[1669-1670 A.D.] number of three nobles for each county was to remain unalterable; after the current century no transfer of lands could take place. Each county, being divided into twenty-four parts, called colonies, was to be cultivated by a race of hereditary leetmen, or tenants, attached to the soil, each holding ten acres of land at a fixed rent; these tenants not being possessed of any political franchise, but being "adscripts of the soil under the jurisdiction of their lord without any appeal"; and it was added that "all the children of leetmen shall be leetmen, and so to all generations."

The political rights of the great body of the people being thus disposed of, and a legislative barrier placed, as it were, against progressive popular improvement and enlightenment, a very complicated system of government was framed for the benefit of the privileged classes. "Besides the court of proprietors, invested with supreme executive authority, the president of which was the oldest proprietor, with the title of palatine, there were seven other courts, presided over by the remaining seven proprietors, with the titles respectively of admiral, chamberlain, chancellor, chief justice, high steward, and treasurer; besides the president, each of these courts had six councillors appointed for life, two-thirds, at least, of whom must be nobles." There is something almost childish and ludicrous in the business of some of these supreme and pompous dignitaries of an infant settlement, the inhabitants of which lived in log cabins scattered through the wilderness. The court of the admiral had cognisance of shipping and trade; the chamberlain's, of pedigrees, festivals, sports, and ceremonies; the chancellor's, of state affairs and license of printing; the constable's, of war; the chief justice's, of ordinary judicial questions; the high steward's, of public works; the treasurer's, of finance.

"All these courts united," says Hildreth,h "were to compose a grand council of fifty members, in whom was vested exclusively the right of proposing laws, which required, however, the approval of a parliament of four estates, proprietors, landgraves, caciques, and commoners, to render them valid. The four estates composing the parliament were to sit in one chamber, each landgrave and cacique being entitled to a seat, but the proprietors, if they chose, to sit by deputy. Four commoners for each county were the representatives of the commons; the possession of five hundred acres being, however, requisite to qualify for a seat, and fifty acres of land to give an elective vote. The proprietaries in their separate courts had a veto on all acts."

The people had thus no share whatever in the executive, judicial, or legislative authority. "The four-and-twenty colonies of each county were divided into four precincts, each precinct having a local court, whence appeals were to lie to the court of chief justice. Juries were to decide by majority. To plead for money or reward in any court was denounced as "base and vile," an enactment little in accordance with the interests of the lawyer. "None could be freemen who did not acknowledge God and the obligation of public worship. The Church of England-against the wishes of Locke, who wished to put all sects on the same footing-was to be supported by the state. Any seven freemen might, however, form a church or religious society, provided its members admitted the rightfulness of oaths-which clause at once excluded the Quakers. By another provision, every freeman of Carolina, of whatsoever opinion or religion, possessed absolute power and authority over his negro slaves."

This "Grand Model constitution," which was extravagantly praised in England, was signed in March, 1670, and Monk, duke of Albemarle, as the oldest of the proprietaries, was appointed palatine. Whilst this pompous scheme of legislature was occupying the wisest heads in England, three vessels conveyed out emigrants, at the expense of £12,000 to the proprietaries,

[1670-1677 A.D.] under the command of William Sayle, who established themselves on the old site of Port Royal. The grand aristocratical constitution was sent over in due form to Carolina, but neither was it found more suitable at Albemarle, in the north, than by Sayle's colony in the south. The character of the people of Albemarle rendered its introduction impossible; "those sturdy dwellers in scattered log cabins of the wilderness could not be noblemen, and would not be serfs." This unfortunate constitution, which made John Locke a landgrave, and the noble proprietaries in succession palatines, led to a long and fruitless struggle of its founders to force upon the settlers a form of government incompatible with their circumstances, and from which they had nothing to gain, but everything to lose. The contest continued for three-andtwenty years, when the Grand Model, baseless as a fabric of mist, was formally abrogated.

About the time when the new constitution was first exciting the derision and abhorrence of the sturdy Nonconformists of Albemarle, distinguished ministers among the Quakers travelled from Virginia into North Carolina, and were received "tenderly" by a people naturally religious, but amongst whom, at that time, was no minister of Christ. The "Society of Friends" were the first to organise a religious government in this portion of America. In the autumn of 1672 George Fox himself visited Carolina. Carolina, like Rhode Island, was a place of refuge for schismatics of all kinds, who now "lived lonely in the woods, with great dogs to guard their houses"; men and women of thoughtful minds "open to the conviction of truth," and who received the preachings and teachings of George Fox and his brethren with great joy.

CULPEPER'S REBELLION (1677 A.D.)

Willing disciples of George Fox, as the people of North Carolina proved themselves to be, were sure to protest against and oppose a constitution like that of Shaftesbury and Locke. The introduction of it was not only difficult, but was soon rendered impossible, by the accession of dissenters from England, and so-called "runaways, rogues, and rebels" from Virginia, who, on the suppression of an insurrection there, fled daily to Carolina as their common place of refuge. Another cause of dissatisfaction with the English government, and of constant irritation, was the enforcement of the Navigation Laws. The population of the whole state as yet, in 1677, amounted to little more than four thousand; "a few fat cattle, a little maize, and eight hundred hogsheads of tobacco formed all their exports," and the few foreign articles which they required were brought to them by the traders of Boston. Yet, small as this traffic was, it was envied by the English merchants; the Navigation Law was ordered to be strictly enforced, the New England trader was driven from their harbour by unreasonable duties, and the Carolinians themselves had no other free market for their few exports than England.

The attempts at enforcing the Navigation Laws hastened an insurrection, which was fostered by the refugees from Virginia and the men of New England, and which justified itself by the publication of the first American manifesto. The threefold grievances of the colony were stated herein to be: excessive taxation; the abridgment of political liberty by the altered form of government, with the denial of a free election of an assembly; and the unwise interruption of the natural channels of commerce. The head of this insurrection was John Culpeper, a man stigmatised by the English party as one "who deserved hanging, for endeavouring to set the poor to plunder the

[1677-1688 A.D.]

rich." The whole body of the settlers was insurgent; Miller, the chief object of their hatred, and seven proprietary deputies were arrested and imprisoned, courts of justice established, and a parliament called. With a popular government, anarchy was at an end; though when the new governor, Eastchurch, arrived, none would acknowledge his authority. The following year, Culpeper and Holden were sent to England to negotiate a compromise with the proprietaries and to obtain the recall of Miller.

Miller, however, and his companions, having escaped from prison, met the deputies in England, and as the supporters of the Navigation Laws were sustained by a powerful interest there, Culpeper when about to embark for America was arrested in his turn on the charge of interrupting the collection of duties and their embezzlement. He demanded his trial in Carolina, where the act was committed. "Let no favour be shown," cried the adverse party; and he was brought to trial. Shaftesbury, however, then in the zenith of his popularity, appeared on his behalf, declaring "that there never had been a regular government in Albemarle; that its disorders were only feuds among the planters, which could not amount to treason"-and he was acquitted. On the acquittal of Culpeper, the proprietaries found themselves in a difficult position. After looking at the question in every point of view, excepting that which was simple and straightforward, "they resolved," says Chalmers, "to govern in future according to that portion of obedience which the insurgents should be disposed to yield." The wise exclaimed, in the language of prediction, that a government actuated by such principles cannot possibly be of long continuance.

Mild as had appeared the temper of the proprietaries, it seemed, however, as if they had determined severely to punish the offending colony, when, in 1683, they sent over Seth Sothel as governor. He appears, by the report of all parties, to have been of that scoundrel class by which human nature is degraded. He was himself one of the eight proprietaries, and he accepted office merely for sordid purposes. "The annals of delegated authority," says Chalmers, "have not recorded a name so deserving of infamy as that of Sothel. Bribery, extortion, injustice, rapacity, with breach of trust and disobedience of orders, are the crimes of which he was accused during the five years that he misruled this unhappy colony. Driven almost to despair, the inhabitants at length seized his person, in 1688. The assembly compelled him to abjure the country for twelve months and the government forever. The proprietaries, though they heard with indignation of the sufferings which Sothel had inflicted on the colony, were yet displeased that the colony through its assembly had assumed supreme power, which act was regarded as "prejudicial to the prerogative of the crown and to the honour of the proprietaries."

Well, however, was it for North Carolina that she thus took the law into her own hands; tranquillity was restored. Mighty changes were in the mean time taking place in England; the revolution of 1688 was overturning not only political parties, but the very constitution itself. But neither the strife of parties nor the removal of the crown from one royal head to another, mattered in North Carolina, where, at length, peace and prosperity were established. "The settlers of North Carolina," we are told by Bancroft, "began now to enjoy to their heart's content liberty of conscience and personal independence, the freedom of the forest and the river. Unnumbered swine fattened on the fruits of the forest or the heaps of peaches; spite of imperfect husbandry, cattle multiplied on the pleasant savannahs. There was neither city nor township; there was hardly even a hamlet, or one house within

[1670-1671 A.D.]

sight of another; nor were there roads, except as the paths from house to house were distinguished by notches on the trees. The settlers were gentle in their tempers, of serene minds, enemies to violence and bloodshed; and the spirit of humanity maintained its influence in the Arcadia, as royalist writers will have it, of rogues and rebels in the paradise of Quakers."

THE GROWTH OF SOUTH CAROLINA

We have already related how, in 1670, the year in which the Grand Model constitution was signed, a company of emigrants were sent out, at the expense of £12,000 to the proprietaries, under the command of William Sayle, a military officer and Presbyterian, who twenty years before had attempted to plant a colony in the Bahama Isles, under the title of an Eleutheria, and who more latterly had been employed by the proprietaries in exploring the coasts of their province. These emigrants were accompanied by Joseph West, as commercial agent of the proprietaries, authorised to supply the settlers with provisions, cattle, implements, and all other necessaries; a trade being commenced for this purpose with Virginia, Bermuda, and Barbadoes.

The vessels containing the infant colony, which was intended to be constituted according to the Grand Model, entered the harbour of Port Royal, on the shores of which, a century before, the Huguenots had erected their fort the early Carolina-and of which even yet some traces remained. Each settler was to receive a hundred and fifty acres of land, and the district thus taken possession of was called Carteret county. It was soon discovered, as was to be expected, that the Grand Model was far too complex a system of government even for this settlement sent out by the proprietaries themselves; "yet, desiring to come as nigh to it as possible," says Chalmers, "five persons were immediately elected by the freeholders, and five others chosen by the proprietaries, who were to form a grand council, and these, with the governor and twenty delegates elected by the people, composed a parliament which was invested with legislative power."

Scarcely had Sayle thus far fulfilled his office, when he fell a victim to the effects of the climate, and died. Sir John Yeamans succeeded him, and Clarendon county, in consequence, was annexed to Carteret. The same year, 1671, the settlement removed from Port Royal to the banks of the Ashley river, "for the convenience of pasturage and tillage," and upon the neck of the peninsula then called Oyster Point, between that river and the Cooper -both thus called in honour of Shaftesbury-the foundation of Charleston was laid by the settlement there of a few graziers' cabins. The situation thus chosen, though full of natural beauty-the primeval forest, as we are told, sweeping down to the river's edge, laden with yellow jessamine, the perfume of which filled the air-was not salubrious. The place for many years indeed was considered so unhealthy during the hot months of the year that people fled from it at that time as from the pestilence. But the clearing away of the woods, probably, and the draining of the soil, so far altered its character in this respect, that it is now rather singularly healthy than otherwise.

Spite of the shortcomings of the settlement as regarded the Grand Model, Governor Yeamans was created landgrave, and, Albemarle being dead, Lord Berkeley had become palatine. Yeamans introduced negro slavery in 1671, bringing with him a cargo of slaves from Barbadoes. The heat of the climate rendered labour difficult to the whites, and from its first settlement South

[1671-1674 A.D.] Carolina was a slave state; besides which, these settlers seem to have been a somewhat improvident and shiftless set of people, deriving their supplies for several years from the proprietaries, for which, though obtained as purchases, they appear never to have paid; complaining bitterly when the proprietaries, objecting naturally enough to supply them on these terms, declared that "they would no longer continue to feed and to clothe them." To such men it would soon become an object to possess negro slaves, without which, it was early said, "a planter can never do any great matter." The climate of South Carolina was not only congenial to the negro, but, as we have seen, the temper of the people made them willingly avail themselves of slave labour, and very soon the slave population far outnumbered the whites.

The management of Sir John, or Landgrave Yeamans not being by any means satisfactory to the proprietaries, nor yet to the colony, he was recalled in 1674, and Joseph West was appointed governor and created landgrave, and to him the proprietaries made over as salary their outstanding claims against the colony-the surest means of trying his popularity. Nevertheless, we find, at the end of ten years, that "he received the whole product of his traffic, as the reward of his services, without any impeachment of his morals." The proprietaries, seeing the character of the emigrants they had sent over, encouraged settlers from the New England and the northern colonies; and with a desire to promote the advantage of the industrious, sent over further supplies, informing the colony, however, that they must be paid, being determined "to make no more desperate debts."

INFLUX OF HUGUENOTS AND OTHERS

The fame of the beautiful land of South Carolina, "the region where every month had its succession of flowers," soon led to the attempt to introduce and cultivate the olive, the orange, the mulberry for the production of the silk-worm, and vines for the production of wine. Charles II himself sent over to the colony two small vessels with these plants, and Protestants from the south of France for their cultivation; he also exempted the province from the payment of duties on these commodities for a limited time, which caused dissatisfaction at home, and the remonstrance against "encouraging people to remove to the plantations, as too many go thither already to the unpeopling and ruin of the kingdom." Emigrants continued to come over from England, and these of various classes, not only impoverished cavaliers and discontented churchmen, but the soundest element for colonisation, sturdy dissenters, to whom their native land no longer afforded a secure abode. Among other companies of emigrants were a considerable number from Somersetshire, who accompanied Joseph Blake, the brother of the celebrated admiral, now dead. Blake was himself no longer young, but unable to endure the present oppressions of England, and dreading still worse from a popish successor to the crown, devoted the whole of the vast fortune he had inherited from his brother to the purposes of emigration. A colony of Irish went over, under Ferguson, and soon amalgamated with the population. Lord Cardross also took over a company of brave Scotch exiles, who had suffered grievously at home for their religion-men who had been thumb-screwed and tortured for consciences' sake; but they, having established themselves at Port Royal, fell victims to the animosity of the Spaniards, who claimed that portion of the district as appertaining to St. Augustine, and consequently destroyed their settlement. Many returned to Scotland; the rest, like the Irish, became blended with the original colonists.