USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780 > Part 5
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John Stuart, whose romantic story has been told in a former volume,3 was now the General Agent and Superin- tendent of his Majesty's Indian Affairs for the southern district, comprehending Virginia, North and South Caro- lina, Georgia, and Florida, and as such by his Maj- esty's special writs of mandamus had a seat in the Council of each of these provinces. His influence over the Indians
1 Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. II, 243.
2 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 255.
3 Hist. of So. Ca. under Roy. Gov. (McCrady), 347, 349. VOL. III. - C
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was extensive and imposing, and for some time it had been suspected that he was exercising this influence against the American cause. Information apparently confirming this suspicion having been received by the Secret Committee and laid before the Provincial Congress when that body met on the 4th of June, Mr. Stuart sud- denly left Charlestown and went to Savannah. From that place Mr. Stuart wrote letters endeavoring to explain his conduct, and a correspondence followed between himself and a Committee of Intelligence of the Congress,1 which was not, however, altogether satisfactory.
While this correspondence was going on intelligence was received that a ship with several tons of powder was expected very shortly to arrive at Savannah. With this powder Governor Wright of Georgia and the Superin- tendent had obtained leave of the government in England to supply the Indians, not, it was avowed, for the purpose of instigating them against the colonists, but as a means of keeping the savages attached to the British government. The Carolinians, on the other hand, were anxious to get this powder, not only because of its value, but because the want of it would greatly lessen Mr. Stu- art's influence with the Indians and lessen the danger from the Indians themselves. It was at once determined, therefore, to intercept the supply. The Secret Commit- tee engaged Captains John Barnwell and John Joyner to undertake the business.2
Upon the receipt of their commissions these two gentle- men immediately embarked forty men, well armed, in two large barges, and proceeding toward the mouth of the
1 This committee consisted of William Henry Drayton, James Parsons, John Lewis Gervais, Arthur Middleton, William Tennent, and Thomas Heyward, Jr.
2 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 268, 269.
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Savannah River took position on Bloody Point in South Carolina, in full view of Tybee Lighthouse and of the approach from sea to the Savannah bar. As it turned out, Captains Barnwell and Joyner had taken post with their men earlier than was necessary for the purpose of their enterprise, but the presence of an armed force there had a salutary effect upon affairs in Georgia, as it encour- aged the friends of the American cause in that province. Under this influence an association was formed and a congress held at Savannah on the 4th of July. Collec- tions were made for the support of the people of Boston, and it was declared that Georgia should not be an asylum of persons who from their conduct should be considered inimical to the cause of America. The Georgians also afforded every kind of assistance and support to Captains Barnwell and Joyner, and offered to join them immedi- ately in taking a British armed schooner then in the river, supposed to be waiting the arrival of the vessel from England with gunpowder. On other points the authorities in Carolina took time to consider, but Mr. Drayton and Mr. Middleton, impatient of delay, of their own authority sent them encouragement to fit out a schooner to be used as circumstances might require. Captain Joyner had, however, himself engaged a schooner, and arrangements were made for a juncture of the Caro- linians and Georgians. The schooner was commissioned
by the Georgia Congress. The British armed schooner was lying outside the Savannah bar looking for the vessel with the powder, but no sooner did she find the colonial schooner coming down upon her than she weighed anchor, and went to sea with the utmost precipitation. She had scarcely done so when a vessel supposed to be that ex- pected with gunpowder appeared in sight. The vessel proved to be a ship commanded by Captain Maitland,
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probably the same who had commanded the Little Carpen- ter, one of the regular packets between Charlestown and London, and who the year before had been interdicted by the General Committee from trading to the port of Charlestown because of some chests of tea he had brought for the East India Company. No sooner was the colonial schooner recognized than, guessing her design, the ship tacked and stood out to sea. The schooner, however, pursued and brought her to, and with the assistance of the Carolina party and their barges, boarded her and secured their prize. The powder found on this vessel turned out, however, not to be that for which Governor Wright had applied, but a consignment to private parties, merchants of Charlestown and of St. Augustine, as well as of Savannah, upon which the Carolinians took what was intended for their merchants and for those of St. Augus- tine, and the Georgians took what belonged to their peo- ple. In this distribution the Carolinians obtained about seven thousand pounds and the Georgians about nine thousand.
The letter of the delegates in Congress to the Secret Committee had not been divulged even to the Council of Safety ; but having, through the individual responsibility of William Henry Drayton and Arthur Middleton, suc- ceeded in securing this powder, the Secret Committee now communicated the whole of their intelligence to that body. It was proposed then to write to the Provincial Congress of Georgia to assist in the loan to Massachusetts, but it was deemed better to send a deputation for the purpose, and William Henry Drayton and Miles Brewton were accordingly sent. These gentlemen succeeded in procuring a loan of 5000 lbs. of the 12,700 lbs. which the Georgians had on hand. On the 21st of July the express boat which had come from Philadelphia was dis-
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patched by the Secret Committee of South Carolina with the five thousand pounds of powder to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, and passing through the bar of North Edisto she began her voyage for that destina- tion. She happily arrived at Philadelphia, and it was by the arrival of this vessel that the powder was supplied which enabled the American arms to be carried into Canada, and that the siege of Boston was continued.1
Another venture was equally successful. Learning that there was a considerable quantity of powder at the island of New Providence, the Council of Safety deter- mined to seize it. The sloop Commerce was taken into service and armed for the occasion, and on the 24th of July, 1775, Clement Lemprière was commissioned and put in command ; on the 25th he received his instructions, on the 26th sailed over the bar with a crew of volunteers, and on the 28th arrived at Beaufort, where he landed his stores and proceeded to clean his vessel. While thus engaged he received direction from the Council of Safety to proceed with all dispatch toward St. Augustine, and cruise off its bar, as a vessel was daily expected there with a large quantity of powder. Captain Lemprière at once obeyed his orders, and on the 7th of August he made Matanzas, where he anchored. On the next morning he ran down toward the bar of St. Augustine, where he saw a vessel at anchor which proved to be the brigantine Betsey from London, the very vessel for which his cruise was directed. He at once boarded her and found much pow- der and a quantity of military stores. One hundred and eleven barrels, one-half barrel, and thirty-seven small kegs of powder were immediately transferred from the Betsey to the Commerce. This was effected by Captain Lemprière, though the brigantine was armed with two
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 271, 273.
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pieces of cannon, and had on board twelve soldiers who, with the crew, amounted to twenty-four in all, while his own force was twenty-one whites and five blacks. After spiking the two guns, he reembarked his men and made sail with his prize.
There was an alarm now in Charlestown that an armed vessel was in pursuit of the Commerce, and several com- panies of Colonel Stephen Bull's militia regiment were marched into Beaufort to protect the powder; a detach- ment of artillery and Captain William Cattel's com- pany of regulars were also sent for the same purpose. A small part of the powder was left at Beaufort, where the Commerce had arrived safely, and the remainder, amount- ing to ninety-one barrels, was put on board another vessel and brought to Charlestown. The powder taken by Captain Lemprière was about 11,900 pounds, which with the 7000 pounds taken from Captain Maitland, and 3074 taken from the King's magazine in Charlestown and its vicinity, amounted in the whole to 21,974 pounds with which the colony was at this time supplied.1
Henry Middleton, John Rutledge, Christopher Gads- den, Thomas Lynch, and Edward Rutledge were now in attendance upon the Continental Congress at Philadel- phia ; William Moultrie and others in whom the public confidence was placed had entered the military service, and so were withdrawn from the direction of affairs in the province. Of the old leaders, Henry Laurens, Raw- lins Lowndes, and Charles Pinckney only were now in the councils which were in charge of local affairs, and the leadership in these was in the hands of two younger men, - William Henry Drayton and Arthur Middleton. Henry Laurens was President of the Provincial Congress and of
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 304, 307 ; Moultrie's Memoirs, vol. I, 86.
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the Council of Safety ; but these two were on every com- mittee, and were dominant in all councils, in which it will be seen that there was much division of opinion.
Among the measures of the Provincial Congress, as we remember, was one by which non-subscribers to the Asso- ciation were made amenable to the General Committee, and by them punishable according to sound policy, under which ambiguous and general terms the most indefinite and illimitable powers were assumed to have been granted. Such powers could safely be intrusted to no man, nor set of men ; and this committee soon took occasion to exer- cise theirs in a cruel and despotic manner.
There were very few Roman Catholics in South Caro- lina at this time, and these had no clergy ;1 but notwith- standing the fewness of their numbers, they were enough in the heated imagination of the Revolutionists to afford something of a Guy Fawkes conspiracy against their government. One Michael Hubart informed the General Committee that upon the 2d of June, he being in the house of Thomas Nicoll in King Street, a certain James Dealy came in and told that there was good news come to town. Being asked what it was, he answered that a number of arms were sent over to be distributed amongst the negroes, Roman Catholics, and Indians. Upon which he had replied, he thought it was very bad news that Roman Catholics and savages should be permitted to join and massacre Christians. Whereupon Dealy struck his breast and swore "he was a Roman Catholic, and had arms and would use them as he pleased "; that he, Hubart, had gone home, where shortly after in came Dealy and a certain Laughlin Martin and one Reed, who cursed and abused him, and with a drawn cutlass in his hand threatened to
1 Ramsay's Hist. of So. Ca., vol. II, 37 ; Year Book, city of Charles- ton, 1883 (Courtenay), 389.
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.
cut off his head. That Martin then declared he was a Roman Catholic, and vowed to God to cut off the head of any person who said he should not carry arms. After which Martin called for some drink, and drank of it with Dealy and Reed, and one of his toasts was "Damnation to the Committee and their proceedings." Hubart thus concludes the petition he presented : -
"Your petitioner has prosecuted them as law directs. But as the times appears to be very troublesome, and numbers of enemies both to the Protestant interest and the present cause are lurking amongst us, your petitioner hopes that you will inquire into such parts of the transaction as concerns the public, and your petitioner will ever pray."
This absurd and ridiculous paper was referred to the Secret Committee, and on its back in a disguised hand, sup- posed to be that of William Henry Drayton, was written, "Secret -tar and feather him," and also in a disguised hand, supposed to be that of Edward Weyman, was endorsed, " Passed the Secret Committee and ordered to be put into execution." The order was promptly complied with; both the men, Martin and Dealy, were stripped of their clothes, tarred, feathered, and carted through the streets of the town. They were then sent on board a ship ready to sail to England, but Laughlin Martin was allowed to land again, and was discharged on expressing his contrition in a public manner; but James Dealy, for an example, was shipped away.1
1 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 272, 275, 300, 302. South Carolina was not alone in the glory or disgrace of this tarring and feathering. It was begun, it appears, in Boston by the British troops and a mob of Royalists in March, 1775. A flagrant case of it occurred in Duchess County, New York, where a judge of the Court of Common Pleas was tarred and feathered for acting in contempt of the resolves of the County Committee. Another took place at Quibbletown, New Jersey, where we are told the matter "was conducted with that regularity and decorum that ought to be observed in all public punishments." See
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Mr. Drayton, the author of the Memoirs,1 repudiates the usual apology for these measures in that they were supposed to have proceeded from the intemperate zeal of the populace, and willingly assumes for the Secret Committee the responsibility for them. There can be little doubt, he says, that this first commencement of so ludicrous and disgraceful a punishment owed its origin in South Carolina to this very case ; and that it was sanc- tioned by the Secret Committee is equally clear, as the case is specially noted in the manuscript of William Henry Drayton his father, who was chairman of that com- mittee.2 Writing from his father's minutes in the period immediately following the Revolution, when everything connected with its history was still applauded and deemed glorious with but little consideration as to its intrinsic merits, he naturally sees everything commendable in the action of its leaders. But he forgets that this self-ap- pointed power - for the members of the committee were themselves the leaders of the Congress under the authority of which they acted -represented, in fact, but a small part of the whole people of the province ; that the move- ment which they were leading had little or no support in the interior; that the people of the low country were themselves divided in regard to it; and that even among their own associates, and kith and kin, there were many, very many, of the noblest and best who were as much opposed to their authority as the poor creatures upon whom the committee was exhibiting its power and wreak-
Moore's Diary, vol. I, 44, 56, 57, 138, 178. In the recent historical novel Janice Meredith, the author, Mr. Paul Leicester Ford, treats tarring and feathering as an ordinary incident of the revolutionary times. See pp. 115, 282, 284.
1 Governor John Drayton, son of William Henry Drayton.
2 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 274.
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ing its vengeance ; that not a few of those who were now submitting to their rule were to abandon or repudiate the cause before the end was reached -the cause to which William Henry Drayton himself was but a recent convert. How could the Congress complain of the despotism of the King and Parliament when they themselves were seizing upon the first moment of power to inflict without trial or law the most degrading punishment? How could they expect their fellow-citizens to join them in resisting the right of the Royal government to take persons to Eng- land for trial in certain cases, when the first exercise of their power in the name of Liberty was ignominiously to punish without trial of any kind ? Was the venerable Lieutenant Governor, who had so patiently borne with Mr. Drayton himself, to be liable to the same indignity if he did not submit to the absolute authority of these - to him - usurpers of government? Was William Wragg to be tarred and feathered because he had resolutely stood by the King to whom he believed his allegiance absolutely due ? because he could not desert his royal master as Mr. Drayton had done ? because he had not changed his side as Mr. Drayton had ? No ! Bull and Wragg were not to be tarred and feathered as Martin and Dealy had been, and as others like them were to be. Their position was too high for that. But these gentlemen of the Coun- cil of Safety and Secret Committee-their own personal friends and kinsmen, among them Mr. Drayton, who had gone into the battle for the King with them - were to order Mr. Wragg out of the province, and to see him on the ship from which he was never to land, but from the wreck of which his dead body was to be washed on a foreign shore. Had Mr. Drayton forgotten how earnestly he had pleaded for liberty of conscience when he was on the other side of the question? How indignant he was
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when the Non-importation Association in 1769 had pub- lished his name as one who had refused to sign the agree- ment ? 1
The General Committee now took up the matter of the Association under the resolution of the Provincial Con- gress, directing them to summon all persons who refused to sign to appear before them ; and upon their refusal to associate or to give satisfactory reasons for their refusal, authorizing the committee to make such order "as they should think consistent with sound policy." In this ambigu- ous phrase was intended to be couched a power to the committee to which the Provincial Congress would not commit itself by a more explicit declaration. The mod- erate party, says Drayton, were satisfied with the wording of the resolution, because they would give an opening for extending mild conduct to non-subscribers ; while the others were better pleased because under due construc- tion whatever they might do in pursuance of the reso- lution would be sanctioned under the meaning of sound policy.2
In pursuance of this resolution the General Committee summoned the non-associators in Charlestown to appear before them on the 22d of July, offering each of them the Association for signature and demanding in every case reasons for refusing. Twenty-two who appeared refused to sign, and assigned their reasons. These were almost all officers of the Crown, whose official positions were suf- ficient answers. But among them was William Wragg, who had so stoutly and consistently maintained his loy- alty to the King from the very commencement of these troubles, when he had moved to substitute the name of his Majesty George III in the resolution ordering a
1 Hist. of So. Ca. under Roy. Gov. (McCrady), 656.
2 Memoirs of the Revolution (Drayton), vol. I, 313.
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statue of William Pitt. He was now equally fearless in his answer to the committee. He refused to sign the Association, he said, because of "his gratitude for the honorable notice his Majesty had been pleased to take of him in appointing him by his royal mandamus Chief Justice of the province, which, although he had de- clined, he did not consider himself the less under obli- gations for. And in addition thereto," he firmly added, because " he had a right to exercise his own judgment in the premises, although in doing so his sentiments might differ from the general voice."
On the 27th of July the General Committee began to consider the reasons of the non-associators. They com- menced with Mr. Wragg, whose position and standing in the colony, the high estimation in which he was held for his social virtues, and whose large and independent fortune rendered his case the most important. They determined that his reasons were not satisfactory. But now what was to be done with him " consistent with sound policy" ? This question was postponed to the next day, when a long and violent debate took place upon the subject ; but all that could be obtained by the moderate party was that Mr. Wragg should be required to take an oath that dur- ing this present unhappy dispute between Great Britain and America he would not directly or indirectly attempt to counteract or oppose the proceedings of the people. Mr. Wragg, however, had weighed the cost in his own mind, and determined to maintain his position ; he refused to take the oath, and the committee declared him inimical to the liberties of the colonies, and ordered him into con- finement at his barony on the Ashley River. He was afterward compelled to leave the province ; and embark- ing on board a vessel bound to Amsterdam, when near that port the ship was driven on the shore, and in endeav-
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oring to save the life of an infant son who accompanied him he lost his own. A tablet in Westminster Abbey commemorates the loyalty and heroism of this good man, who gave up family, country, and fortune rather than swerve from his convictions of duty, though those con- victions were opposed to the sentiments of his nearest and dearest friends and kindred. When South Carolina is counting up her heroes of this momentous time, let her not forget William Wragg, who dared to differ with his people and to sacrifice everything for the truest of all liberty - the liberty of his own conscience.
Other persons of respectability and fortune followed Mr. Wragg's example, refused to take the oath, and left the province, leaving their fortunes to the hazards of a civil war, and their claims for indemnity to the liberality of a sovereign whose allegiance they preferred. As no better terms could be procured for so prominent a gentle- man as Mr. Wragg, all hopes in favor of other non- associators failed; and on the 31st of July all of those who refused to take the oath of neutrality were declared inimical to the liberties of the colony. The extreme party, flushed with success and with whetted appetite for the exercise of power, now proposed to take possession of the estates of those who had refused to associate and had left the colony, and to prohibit all intercourse and dealing with those who had refused to subscribe the Association ; but the moderates rallied against the further stretch of this power, and after failing to postpone the question finally defeated the proposition. The non-associators, however, were ordered to surrender their arms and were confined to the limits of Charlestown.
But what was to be done with Lieutenant Governor Bull ? Mr. Wragg was admired and revered, but Gov- ernor Bull was loved as well, and it would have been a
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dangerous attempt on the part of the committee to have tried conclusions with him. He was quietly resting at Ashley Hall, and had best not be disturbed. Some of the members of the committee, however, were sent to him with a tender of the Association. But the Governor told them "that he wished as well to the country as any one, and both his heart and hand were with it." But circum- stanced as he had been and still was, " even you gentle- men," said he, " would look upon me in an odd light were I to subscribe an instrument of this kind." The com- mittee wisely forbore to press him further upon the subject.
The Council of Safety itself was by no means har- monious. It was sharply divided into two parties, - the extreme and the moderate party. In these differences Henry Laurens, the President, does not appear to have taken a decided part. Indeed, he declares in the petition which he addressed to the House of Commons in Eng- land, when a prisoner in the Tower, that in no instance had he ever excited on either side the dissensions which had grown up between Great Britain and the colonies - that he had labored for peace. The principal business at this time was carried on by William Henry Drayton, Arthur Middleton, Colonel Charles Pinckney, and Thomas Fergu- son, who promoted every vigorous plan, while Rawlins Lowndes, James Parsons, Miles Brewton, Thomas Hey- ward, Jr., and Thomas Bee were generally for moderate measures, and John Huger, Benjamin Elliott, and William Williamson took part with one or the other party as in their judgment was best. William Henry Drayton and Arthur Middleton were the leaders in all extreme meas- ures, and Rawlins Lowndes was their chief opponent. The subject upon which the difference in the sentiments and purposes of the members of the committee discovered itself
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