USA > South Carolina > History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, Vol. I pt 1 > Part 9
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82
THEIR HARDSHIPS.
[1670-1685.
Brice, John Syme, Hugh Syme, William Syme, John Alexan- der, John Marshal, Matthew Mackan, John Paton, John Gib- son, John Young, Arthur Cunningham, George Smith, and John Dowart."*
Wodrow supposes that it was in the same ship in which these persecuted men came out that Rev. Mr. William Dun- lop, " whom," says he, "I can never name without the greatest regard to his memory, transported himself, and voluntarily withdrew from the iniquity of this time. And, if I mistake not," he adds, " the excellent and truly noble Lord Cardross left his native country at the same time." .: Sad and extremely uncomfortable was their passage to these shores.
" Captain James Gibson commanded the vessel, and is represented to have been very rude to the poor prisoners, who were about thirty-two in number. And his seamen and under-officers were yet harsher. Any small money their friends had scraped together for them before they sailed was taken from them, and they could have no redress. They were disturbed when at worship under deck and threatened; whenever they began to sing psalms the hatches were closed upon them. They had their water given to them in very scanty measure; one man was allowed only a mutchkin in twenty-four hours. And when there happened to be a mutchkin or less over, it was carefully distrib- uted among them all, or they would parcel it out by spoonfuls to such as were most necessitous. All this was really from ill-nature, for there was no strait. When they came ashore in Carolina, they had fourteen hogsheads of water to cast out, besides a good number of hogsheads of beer remaining. At the beginning of their voyage, every eight of them had a Scots pint of pottage allowed them, and a little beer; their only other food was salt beef, with a few peas, three or four years old, sodden in salt water ; this they had literally by weight, two ounces and a half to every two of them, with a biscuit, which
was old enough. Their bread was indeed so ill that they could not eat it, but bartered it with the seamen for the rain water they gathered. The sick were miserably treated, and had no other thing allowed them but what the rest had. Some of the prisoners, who were sick, desired to be put ashore at Burmudas, offering all security to Captain Gibson, if they recovered, to come to Carolina. At first the captain promised, but, when he found so many sick, altered his mind. The very ship's crew were like to mutiny for want of water; and Jolin Alexander died of thirst, as was thought. When
* Two of them, John Buchanan and Arthur Cunningham, add to their names a confession, " that they had fainted in giving consent to their own banishment." This is explained thus : " Most of them had been picked up in searches and otherwise, in Glasgow, Eastwood, Eaglesham, and other places round about, and had continued in prison some monthis." Walter Gibson and his brother were sending off a vessel to Carolina, and had promised that if they would go with thein, they would get their lives spared, and if not, they assured thiem they would be publicly executed. In this way these suf- fering and harassed men consented to their own expatriation. But after- wards, when it was represented by some as a confession of their own guilt, and as having a share in their own banishment, they acknowledged it as a step of fainting, and entered their confession as they affix their signatures to their testimony.
83
ELIZABETH LINNING.
1670-1685.]
they landed in Carolina, all the prisoners almost were sick ; they were taken out and put into houses under guard. Some cloth and other things, given by their friends in Scotland, to be sold at the best advantage and distributed among them in Carolina, was otherwise disposed of, and they had none of it. John Dick, formerly mentioned, having paid his freight to thirty shillings, though he offered his bond for it, and a comrade of his offered to serve in his room till that remainder of liis freighit was paid, yet the captain would in no- wise yield to it, but forced him up the country with him as his servant, where he died. His case differed from the rest of the prisoners, because of the con- tract he had entered into with the captain, but no faith was kept to him. Two of the prisoners, John Smith and John Paton, offering to make their escape, were discovered, and most barbarously used, being beaten eiglit times every day, and condemned to perpetual servitude."
"My account of banishments this year," says Wodrow, "shall be ended with an instance of severity great enough. When these prisoners were lying ready to sail from Clyde, Elizabeth Linning, yet alive, attesting this account, came down to visit the prisoners, some of them being her relations; when she came aboard, Captain Gibson ordered her to be kept and taken with them, though' he had nothing to charge her with ; she, perceiving this, took an opportunity, when those who were watching her were asleep, to get ashore. She was soon missed, and the captain ordered most of the crew ashore in search of her ; they found her, and brought her back, and carried her to Carolina witlı them. After they arrived there, and the prisoners were set ashore, she fell indisposed. One day she heard the captain say, when he did not know she was in hearing, 'Since she is sickly, let her go ashore, but see that she come aboard every night till we get her sold.' Upon this she took the first oppor- tunity to get ashore, and went straight to the governor, and acquainted him how she was forced to that place, and what she had heard. The governor was very civil, and caused cite the captain to the next court-day, where he appearing, was interrogate if he brought the girl from Scotland without sentence or consent; the captain owned he had, and trumped up a story, which she utterly refuted, that she had come with letters to the prisoners, and means were essaying to procure their escape, though he had given bond to the Council of Scotland for two-and-thirty of them at a thousand merks apiece. To this he answered nothing, but that he had an order from Lieu- tenant-Colonel Windram to keep her, for she was such a rebel as ought not to be permitted to stay in the nation. The governor desired him to produce this order; the other answered that he had it only by word of mouth; whereupon the court ordered her liberation, and allowed her the following extract :- 'At a Council held at Charleston, October 17th, 1684, upon the reading of the petition of Elizabeth Linning against Captain James Gibson, commander of the Carolina merchant, in a full council, it was ordered as follows -Whereas, upon the confession of Captain Gibson, that the within written Elizabeth Linning was, without the consent of the said Elizabeth, brought to this province by force and by a pretended order from Lieutenant- Colonel Windram, but the said Gibson producing none, it was ordered that the said Elizabeth be set at liberty as a free woman.'
" In short, most of the prisoners died in Carolina, and scarce a half-dozen of them ever returned to their native land ; and a great many years after, the commander of the ship they were in perished in the American seas, after a most unfortunate voyage. Many others were banished this and the following year, of whom I shall be scarce able to give any account.""
* See Wodrow, Hist. of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland. vol. iii., pp. 96, 192, 193, 194, 368, 369 ; iv., pp. 8, 9, 10, 101, 521.
S4
TREATMENT OF CARDROSS.
[1670-1685.
We have given these extended extracts. because they bring before us a vivid picture of those persecutions which our Scotch ancestors endured, and of the reasons which led many of them to seek a home on these, at that time, uncultivated shores, where to contend with the murderous savage, the wild beast, and an unhealthy clime, was less dreadful than to meet with the opposition of their own countrymen, whom a different creed made more bitter and terrible enemies. That these persecuted men were with Mr. Dunlop and Lord Cardross at Port Royal, the letter of Mrs. Dunlop from Edinburgh to her husband in America, September 2d, 1686, preserved in Wod- row, sufficiently shows .*
It would have been supposed that this settlement on their southern border would have been hailed with joy by the Eng- lish colony at Charleston, but they were regarded with a nar- row jealousy and treated with rudeness. The Grand Council at Charles-Town claimed jurisdiction over the territory granted to the Scots, and did not hesitate to exercise it even over those to whom Lord Cardross had given land as settlers within their county. This and other matters of importance induced Lord Cardross to expostulate with the governor and council,t and to bring to their recollection that both communities were under the same king and the same lords proprietors ; that it would not be the true interest of either to allow jealousies to arise when they were already threatened by their Spanish neighbors. He brings to their notice that two noted Indians, Wina and Antonio, were instigating the Indians around them to hostilities among themselves and against their settlement, and were entertaining a Spanish Indian believed to be a spy from St. Augustine or St. Mary's. He desires them to deliver up to the bearer, Wm. Dunlop, the six guns lying at Charles- Town, and directed by the proprietors to be given to them. The letter is signed by Cardross, William Dunlop, Hamilton, and Montgomerie. But their overtures were met with a rude repulse ; the Grand Council persist in their complaints, and summon Lord Cardross before them as if to answer for some high misdemeanor, and construe his failure to appear before them as a contempt, though he was prostrated with fever and
* "John Simes' wife hath written to himself."-Wodrow, Appendix, vol. iv., p. 520. John Simes was one of the emigrants who came out in Captain Gibson's ship.
+ See liis letter from " Stuart's Towne, on Port Royall, ye 25 March, 1684."- Appendix, Rivers' S. C., p. 407.
85
CHARACTER OF THE COLONISTS.
1670-1685.]
overcome by the heats of a climate to which he was unaccus- tomed .*
Robert Quary, to whom this letter of Lord Cardross was addressed, was provisional governor but for a short time. West was again governor from September, 1684, to Septem- ber, 1685, when he was succeeded by Moreton.
Fifteen years have now passed since the first permanent settlement of Europeans was made within the bounds of South Carolina. A population of about 2500 persons have been transferred from the shores of the old continent and have established themselves here. A portion of them are of the Established Church of England, to which a majority of the proprietors belonged. The large majority from the beginning have been dissenters from that church.t They have come from various portions of Britain or its colonies, and from France. They are of English, Irish, Scotch, French, or Dutch extraction. They have almost all been disciplined in the school of affliction, and their sufferings have to a large extent resulted from the conscientious maintenance of their religious opinions against the possessors of influence and power. The majority of them have high and just ideas of personal respon- sibility, and of civil and religious freedom. They have come to these shores, some to better their condition in things tem- poral, the majority of those dissenting from the English Church for freedom to worship God; some voluntarily, to escape bitter persecution, and others as banished for reli- gion's sake to a savage wilderness. They have been obliged thus far to contend with those inconveniences incident to first settlers in a new country, in a trying climate, with everything to learn, and surrounded by a savage foe. The proprietors at home have showed in many respects a remarkable fore- thought for their prosperity, in furnishing them with the means of introducing those productions of the old continent suited to their clime. Yet in this they had an eye to their own future emolument, a hope which thus far has not been realized. They have employed a scholar and philosopher, in
* Cardross's letter, dated Stuart's Towne, on Port Royall, July 17, 1684, and addressed to Robert Quary, Governor .- Rivers, p. 408 ; Collections Hist. Soc., i., pp. 92, 93.
t In the description of Carolina by Thomas Ash, clerk of his majesty's ship Richmond, who was in Carolina from 1680 to 1682, the population is stated at 1000 or 1200; but " the great numbers of families from England, Ire- land, Barbadoes, Jamaica, and the Caribee Islands, have more than doubled that number."-Printed at London, 1682 ; See Caroll, ii., p. 82.
86
VARIOUS DENOMINATIONS.
[1670-1685.
many respects the most eminent and high-minded of his day, to frame an ideal government, which should combine every imaginable excellence, and surpass the Utopia of More or the Republic of Plato. It has been found unsuited to a region as yet without a people, and where the colonists as they slowly gather must necessarily learn to govern them- selves, and where, having originated their own government and usages for the most part, they cannot be brought to adopt a model framed on an aristocratic basis, a government of nobles and barons, of palatines, landgraves, and cassiques, and become tenants and lieges, rather than an independent self-governing people. Already there are the beginnings of three or four Christian denominations, and of the three forms of ecclesiastical government known among Protestants. Dr. Dalcho supposes, without being able positively to prove it, that the Episcopal church of "St. Philip" was already erected. Religious worship had been conducted agreeably to the Scotch Presbyterian usage, by William Dunlop, as yet only a licentiate of Presbytery, at Lord Cardross's colony at Stu- art's Town, on Port Royal, from their first landing. Whether the Presbyterian or the Congregational element prevailed among the remainder, it is now difficult to ascertain. The probability is perhaps in favor of the preponderance (as yet) of the former element. The Dutch settlers were of the Pres- byterian church of Holland, the Irish were of that faith, the Huguenots were of the French Presbyterian church, and it is most probable that a large share of the English settlers were of the English Presbyterian faith. It is by no means proba- ble that these various representatives of churches which had endured so much for " freedom to worship God," should have lived, some of them, for fifteen years on these shores without social worship. As we have seen that Francis Makemie contemplated a settlement here, and had taken ship from Maryland for that purpose in May, 1684, and that Mr. Thomas Barret had been living in South Carolina as a minister of the Gospel previous to July, 1685, and was then about leaving for New England, perhaps to join the Presbyterian colonists there, it is to be presumed that they had already some more or less formal organization of a religious nature.
87
CONCURRENT EVENTS.
1670-1685.]
CHAPTER III.
CONCURRENT EVENTS .- ACT OF INDULGENCE.
DURING these fifteen years great events and great changes had been taking place in those countries from which these colonists came. And as they constitute an outlying and distant portion of the several churches of Europe, it will be proper briefly to review these events in which so much was exhibited which contributes to the glory, on the one part, and the opprobrium, on the other, of those communities claiming to be Christian. And we first turn our attention to Scotland, the earlier home of American Presbyterianism.
The first act which synchronizes with this period of our history was the Act of Indulgence. In this the Privy Council were instructed to appoint such of the ejected ministers of the Church of Scotland as had lived peaceably and orderly, to their former parishes if vacant, or others the Council should approve of, on certain conditions which were mentioned; and that all pretext for conventicles being now removed, they should proceed with all severity against those who should hold or frequent them. Forty-two ministers accepted this indul- gence,-not, however, without protesting against the king's supremacy in matters of religion, or maintaining the sole sovereignty of Christ. A great number of the ejected minis- ters declined to accept the indulgence, believing that in doing so they would necessarily admit the right of the civil ruler to exercise power over the Church of Christ. The church and its ministry thus became divided and weakened. In the year 1670 the " indulged" ministers were dealt with severely for not complying with all the terms of the indulgence. Other ministers were seized and punished for holding conventicles, and many gentlemen were heavily fined for attending them. Yet the more these meetings were forbidden the more numer- ously were they attended, and men of the congregations, of determined courage, armed themselves, and compelled those who came to disturb them to remain quietly, or peaceably depart. Acts of parliament were then passed requiring all subjects, of whatever degree, sex, or quality, to depose upon oath their knowledge of any person holding or frequenting such meetings, under penalty. of fine, imprisonment, or banish-
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88
PERSECUTIONS IN SCOTLAND.
[1670-1685.
ment to the plantations. Another act forbade all "outed" ministers from preaching, expounding, or praying, except in their own houses and to their own families, threatened that those who convocate conventicles in the fields shall be punished with death and confiscation of goods, and offered a reward to any who should seize the persons of such preachers, and an indemnity for any slaughter which might occur in the seizure. The people were only roused to the most determined resistance by these attempts to coerce them, in matters of conscience, for the purpose of forcing them under episcopal rule. They came together in still greater numbers, prepared with weapons of defence, determined to hear the word of God from the eloquent lips of their own beloved ministers, who preached with the power and demonstration of the Spirit, and with that energy and pathos with which one speaks who feels that it may be the last sermon to his fellow-mortals which the tyranny of men may allow him to utter. In 1671 the Bass Rock, on the western coast of Scotland, was purchased by the Crown, made a prison for the confinement of prisoners of state, and Lauderdale made captain. In 1672 the fines became more oppressive, the ejected ministers were hunted from place to place like wild beasts. In 1673 the Bass became the place of imprisonment of several ejected ministers. In the small county of Renfrew more than £30,000 sterling, about $150,000, was imposed upon eleven gentlemen, not of the greatest wealth, for countenancing field-meetings. Most ample rewards were offered for the apprehension of the persecuted ministers. Even ladies were imprisoned for daring to petition council in their favor, or banished from their families and homes. In 1675 garrisons were established, in those parts of the country where field-preachings were most numerous, in the houses of Presbyterian gentlemen, that they might be reduced to poverty by the insolent soldiery sent to apprehend the ministers whom these very gentlemen revered. In this way Lord Cardross's
house was garrisoned for a term of eight years. He himself was kept in prison because Lady - Cardross had attended "conventicles" and Rev. John King was his chaplain, till he paid large sums of money, and was compelled to go to Carolina, and afterwards to Holland. "Letters of intercom- muning" were issued against over a hundred persons, of whom sixteen or eighteen were ministers, forbidding any person from having any communion with them, in the way of " furnishing them with meat, drink, house, harbor, victual, nor no other
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89
PERSECUTIONS IN SCOTLAND.
1670-1685.]
thing useful and comfortable to them, nor have intelligence with them by word, writ, or message, or any other manner of way." The wife was thus forbid to assist the husband, brother and sister to aid brother and sister, the parent the child, and the child the parent. In 1678 the Highland clans were brought down to' assist in this work of persecution. An army of ten thousand, eight thousand of whom were High- landers, came down upon the most cultivated parts of Scot- land, carrying not only the usual implements of war, but large supplies of manacles and fetters, with thumb-screws and other instruments of torture. These wild men met with no resist- ance ; but they pursued their course, sacking towns, plundering houses, destroying property, and abusing the persons both of men and women. In 1679 Archbishop Sharpe was waylaid by certain gentlemen of the Presbyterian party who were watching for another of their bitter persecutors, and came to the sudden resolution of inflicting upon him immediate justice, for his perfidy and many instances of cruelty and crime. This deter- mination they executed with speedy hand, slaying him on Magus Moor, at a short distance from St. Andrew's ; a fate richly deserved but wildly executed. The Presbyterian party were driven to the assumption of arms in defence of their civil and religious liberty. The rights of conscience were invaded. They could not submit to prelatical domination. They would have the pure Gospel preached by the ministers whom they loved. A party of them, assembled for this pur- pose, were attacked by the " Bloody Claverhouse," and took up. a position of resistance at a place called Drumclog, where they put their persecutors to flight. They now determined to remain together for mutual protection. They received a con- siderable accession of numbers, and took up their position on the banks of the Clyde, near Bothwell Bridge. They might have maintained their position against the royalist forces, had there been any concert of action. But they were without any unity of counsel, and without any settled consistent plan of defence. The result was a complete defeat. About four hundred persons perished in the flight, and one thousand two hundred surrendered at discretion on the field. Now began a new and terrible series of vindictive persecutions. in which numbers were executed, and many banished. The Rev. John King, chaplain to Lady Cardross, and Rev. John Kid, were among the prisoners, and were executed at Edinburgh. Claverhouse now raged through the land, and perpetrated
90
" THE BLOODY ACT."
[1670-1685.
deeds of dreadful cruelty. The recital of all these acts would occupy us too long. Cameron, the fearless minister who led on the Covenanters, was slain at Ayr's Moss. Hackston, who had been present at the murder of Sharpe, was executed with every circumstance of cruelty at Edinburgh. Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey were hung, in 1681, for hearing Cargill preach, and not refusing the Sanquhar Declaration, which the Covenanters had set forth. Cargill himself was at length taken and executed. Hume, a gentleman who had sym- pathized with the persecuted wanderers, was put to death though pardoned by the king, the Earl of Perth having held back the pardon and allowed the execution to take place. In 1682, "some. were banished, or made to serve in the army in Flanders some were sold . as slaves in Carolina and other places in America, in order to empty the full prisons to make room for others, or were gifted as slaves to masters of vessels to be transported and sold." In 1683 many perished on the scaffold. In the next year scenes of blood became so numerous and atrocious that the period was popularly known as "the killing time." Many perished during this season of relentless persecution. Among them was Captain John Paton, executed for the part he had taken at Pentland and Bothwell. Baillie of Jerviswood, an aged man, brought into court from his bed of sickness, and sustained on the scaffold by his sister-in-law, was another victim. Three women were seized, and with difficulty escaped banishment, for assisting in her hour of travail the wife of one who was concerned in rescuing his minister from the hands of his captors. "Men," says De, Foe, " were obliged by horrible tortures to accuse themselves, and weak women and children to accuse their husbands, fathers, and near relations, by putting fire-matches between their fingers or under their joints." On November 22d, 1684, the Privy Council passed an act, called " the bloody act," against the declaration of the Covenanters lately put forth, " that whoever does not disown the late traitorous declaration upon oath, whether he have arms or not, is to be immediately put to death." The officers and nobles were required to convocate all the inhabitants (in certain parishes named), men and women, above fourteen years of age; and the cruel edict was, "if any own the late declaration you shall execute them, by military execution, upon the place ; and if any be absent, ye shall burn their houses and seize their goods; and you shall make prisoners
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