USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 23
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received letters of introduction from their friends in England. There is no doubt that Governor Johnstone, who had been a strenuous advocate in Parliament for the rights originally claimed by the Americans, in his anxiety to induce the Americans to accept the terms which he had been sent to offer, which he believed abundant to secure their liberty, peace, and happiness more extensively than those originally claimed by them, and with which, indeed, he asserted that Dr. Franklin had, on the 28th of March before, declared himself perfectly satisfied as beneficial to North America and as such should be accepted, had been very indiscreet in his suggestions. And although the charge that he had actually offered a bribe to Colonel Read is not borne out by the letter which he wrote, yet he certainly did hold out both honors and rewards to those who should be instrumental in restoring the union of England and the colonies, and putting an end to the horrors and devastations of the war.1
Two of these letters to individuals were written to members of Congress from South Carolina. To Henry Laurens upon the introduction of a friend of his in Eng- land he wrote : -
" If you should follow the example of Britain in the hour of her insolence and send us back without a hearing, I shall hope from your private friendship that I may be permitted to see the country and the worthy characters she has exhibited to the world upon making the request in any way you may point out."
Mr. Laurens in a very admirable and dignified letter replied that it was for Great Britain to determine whether her commissioners should return unheard or revive a friendship with the citizens at large or remain among them as long as they pleased. You are undoubtedly acquainted, Mr. Laurens wrote, with the only terms upon
1 Steadman's Am. War, vol. II, 50-52.
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which Congress can treat for accomplishing this good end - terms from which, writing altogether in a private character, I may venture to assert with great assurance they will never recede. Congress, he asserted, in no hour had been haughty; but to suppose that their minds were less firm in the present than they were when destitute of all foreign aid, and even without expectation of an alli- ance, when upon a day of general public fasting and humiliation in the house of worship and in the pres- ence of God they resolved "to hold no conference or treaty with any commissioners on the part of Great Britain unless they should, as a preliminary, either with- draw the fleets and armies or acknowledge the indepen- dence of the States" would be unnatural. At a proper time, he declared, he should think himself highly honored by contributing to render any part of the States agreeable to Governor Johnstone, but until that basis of mutual con- fidence was established he believed neither former private friendships nor any other considerations could influence Congress to consent that even Governor Johnstone, a gen- tleman who had been so devotedly esteemed in America, should see the country. He had but one voice, and that should be against it.
Mr. Drayton also made a long and elaborate reply to Governor Johnstone's letter to him. Among others he made this very strong point. Although the commis- sioners and Congress, he wrote, be agreed, such agree- ment is of no effect till confirmed by Parliament, which is giving such an advantage to Parliament by knowing what Congress would do, and is such a disadvantage to Congress by not knowing what Parliament would confirm, that any inequality of the conditions will put a stop to accommodation.
" America," he wrote, " is independent de jure et de facto.
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She will maintain her status at the expense of the last drop of her blood. It is in vain to solicit what your arms were not able to compel. You are no longer in that situation. America is more competent to contend than ever she has been. Our resolution is fixed, nor do we fear ' the horrors and devastations of war.' France has acknowledged our independence ; the great powers of Europe smile upon us. We rely upon ourselves and the favor of heaven. If we continue firm, we shall continue independent. Farewell."1
To remove any obstruction to the work of the commis- sion by his presence, Governor Johnstone, while disclaim- ing any intention upon his part to bribe or compel any of those to whom he had written, withdrew absolutely from it, and Congress was notified that he had done so. It is probable, however, that the commissioners would now have abandoned all attempts at negotiation but that they knew that there was still a moderate party in all the colonies which thought the terms offered by the commissioners sufficiently liberal to be accepted, and viewed with ex- treme concern and apprehension the new connection with France, a kingdom they had been taught to consider as proverbially faithless. Indeed, it was believed, and it was probably true, that a great section of the American people would gladly have closed the quarrel by a reconciliation on these terms.2 But Congress was in the hands of the party for absolute independence. There can be little doubt that the people of South Carolina generally would gladly have accepted them. As a last effort the British commissioners published a manifesto on the 3d of October, addressed not only to the Congress, but to the members of the general assemblies or conventions of the several
1 So. Ca. and Am. Gen. Gazette, July 30, 1778.
2 Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. IV, 85 ; Steadman's Am. War, vol. II, 56.
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colonies and all other free inhabitants of the said colonies of every rank and denomination. In the manifesto they said : -
" It will now become the colonies in general to call to mind their own solemn appeals to Heaven in the beginning of this contest; that they took arms only for the redress of grievances; and that it would be their wish as well as their interest to remain forever connected with Great Britain. We again ask them whether all their grievances, real or supposed, have not been amply and fully redressed ? and we insist that the offers we have made leave nothing to be wished in point either of immediate liberty or permanent security; if those offers are now rejected, we withdraw from the exercise of a commis- sion with which we have in vain been honored; the same liberality will no longer be due from Great Britain, nor can it be, either in jus- tice or policy, expected from her." 1
On Tuesday afternoon, October 20, 1778, a brig with a flag of truce arrived off Charlestown bar, and a naval officer on board was intrusted with several packets from the British commissioners, directed to his Excellency the President, the commander-in-chief of the forces, the legis- lature, clergy, and the people of the State of South Caro- lina. They contained the offers made to and rejected by the Continental Congress, and the manifesto of October 3d. The vessel was retained in the Road near the harbor until President Lowndes convened his Council and the leading men of the different orders of the inhabitants to whom they were addressed. Upon reading the manifesto and accompanying papers, it was unanimously resolved that this approach was highly derogatory to Congress, to which all such communications should be addressed, as such conduct on the part of the commissioners was calcu- lated to sow dissensions and jealousy among the component parts of the American confederacy. The packets were
1 Ramsay's Revolution, vol. I, 428.
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then sent under cover to the British commissioners at New York and returned on board the brig, with orders for her to depart immediately.1
In November the British commissioners sailed for Eng- land, and at the same time British troops embarked for the reduction of the provinces of Georgia and South Carolina.
1 So. Ca. and Am. Gen. Gazette, October 22, 1778 ; Ramsay, So. Ca., vol. I, 214.
CHAPTER XIII
1778
RAWLINS LOWNDES, the newly elected President, not- withstanding Gadsden's support, -nay, perhaps very much on account of it, - found his position far from comfortable. The General Assembly had accepted John Rutledge's res- ignation, but the people were very impatient under any other's rule. And this they took an early occasion to show. It will be recollected that under his administration an act or ordinance had been passed on the 13th of February, 1777, establishing an oath of abjuration and allegiance to be administered to all the late officers of the King of Great Britain, and to all other persons whom the President and Council might suspect of holding principles injurious to the rights of the State. But the Assembly, having adopted the new Constitution, now took another step to make sure of their power. On the 28th of March, 1778, it passed an act to oblige every free male inhabitant of the State, above a certain age, to give assurance of fidelity and alle- giance to the Commonwealth.1 By this act the colonel of the regiment of militia and the captain of the company of artillery in Charlestown, within one month, and the colonels or commanding officers of militia throughout the State, within three months after the passage of the act, were requested to assemble their regiments or companies, and at their heads to take the oath themselves, and then to administer the same to the commissioned officers of the regiments, who, in their turn, were to administer it to the
1 Statutes of So. Ca., vol. I, 147.
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non-commissioned officers and privates -any officer or private refusing to take the oath was to be immediately disarmed. The members of the Legislative Council and General Assembly, and all persons holding any office or place of trust or emolument, all ferrymen, pilots, and all other persons not subject to militia duty, were required within one month to take the oath before a Justice of the Peace ; and no one who refused or failed to take it could thereafter hold office, vote, sue at law or in equity, or hold or possess lands ; and after sixty days any person refusing to take the oath was incapable of exercising any profes- sion, trade, art, or mystery, or of buying or selling or acquiring or conveying any property whatever.
So drastic a measure could not be enforced. Its very severity defeated its purpose-a legislative body based upon no popular vote or consent, a body which could scarcely make or keep a quorum for the transaction of business, and which on the day it passed this measure was so thin a house as to cause Christopher Gadsden to resent as an insult his election as Vice President by it, was in no position to disfranchise the masses of the people. The act was passed on the 28th of March, and the time now approached when its penalties must be enforced, or some way be found to avoid its consequences. This was the position, so inconsistent with all his past career and sur- roundings, in which Mr. Lowndes as President now found himself. Nor was he in any condition to meet and con- tend with these difficulties. He was sick and in bereave- ment. He had just lost one son and was about to lose another. In his distress he wrote to Gadsden to come to his assistance, and to transact the immediate necessary business for him; and however reluctant Gadsden may have been to accept the position as Vice President, he was not the man to shirk responsibility, nor to desert a
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friend in the hour of need. From a letter written by Gadsden to William Henry Drayton then in Congress on the 15th of June, 1778, and from another to Thomas Bee, Speaker of the House of Commons, on the 5th of October, 1778, it appears that the Continental Congress itself had intervened in the matter and had recommended an exten- sion of the time within which the oath might be taken, and that Drayton had sent the draft of a resolution for the purpose which Gadsden had introduced in the Legisla- tive Council and had endeavored to have it passed, but that its passage had been delayed through a variety of accidents. On the 5th of June, however, a proclamation had been prepared in the Council to extend the time, "none more pressing for it than myself," wrote Gadsden to Drayton. The proclamation was, however, scarcely in the sheriff's hands before violent opposition to it was disclosed. A meeting, or " a mob " as Gadsden called it, was assembled and a deputation was sent to the President, not only protesting against but returning to him the proclamation which they had taken from the sheriff. Gadsden was furious. He wrote to Drayton in his own peculiar style a very interesting account of what took place.1
" It," the proclamation, " was hardly got into the sheriff's hands before some myrmidons alarmed the town, we were setting up a proc- lam" agt law going to ruin their Liberties and what not! the procla- mation I believe was never read, a Deputation was sent to the Presid: of Doc' Budd, Capt. Mouatt, Joshua Ward, and some others. His proclamation was returned to him in my presence w.ª of itself is insult enough, but besides that the spokesman Mr. Ward told the President he thought the people were right, & he would lose the last Drop of Blood to support them, this I thought so high an insult that I immediately began with Ward, sarcastically applanded his Heroism & great exertion for the public good. In return he told me I was
1 MS. volume of Christopher Gadsden, entitled So. Ca. Miscellan.
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a madman, but first took care to sneak out of my reach, however had he not I should have done nothing more as I was prepared than what I did, laugh in his face. The President did all that man could do, but to no purpose, a meeting was called in the evening. Dr. Budd put in the chair, every press prohibited from printing the proclamation & the Magistrate deterred from granting certificates to the penitent. At this I, Don Quixotte Secundus, who never had acted the Magistrate before, gave out publickly that I would give the Oath of Fidelity & certificates to any applicants by the 10th & accordingly did to many. I was in the midst of the people where I found them chiefly a mere mob, with here & there some who ought not to have been, & I was sorry to see there & had reason to suspect that day much negative impulse. I told them I advised the measure & that they should put a Halter about my neck & hang me if they thought it wrong - that they had a constitutional remedy, they might impeach the Presi- dent & Council if they acted improperly, & that they had better do that. But all to no purpose. In my opinion if they were not set on, the old Leven was at least not sorry for it, as it was echoed amongst the people, I am told, that had Mr. R- been president nothing of this sort would have happen'd. They met again in the 10th & after some Fuss between young Perroneau of the 2ª Reg. & D: Budd, the latter was again placed in the chair and after a variety of & motions amongst the last to impeach Presª & Council they at last came to the Resolution penn'd at the Bottom of the printed proclam? & then broke up. That Resolution I am told was penn'd by E- R- and is printed in Wells last paper without the Proclam :. The one sent you is printed as you will see since the 10th as a Hand Bill & I question now whether it will be printed at all in the Regular Gazette, but from a different motive I am fully persuaded than that through we it was prevented at first. That was violence & party manoevre. Now it will be hindered underhandedly by shame if possible."
We have given this full extract from General Gadsden's letter as not only containing an authentic account of these disturbances, but giving us a considerable insight into the condition of parties at the time. No doubt "the old Leven," as he styled the conservatives, looked on without remorse, if not with actual enjoyment, at Gadsden's dis-
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comfiture in his first effort to control the element in the town which they regarded as having been encouraged, if not actually raised, by himself. They no doubt enjoyed too, if indeed they had not instigated, the cry that noth- ing of this kind would have happened if only John Rut- ledge had been President. It must, indeed, have been a bitter experience to Christopher Gadsden to find the men to whom he had been the leader and guide in all the revolutionary movements, turning away and disregarding him the moment he attempted to withstand and control their violence. It was under his lead that they had often assembled under the Liberty Tree and marched through the town, hurrahing for Wilkes and the anti-Rescinders, or met there to enforce the non-importation agreement against some luckless merchant. It was to support him against his present colleague and chief, Mr. Lowndes, that they had crowded the Exchange in July, 1774, and out- voted the Conservative party, who were already alarmed at the extremes to which he was inclined to go. It was upon them he relied when he stood in the Provincial Con- gress and alone assumed the responsibility of declaring in favor, not only of the liberties, but of the independence of the American colonies. During all this time and through all these events Christopher Gadsden was, and knew himself to be, a chief among his people, a leader with a compact party behind him, a power in the State. But it is the fate of every such leader that he must be ever in the advance. There is no room for pause or hesi- tation in his course. If he but stumble, the crowd behind, with his name upon their lips, will ruthlessly trample upon him, following the next who happens to keep in the front. It was this party which, under his lead, had forced the adoption of the new Constitution, and John Rutledge had wisely stepped aside and left to him, and his
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new ally, Rawlins Lowndes, the responsibility of the government they had set up. Gadsden's rôle must now all at once be changed. He had hitherto been a critic and down puller, as John Adams was in Massachusetts; now he must build up and conduct the government he had inau- gurated. How differently things at once appeared to him!
On the 8th of June he writes to Peter Timothy, urging and imploring him by the past favors he had received from the State in the printing business to print fifty or a hundred copies of the proclamation in order to unde- ceive the misled inhabitants of Charlestown and prevent further mischief. He argues that there is not one tittle in the proclamation contrary to law, which he is persuaded will be seen by the candid and dispassionate men the moment it is published. He appeals to Timothy that its publication is necessary to the vindication of the Presi- dent and Council, and that being the case he asks, "Shall the press be stopt & the only public way of vindicating public character shut up against them ?" Can it, indeed, be Christopher Gadsden who wrote this ?
" I court no popularity ; am neither afraid nor ashamed to say any where that I advised this measure, if wrong let the people impeach us, that is the constitutional method, unless restless, flighty men of weh I am afraid we have too many amongst us want again to be running upon every Fancy to the meetings of liberty tree. Query whether there is not a disease amongst us far more dangerous than any thing that can arise from the whole herd of contemptible, exportable Tories."
Little could he have thought, when in 1766 he linked hands with the party under the Liberty Tree, that before the Revolution was over he would be denouncing, as worse than contemptible Tories, those who still sought the inspiration of freedom under the shade of its branches. But so it was. His day of power was passing away.
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The violent would not be controlled by him, and the con- servative would not accept him as a leader in the place of Rutledge. Bitterly he complains again in the letter to Timothy : -
" For my part I never wish'd for nor sought my present situation, nor was I put into it from favor to me, but merely the plenitude of the wanton power of a Bare House."
But he concludes : -
" However as I am placed in it I will do my duty therein to the best of my judg: & will be intimidated neither by the many nor few. I have administered the oath to several this morning & will to as many as call on me within the time mentioned in Proclamation, this I have publickly declared and wish it to be as publickly known as possible."
It happened that Timothy was just about to commence the republication of his paper the Gazette of the State of South Carolina, his press and stock having been de- stroyed in the great fire of the 15th of January before, and though, as he announces in his first issue of the 24th of June, that he is reduced to " begin the world annew at an advanced period of life," having lost everything in that conflagration, he would not desert the party with whom he had been acting, and who had, as Gadsden reminded him, given him public patronage. So, unlike Wells of the South Carolina and American General Gazette, he did not quail before the mob, but in his first issue, which, however, was after the time limited in it, published the proclama- tion in full.
The proclamation was very skilfully drawn. Seizing upon a resolution of the Continental Congress of the 23d of April before, which recommended to the legislatures of the several States, or to the executive authority of each State if invested with sufficient power to issue proclama- tion of pardon to such of the inhabitants as had levied war, or adhered to or abetted the enemy, who should surrender
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themselves to any civil or military officers of the State, the proclamation citing the resolution went on to say : -
" And whereas many of the useful inhabitants of the States who from tender consciences, misapprehensions, or prejudice of former pre- possession, and others from neglect, inadvertence, particular situation, or circumstances, have not yet taken the oath of fidelity to the State, prescribed by the Act of the General Assembly, passed the 28th day of March last, and are now heartily disposed and desirous to take the same, and on fuller consideration to unite with and become faithful citizens of the State. And whereas the benign and gracious inten- tion of Congress do manifestly and necessarily include and compre- hend the latter as well as the former, inasmuch as no hostile or other overt act of criminality is imputed to them. And the Legislature not now sitting, the good designs and merciful overtures of Congress may be rendered ineffectual if the Executives do not interpose to carry into execution, as far as may be, what is so well calculated to restore public peace and tranquillity in particular to the State."
The President had, therefore, thought fit, by and with the advice of the honorable the Privy Council, to issue his proclamation, publishing this act of Congress and promising to apply to the legislature at its next meeting, and endeavor to obtain a confirmation and ratification of a general amnesty, and pardon to all those who should within the time prescribed return to the State and take the oath of fidelity as a test and evidence of their alle- giance by the 10th of June.
Wells's paper, the South Carolina and American General Gazette, of the 11th of June, gives this account of the meet- ing of the 10th, to which General Gadsden refers in his letter to William Henry Drayton : -
" Yesterday afternoon at a meeting of a great number of respect- able inhabitants of Charlestown, the following resolution was unani- mously agreed to, and ordered to be published : -
"' That an act of assembly entitled "an act to oblige every free male inhabitant of the State above a certain age, to give assurance
VOL. III. - T
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of fidelity and allegiance to the same, & for other purposes therein mentioned," ought and shall be strictly carried into execution, and the pains and penalties imposed in the same shall be assuredly inflicted upon all defaulters.'"
But, notwithstanding this resolution of so respectable a meeting as the Gazette describes it to have been, the act was not enforced, and when the legislature met in the fall it found itself compelled, virtually, to indorse the ac- tion of the President and Council by passing another act for enlarging the time for taking the oath. The preamble to this recites that it is passed because many of the citizens of the State had through ignorance, mistake, absence, or some unavoidable accident neglected to take it and had thus become liable to its pains and penalties.1 By this act the term of submission to the new government was practically enlarged to the spring term of the courts, 1779, but when that time arrived the government was too busy with Prévost's invasion to be enforcing oaths of allegiance.
The General Assembly upon passing this test oath act had adjourned to the 1st of September. But very few mem- bers attended on that day, and it was not until the 3d that a quorum was formed.2 The President, writes Gadsden to Drayton, then made a very spirited representation of the behavior of the mob in Charlestown on the 5th of June, which mob he says was ostensibly on account of the proc- lamation, but really, as he is persuaded, "artfully stirred up and set a-going by a cabal." But the House was very reluc- tant to meddle with the matter, and after having it before them for a month, through the influence of the town mem- bers, Gadsden says, put it off to the next House. There is nothing in the Gazette of the day on the subject, no speech or message of the President, nothing more than the bare
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