USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 19
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zens on a certain day and elect by ballot. This, he says, was done, and the second set elected were allowed their seats with the other five. This will account, he says, for the fact that the New Acquisition had ten members for a number of years when the three other districts between the Broad and Catawba had together only the same number.1 Colonel Hill when he wrote this in 1815 had certainly forgotten something of the constitutional his- tory of the State, but his account of this election is valuable as showing how loosely these elections were conducted in the upper country, and how little they can be relied upon as representing the sentiment of the mass of the people. It is evident that the representatives of the remote districts whose prudence was so commended by the President, represented in fact only those who volun- tarily came together for the purpose of sending them, without writs of election or other formality, and without any general notice or mode of procedure in doing so.
The debate on the subject of the church came up on the dissenters' petition in January, 1777, and on the 11th Mr. Tennent, who was a member of the Assembly, made an exceedingly able speech contending that ecclesiastical establishments were an infringement on civil liberty. The rights of conscience, he maintained, were unalienable, and all laws binding upon it ipso facto null and void. Such, he contended, was the law prevailing in Carolina. The law acknowledges one society as a Christian church, it does not know the other at all. Under a reputedly free government licenses for marriage were refused by the ordinary to any but the established clergy. The law builds superb churches for the one; it leaves the others
1 The districts alluded to were Chester, Fairfield, and Richland, -the Broad River changing its name to Congaree, and the Catawba becoming the Wateree.
VOL. III. - P
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to build their own. The law enables the one church to hold estates and to sue for rights; but no dissenting church can sue at common law. They are obliged to deposit their property with trustees. The law vests in the Church of England power to tax their own people, and all other denominations for the support of the poor. The sums advanced by the public Treasury for the support of the Church of England, for the ten years preceding the 31st of December, 1775, amount to £164,027 16s. 3d. (cur- rency ). The expenses of the year 1772 was £18,031 11s. 1d. The real estate drawn more or less from the purses of all denominations by law would probably sell for £330,000. If the dissenters have always made more than half of the government, the sum taken out of their pockets for the support of a church with which they did not worship must amount to more than £82,013 within the ten years, and a very large sum of their property in glebes, parson- ages, and churches lies in the possession and improvement of the Church of England. Meanwhile, said Mr. Tennent, the established churches are but twenty in number, many of them very small, while the number of dissenting con- gregations are seventy-nine, and much larger, and would pay £40,000 annually could they be furnished with a clergy. To the objection that dissenters were tolerated, Mr. Tennent asked if it would content these brethren of the Church of England to be barely tolerated, that is, not punished for presuming to think for themselves. It was not the threepence on the pound of tea that roused all the valor of America, he exclaimed, it is our birthright we prize. Religious establishments, he continued, dis- courage the opulence and discourage the growth of a free State. With the new Constitution, let the day of justice dawn upon every rank and order of man in the State. Let us bury what is past forever. We even consent, he
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said, that the estate which the church has for a century past been drawing more or less from the purses of all denominations -an estate of no less value than ££380,000 - remain in her quiet possession and be fixed there. Let her only for the future cease to demand preeminence. We seek no restitution. Let her be contented with her superb churches, her spacious burying-grounds, her costly parson- ages, her numerous glebes and other church estates, and let her not now insist upon such glaring partiality any longer. Many of the Church of England, he declared, had ments in the most liberal terms.
signed the petition. Many more have declared the senti- They do not desire any longer to oppress their brethren. Grant them the prayer of the petition, grant it in substance if not in the very expression. Let it be a foundation article in your consti- tution. "That there shall be no establishment of one religious denomination of Christians in preference to another. That none shall be obliged to pay to the sup- port of a worship in which they do not freely join." Yield to the mighty current of American freedom and glory, and let your State be inferior to none on the wide continent in the liberality of the laws and in the happi- ness of its people." 1
Most eloquently, indeed, did Mr. Tennent then plead for principles which are now universally accepted in this country at least. True, some of his statements were open to fair criticism. The bulk of the seventy-nine congrega- tions of dissenters, upon which he based his calculations, were in the newly settled Up Country which notoriously paid few taxes. The tax-gatherers were as few there as ministers of the law. The Low Country, in which was the great wealth of the province, paid all the taxes, and the taxable property there was, to a great extent, owned by
1 Hist. Presbyterian Church in So. Ca. (Howe), vol. I, 370, 371.
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churchmen ; and they consequently contributed by far the most to the support of the church. But this only affected the argument in degree and not in principle. The fact still was that dissenters were made to contribute more or less to the church in which they did not worship, and that the church was made the basis of representation and mu- nicipal authority. The argument was of course all on one side; but there was a deep sentiment on the other-a sentiment, offence to which was particularly unfortunate at this juncture. The churchmen had sown the wind, they were now reaping the whirlwind. They had overthrown the King's authority ; the dissenters were now overturning the church.
A letter written about this time, January 18, 1777, by Richard Hutson, a son of a former minister of the Con- gregational church in Charlestown, to Isaac Hayne, his brother-in-law, the future martyr to the cause of Ameri- can liberty, gives so clear an account of the condition of parties at this time that we cannot do better than quote it at length. Mr. Hutson writes to Mr. Hayne : -
" I think it will be extraordinary if I should give you the first in- telligence of your election as a Representative in Assembly for the Parish of St. Paul, Stono. It will indeed convince me that you are a recluse. The return was made to the House on Wednesday last. It is said that you had but four votes, and it has been thrown out by some of the high churchmen that were they in your situation they would not serve, but I hope you will make it a point at this juncture, as we stand in need of your assistance. The Dissenters' Petition came before the House on Saturday last. It was introduced and warmly supported by General Gadsden. In order to give you a general idea of the debates, it will be necessary to quote the paragraph, which it was the prayer of the Petition might be inserted in the Constitution. It runs thus : That there never shall be any establishment of any one Denomination or sect of Protestants by way of preference to another in this State. That no Protestant inhabitant of this State shall, by law, be obliged to pay towards the maintenance and support of a reli-
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gious worship that he does not freely join in or has not voluntarily engaged to support, nor to be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles, but that all Protestants demeaning themselves peaceably under the government established under the constitution shall enjoy free and equal privileges, both re- ligious and civil. Messrs. Lowndes and Pinckney 1 threw off the masque and argued strongly for having the church continued upon its former footing, the rest pretended to acquiesce cheerfully in the latter part of the clause (viz.) that no Protestant inhabitant of this State shall, by law, be obliged to pay towards the maintenance and support of a re- ligious worship that he does not freely join in, &c., but plead that it was necessary that the establishment of the church should be continued on account of the provision of the poor and the management of elec- tions which were interwoven with law, and they proposed that this clause should be amended by striking out the former part of it (viz.) 'that there never shall be an establishment of any one Denomination, or sect of Protestants, by way of preference to another in this State.' After very long and warmn debate upon the subject the question was at nays 70
length put upon the amendment, it passed in the negative, yeas 60
The question was then put upon the whole clause, and it was unan- imously agreed to. We yesterday finished the difficult Reports of the committee on the Constitution with regard to amendments therein, and it is now ordered to be thrown into a Bill. A motion will be made, and I have no doubt but it will be carried, to have it printed and circulated through the State, and to postpone the passing of it till the next session, when I expect they will renew the attack upon that clause. So we shall have as much occasion of your presence as ever."
As Mr. Hutson predicted, the Assembly postponed for the present this important step ; but they made another, and a most decisive one-one from which there was no returning either with honor or safety. They had adopted the Declaration of Independence, and they now (Feb- ruary 13, 1777) passed an ordinance for establishing an oath of abjuration of the King and of allegiance to the State. They ordained that the President with the advice
1 Colonel Charles Pinckney.
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of the Privy Council should appoint proper persons to administer an oath to all the late officers of the King of Great Britain, and all other persons whom the President and Privy Council should suspect of holding principles in- jurious to the right of the State. This oath required any such person to declare that he acknowledged the State of South Carolina is and of right ought to be a free, inde- pendent, and sovereign State, and that the people thereof owe no allegiance or obedience to George the Third, King of Great Britain, to abjure any allegiance or obedience to him, to swear that he would to the utmost of his power support, maintain, and defend the State against the said George the Third and his successors, and to swear further that he would bear faith and true allegiance to the State, and to the utmost of his power, support, maintain, and
defend the freedom and independence thereof. They further ordained that if any person refused to take this oath he should be sent from the State with his family to Europe or the West Indies at the public expense, except such as were able to pay their own, and that if any such person returned he should be adjudged guilty of treason against the State, and upon conviction should suffer death as a traitor.1
Upon the organization of the government under the Constitution of 1776, says Drayton, the necessity of hav- ing a seal became apparent, and by a resolution of the General Assembly his Excellency the President and Com- mander-in-chief by and with the advice and consent of the General Assembly was authorized to design and cause to be made a great seal of South Carolina, and until such a one could be made to adopt a temporary one.
In pursuance of this resolution William Henry Dray- ton and others of the Privy Council were charged with
1 Stat. at Large, vol. I, 135.
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designing a seal, and in the meantime a temporary one was adopted for immediate use. The first use of the temporary seal was for commissioning the civil officers of the government, and for a pardon issued by President Rut- ledge dated the 1st of May, 1776, to a person who had been convicted of manslaughter before Chief Justice Drayton and his associate justices on the 23d of April. This tem- porary seal was from that time until about the 22d of May designated "the Temporary Seal of the said Colony " or " The Temporary Public Seal "; on that day President Rutledge issued a pardon under "the Seal of the said State," omitting the word "temporary," whence there is reason to believe the great seal was then made. The seal thus adopted has continued to be the great seal of the State of South Carolina to this day.1
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. II, 372, 376.
The device for the armorial achievement and reverse of the great seal of South Carolina is as follows : -
Arms : a palmetto tree growing on seashore, erect; at its base a torn-up oak tree, its branches lopped off, prostrate ; both proper. Just below the branches of the palmetto, two shields, pendent; one of them on the dexter side is inscribed March 26, proper ; the other side, July 4. Twelve spears, proper, are bound crosswise to the stem of the palmetto, their points raised, the band uniting them together bearing the inscrip- tion Quis Separabit. Under the prostrate oak is inscribed Meliorem Lapsa Locavit, below which appears in large figures 1776. At the sum- mit of the exergue are the words SOUTH CAROLINA; and at the bottom of the same, ANIMIS OPIBUSQUE PARATI.
Reverse : a woman walking on the seashore over swords and daggers ; she holds in her dexter hand a laurel branch, and in her sinister the folds of her robe; she looks toward the sun just rising above the sea; all proper. On the upper part is the sky, azure. At the summit of the exergue are the words DUM SPIRO SPERO, and within the field below the figure is inscribed the word SPES. The seal is in the form of a circle, four inches diameter and four-tenths of an inch thick.
The preparation of the seal was ordered in March, 1776, but it is apparent that this design was not made until after the victory of the 28th of June.
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The victory of Sullivan's Island gave exemption to South Carolina from invasion for nearly three years. Dur- ing this she felt few of the terrors of war - those were yet to come. But the harbor of Charlestown was block- aded, to a greater or less extent, until the fall of the city in 1780. British cruisers were constantly hovering off the bar and making prizes of vessels attempting to enter or leave the port. The vessels of war Carrisford, of thirty- two guns, the Perseus, twenty, and the Hinchenbrook, six- teen, were often in sight of the town. The immense trade with England was of course now at an end. War had practically enforced non-importation. The old mer- chants unwilling to risk their capital generally retired from business, but adventurers sent out vessels to the Dutch and French West Indies. Nor could the State government sit idly by and allow the British cruisers all the honor and profit of capturing prizes. The Continen- tal Congress had authorized reprisals, and South Carolina
The arms were designed by William Henry Drayton. The fort con- structed of palmetto logs, suggesting the emblem of the palmetto tree on the seashore ; the date on the shield, March 26, alludes to the adoption of the Constitution of the State, and that of July 4 to the Declaration of Independence. The twelve spears represent, it is said, the twelve States which first acceded to the Union ; but we rather suppose that they were meant to represent the twelve other colonies besides South Carolina, which were thus indicated as being bound to her. The dead oak tree alludes to the British fleet as being constructed of oak timbers, and lying prostrate under the palmetto tree. Hence the inscription of Meliorem Lapsa Locavit is appropriately placed underneath it. The figures 1776 allude, of course, to the three memorable events, - the adoption of the Constitution of the State, the victory of Fort Moultrie, and the Declaration of Independence.
The reverse of the arms is said to have been designed by Arthur Middleton. The woman walking along the seashore strewn with swords and daggers represents Hope overcoming dangers, which the sun just rising was about to disclose in the occurrences of the 28th of June, 1776, while the laurel she holds signifies the honors which Colonel Moultrie, his officers and men, gained on that auspicious day.
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organized a small navy of her own to venture upon that business. The ship Prosper, which had been fitted out in 1775, was mounted with twenty guns. Three schooners, - the Comet, the Defence, and the Beaufort, - which had been used as galleys for the protection of inland navigation, were converted into brigs. These vessels were put under the order of a navy board consisting of Edward Blake, Roger Smith, Josiah Smith, Edward Darrell, Thomas Corbet, John Edwards, George Abbott Hall, and Thomas Savage. The board added another vessel ; they built a brig of fourteen guns which they called the Hornet. These vessels evading the British men-of-war cruising upon the high seas succeeded in bringing in several prizes. In the year 1777 the continental frigate Randolph, Captain Biddle, put into Charlestown in distress, and being refitted she sailed on a cruise, and in eight days returned with four rich prizes. These encouraged the State to attempt some- thing more in the same way. The ship General Moultrie, Captain Sullivan, the brig Polly, Captain Anthony, and the brig Fair American, Captain Morgan, belonging to private persons, were taken into the public service, and as we shall see were, with the continental frigate Randolph and another State vessel, the brig Notre Dame, lost the next year in an unfortunate expedition.
The great advantages resulting to the State from her little navy, and the distress sustained by the trade for want of protection, induced a scheme for purchasing or building three frigates. Alexander Gillon, an extensive merchant of the town, was appointed commodore, and John Joyner, William Robertson, and John McQueen, captains, of the proposed fleet, and sailed for Europe to procure the frigates. This, however, because of various embarrass- ments from intercepted remittances and other causes, he was unable to do. Gillon accomplished nothing more than
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to purchase on credit for the use of the State a quantity of clothing and ammunition, and to hire a large frigate from the Chevalier Luxembourg for the term of three years, on condition of allowing the Prince one-fourth of the prizes captured while she cruised at the risk and ex- pense of South Carolina.1 The frigate engaged was built at Amsterdam, of a particular construction, heavy in di-
1 The author is not unmindful of the very interesting story told in Dr. Johnson's Traditions, 127-129, of an exploit by Mr. Gillon before his appointment as commodore, but he has not been able to adopt it. The story is that sometime in the year 1777-78, the harbor being block- aded by three British cruisers, Alexander Gillon, a merchant, volunteered to go out with the only armed vessel in the port and raise the blockade if the Governor would sanction it and would supply him with a sufficient number of marines; that the Governor did so, and drafted the marines from the regulars in the State service; that disguising the vessel as a merchantman attempting to run the blockade, Gillon sailed out, and toll- ing on one of the British cruisers which was distant from the others until in the pursuit he had separated it to some distance, he suddenly ran alongside his pursuer, threw out his grappling irons, and at the head of his marines, boarded and captured her. Then dividing his men and his pris- oners between the two vessels, and hoisting a British flag over his own vessel, he made easy sail to the next, which, supposing her consort to have made a capture, allowed him to run alongside of her also, and likewise to capture ; and so also with the third. The story will not bear a moment's examination. The three British cruisers which blockaded the harbor were the Carrisford, the Perseus, and the Hinchenbrook, as mentioned in the text. None of these was captured until April, 1779, when the last was taken in a gallant action by Colonel Elbert of Georgia while lying at Frederica in that State. It is impossible to suppose that such a brilliant performance would have been suppressed by both Dr. Ramsay and General Moultrie, who were present and personally cognizant of all that was going on, especially as both of these give in detail an account of Mr. Gillon's action in regard to a State navy, and still more especially as General Moultrie must have particularly known of the detail of the troops for the purpose. It is equally impossible to suppose that the Gazettes, which during the years 1777 and 1778 give daily account of the British cruisers off the bar and the captures made by them, and also of the captures made by the State navy, would have omitted to mention so extraordinary an affair. The author has searched
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mension, equal to a seventy-four-gun ship. Commodore Gillon engaged on behalf of South Carolina 280 marines and 69 seamen to man this frigate. These were kept at Dunkirk for several months until the ship could be got into the Texel, as her draught prevented her getting out from Amsterdam with the men aboard. While waiting for the frigate, the men, though engaged, fed, paid, and clothed with the money of the State of South Carolina, were sent without the knowledge of Commodore Gillon on an expe- dition against the island of Jersey, and so many of them were killed in that unfortunate expedition in January, 1781, that the frigate was disabled from going to sea till the August following. After innumerable difficulties she began to cruise, and in a short time captured several valua- ble prizes. She took part in an expedition against the Ba- hama Islands in May, 1782, and upon the termination of that expedition arrived in Philadelphia. Completely repaired there she put to sea from that port under the command of Captain Joyner, and on the second day out was captured by the British under circumstances which reflected hardly upon Captain Joyner's conduct. In the spirited attempt to create a navy South Carolina lost heavily. Ramsay estimates the cost, including the intercepted remittances and the clothing and ammunition purchased by Com- mander Gillon for the public service, with disbursements on account of the frigate, at over $200,000, but other estimates put it at more than twice that amount, to wit, £100,000 sterling, or $500,000.1
the Gazette and can find no mention of the occurrence. The story is evidently based upon Governor Robert Johnson's exploit in the year 1718, when he captured the pirate vessels by a similar ruse [see Hist. of So. Ca. under Prop. Gov. (McCrady), 612, 616], and partly on the draft of regulars to serve as marines on the Randolph, and of their loss, of which we shall presently tell.
1 Ramsay's Revolution, vol. II, 72-75 ; Johnson's Traditions, 127-131.
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Soon after the trade between Great Britain and South Carolina had been closed a few adventurous individuals began, as we have said, to send vessels to the Dutch and French West Indies Islands. The scarcity of salt was easily foreseen, and to prevent the advantage which might be taken of the needs of the people on this account eight gentlemen entered into a partnership and employed six swift-sailing vessels in Bermuda, which they employed in transporting that necessary article. They continued their business until one after the other all their vessels were taken. The demand for imported goods, the stoppage of all commerce with Great Britain, and the blockade of the port, though the blockade was not at all times effectual, greatly excited the spirit for adventure, and the running of the blockade of Charlestown in 1776-78 was the proto- type of that of 1862-65. All the well-known devices of foreign registers, foreign captains, and foreign flags, French, Dutch, English, or American, were employed as the exi- gency of the case required. The opportunity to sell imported articles dear, and to buy country produce cheap, was so great that during the years 1776 and 1778 the safe arrival of two vessels would indemnify the loss of one. During these years in which the war was confined almost entirely to the Northern States Charlestown became the mart of supplying with goods most of the States as far as New Jersey. Many hundreds of wagons were employed in the traffic. For the encouragement of trade two insurance companies opened offices which greatly forwarded the ex- tension of commerce. A direct trade to France was at- tempted, and French vessels found their way into the port. The intercourse in the commencement proved unfortunate, for out of sixteen vessels richly laden with commodities of the country four only arrived safely in France. This heavy blow for a short time damped the spirit of enterprise,
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