a partnership to purchase six swift sailing vessels in Bermuda to be employed in importing that necessary article. They for a season supplied the wants of the people and continued this trade till their vessels were all taken.

Commerce soon began to flow in new channels. The old merchants whose fortunes were easy, unwilling to risk their capital, generally retired from business. A new set who had little to lose by boldly venturing, served their country and rapidly advanced their own interest. Various artifices were used to screen this contraband trade from legal seizure. Some vessels had captains of different nations, and registers of different ports; and were occasionally French, Dutch, English or American property as the exigency of the case required. Notwithstanding all this subtlety many forfeitures were incurred. The increasing demand for imported goods and the stoppage of all exportation to Great Britain, put it so much in the power of adventurers to sell imported articles dear and to purchase country produce cheap, that in the years 1776 and 1777, the safe arrival of two vessels would indemnify them for the loss of one. For the encouragement of trade two insurance companies opened offices which greatly forwarded the extension of commerce. A direct trade to France was soon attempted, and French vessels in like manner found their way into the port of Charlestown. This intercourse in its commencement proved very unfortunate; for out of sixteen vessels richly laden with the commodities of the country, four only arrived

safe. This heavy blow for a little time damped the spirit of enterprise, but it soon revived.

A considerable trade, though much inferior to what had been usual in times of peace, was carried on in this manner for the greatest part of the three first years of the contest when the operations of the British were chiefly confined to the northern States. It received severe shocks from repeated embargoes and the growing depreciation of the paper currency. To subserve military operations the sailing of vessels was several times interdicted. This solely distressed commerce, and prevented the country from obtaining supplies of foreign commodities. It also discouraged strangers from sending their vessels into American ports, as their return, for reasons of State, was so frequently prevented.

When in the course of the war the British turned their arms more immediately against Carolina and Georgia, the trade that had been previously carried on became inconsiderable. Nevertheless, as often as French fleets visited the coast or the absence of British armed vessels was satisfactorily ascertained, the merchants of Charlestown improved their opportunities and sometimes made successful voyages. With the fall of Charlestown all trade in behalf of Americans wholly ceased. The transition from the greatest want of imported articles to the greatest plenty, was instantaneous. In the train of the victorious army was a number of merchants and an immensity of goods. The shelves which for some time had been unoccupied, began once more to bend with the novel load of British manufactures. Such of the inhabitants as had credit or the command of money, easily obtained a supply of all they wanted. The contrast between the eighteen months which preceded, and the eighteen months which followed the surrender of Charlestown was striking; but soon after the expiration of the latter period, commerce again began to languish. Every day added to the probability that the late conquerors would not be able to keep the province. The Americans in a few more months regained nearly all they had formerly lost, and the evacuation of Charlestown was resolved upon by the British. The merchants who came with them were permitted to negotiate for themselves, and on the departure of the royal army obtained permission from the government of the State to remain under the protection of its laws. The impoverished inhabitants of South Carolina now experienced no other want but that of money, for much of the merchandize in Charlestown was left behind at its evacuation by the British. As a substitute for cash they stretched their credit to the utmost, and contracted debts which to several were ruinous and to all inconvenient.

With the return of peace, the Carolinians counted on an extension of their commerce as being no longer fettered with a British monopoly. But they soon found that when they ceased to be British subjects, they lost the advantages attached to that political character; that as aliens they could not trade to the British West India Islands, with which, from the first settlement of the province, they had carried on a lucrative commerce. With the war several had lost their capital and others their credit. Few Carolinians had resources left to enter into competition with the British merchants. In the hands of the latter the bulk of the trade of the country centered, and with them it has more or less continued ever since.

It was not only from this circumstance, but from the superior advantages of trading with Great Britain, that the Carolinians have been commercially connected with Great Britain nearly as much since the Revolution as before. They have a right to trade with all the world, but find it their interest to trade. principally with Britain. The ingenuity of her manufacturers the long credit her merchants are in the habit of giving the facility of making remittances to her as the purchaser of a great part of the native commodities of Carolina, have all concurred to cement a commercial connection between the two countries. From the increased demand for the manufactures of Britain by the increased inhabitants of Carolina, the latter, as a State, is much more profitable to the former than she ever was when a province. Though the trade of South Carolina to Germany has greatly increased, and that to the Mediterranean, to France, Spain, United Netherlands, Madeira, and Russia, has also increased in the order in which these countries are respectively mentioned; yet the surplus that remains for Great Britain far exceeds all she ever derived from the same country as her colony. It may be confidently asserted that the trade between the two countries for one single year of general peace, free from all interruption, would now be of greater value to Great Britain than all she derived from Carolina for the first half of her colonial existence; or the fifty-three years which were immediately subsequent to the settlement of the province.

The merchants of Carolina do not seem fond of exploring new channels of commerce. There never was but one vessel fitted out in Charlestown for the East Indies. No voyages round the world, to the northwest coast of America, to new or remote countries, have originated there; as far as can be recollected.

The wars that for several years before and after the commencement of the nineteenth century, raged in Europe, have been of great advantage; and also a source of material injury

to the commerce of Carolina. In the first instance the privileges attached to neutral vessels, the extensive marine and enterprising spirit of American navigators, have made their flag the passport for the commodities of most of the belligerent nations. Carolina, as being near to their colonies in the West India Islands and on the Main, came in for a large share of this carrying trade and derived great profits from it. This was called by England, "War in disguise;" as it facilitated the transportation of commodities between the French and Spanish colonies, and their respective mother countries, to effect which their own reduced marine was unequal. Orders, and counter decrees, decrees and counter orders, alternately retaliating not on each other, but on unoffending third persons, followed each other in rapid succession, till neutrals were reduced to the alternative of either abandoning the ocean or subjecting themselves to almost certain capture by one or the other of the belligerents. The laws of nature and nations were disregarded. Both the hostile nations, England and France, so often and so grossly violated the rights of neutrals, that it is difficult to ascertain who was the first or the greatest aggressor. They both deserve the execrations of every friend to the rights of man, or of neutral commerce. The citizens of Carolina, conscious that they had given no just cause of offence to either, humbly hoped to be permitted to live in peace. But this boon was too great to be granted. Each of the nations at war endeavored to goad them into a quarrel with its respective adversary; and to compel them to do so, each hostile nation interdicted them and all Americans from trading with the other and all its dependencies: thereby shutting them out from nine-tenths of the ports with which, by the laws of nations, of nature, and of nature's God, they had a right to trade. That their innocent commerce might be saved from universal seizure, under color of British orders of council, and French decrees, the ruling powers of the United States in December, 1807, directed that the Americans should retire within themselves from all commercial intercourse with foreigners. A coasting trade is all that throughout the year 1808 remained of an extensive commerce, which, though not two centuries old, had grown with such unexampled rapidity as to be the second in the world. That year, which will be long remembered for the privations and sufferings resulting from a general embargo, was an eventful one to the inhabitants of South Carolina. Their foreign trade was in a moment, and with little or no previous notice, completely arrested. To vessels loaded and ready to sail, clearances were denied. Such as having already cleared out, had began their voyages, were pursued, and when overtaken brought back. The price of produce instantly fell more than one hundred per cent. or

rather could not be sold from want of purchasers. The labors of the past year were rendered unavailing to the relief of their owner though pressed with debt and threatened with executions. Factors, wharfingers, and others engaged in the transportation or sale of commodities, suddenly passed over from the full tide of employment to listless inactivity. A general stagnation of business in the midst of that bustling period which is called the crop season, instantly took place. The distresses of individuals were both the causes and effects of the distresses of others. A chain of suffering encircled the community. All this was magnanimously borne by a great majority of the inhabitants. Their reproaches fell not on the administrators of their own government, but on the authors of British orders and French decrees. The Legislature of the State applauded the measures of the general government and their applause was re-echoed by the people. The discontents of a few evaporated in private murmurings, and did not produce a single public expression of disapprobation or impatience. While others contended that they suffered most from the embargo, the Carolinians with justice preferred their claim to the honor of bearing it best. History is confined to the relation of facts, and does not extend to conjectures on contingent events, or it might be added that if the embargo had been as faithfully observed and as patiently borne in every part of the Union as it was in Carolina, the issue would probably have been very different, and certainly more to the honor of the United States.

OF THE ARTS IN SOUTH CAROLINA,

FROM 1670 TO 1808.

CHAPTER VII.

To procure food, clothing, shelter and defence, are primary arts at all times indispensable, but eminently so among the settlers in new countries or such as are inhabited only by savages. The first Europeans who located themselves in Carolina must have derived their food from the waters and woods, except what they brought with them and the maize they obtained from the Indians. Their clothing they must have imported, for the country afforded none other than the skins of beasts. The aborigines had no domestic animals, no stores of food artificially preserved, no cultivated fields or gardens