USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina under the proprietary government, 1670-1719, V.1 > Part 16
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There is a passage in this letter which indicates that the voting in Carolina even before this early day had been by ballot. The Proprietors wrote : -
"We are informed that there are many undue practices in the choice of members of parliament, and that men are admitted to bring papers for others, and to put in their votes for them which is utterly illegal and con- trary to the custom of parliament, and will in time, if suffered, be very mischievous. You are therefore to take care that such practices be not suffered for the future : but every man must deliver his own cote and no man be suffered to bring the role of another," etc.
1 Hist. Sketches of So. Cu. (Rivers), 135 ; Appendix, 107.
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It is certain that voting " by ballot or scrutiny " was expressly directed by their Lordships' instructions of Sep- tember 10, 1685.1
It was certainly a great advance for the convenience of the people to have elections held in two places instead of one. But it was a most arbitrary and unjust provision that the new Colleton County, with its sparse population, settled but recently by the new-comers from England under Blake. Morton, and AAxtell, should have equal rep- resentation with Berkeley, in which far the greater part of the people were established. Such a deviation could be regarded only as a design to govern the old settlers by the new. It was also another violation of the principle
1 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. I, 115.
The recklessness of assertion by writers in regard to Southern history is strikingly exhibited in a recent work entitled, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America (1892). The author having traced to his satis- faction the origin of the use of the ballot in the North to the organization of Salem Church in 1629, in which it was adopted, as he holds, from Hol- land, proceeds boklly to assert : --
"Here then we see the written ballot introduced into the early colonies where the Netherland influence can be directly traced and into them alone. Like the free school and the township it was unknown South of Pennsylvania, as it was in the mother country. How it finally worked into the first constitutions of a majority of the original thirteen States, and how it bas thence spread over the whole Union, Virginia and Kentucky bringing up the rear in 1864 and 1891, has already been shown." - Vol. II. 438-440.
There never has been an election in South Carolina except by ballot, as far as is known. In Great Britain the ballot was suggested for use in Parliament by a political tract of the time of Charles II. It was actually used by the Scots Parliament in 1662. These were the sources from which it was taken in this colony. Locke, who prescribed it in the Fundamental Constitutions for elections in the Parliament and Grand Council, was doubtless much more familiar with these precedents and these of ancient Rome than with the action of the Salem congregation. It will appear later on that the assertion in regard to free schools, so far as South Carolina is concerned, is as untrue as that in regard to the ballot.
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for which the colonists were contending, i.e. that under the charter no law could be passed without their assent. If the Proprietors could alter the election precincts at will, and designate the apportionment of members of Par- liament in the precincts. there was an end of all influence and control of the people in the government. Whether the instructions had arrived before the election of the Par- liament called by Morton or not, they were disregarded, and the elections had been held at Charles Town as usual.
Governor Morton dissolved the Parliament upon the receipt of the letter of the 30th of September peremptorily ordering him so to do, -- but not before numerous acts had been passed by it. The Proprietors were as much offended by the character of the laws passed by this body as by the election in violation of their orders. They now viewed with abhorrence the adoption of a law for protecting the colonists against prosecution for debts contracted out of the colony as impeding the course of justice, as against the King's honor, and repugnant to the law of England, forgetting that in their anxiety to encourage immigration they had sanctioned a similar law in 1670. They ordered " that all officers should be displaced who had promoted it." The Governor and Council were further blamed for slighting their instructions concerning the election. The Proprietors claimed to have power by their charter to call assemblies of the freeholders; that their Fundamental Constitutions appointed how this should be done, and that their orders stood in the place of the Constitutions until they could be put in force. But this haughty strain, observes Rivers, did not quell the spirit of opposition, and their Lordships further showed how little they un- derstood those under their government, when, vexed at their failure, they wrote to Governor Morton in the follow-
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ing March, " Are you to govern the people, or the people you ?"1
Unfortunately for the plans of the Proprietors, con- tinues the same author, their Governors and deputies were, for the most part. necessarily selected from the colonists themselves, whose dispositions and principles they could not be sure were in accordance with their own. Did they instruct Morton to remove all officers who sold or encour- aged the selling of Indian slaves? The Governor himself was not free from blame. Their own deputies fell under the blow as well as the commoners of the Grand Council ; and these the people thought fit to elect again. Did they inveigh against any indulgence to the English pirates who visited the coast ? The people were not disposed to hang them while their monarch encouraged. with unusual honors, the chief captain of the band. Did the Proprietors demand their quit-rents in money ? The people said there was no mint in Carolina and coin was scarce. Did they refer to the powers granted by the charter? The people were willing to be governed by the charter which made their concurrence necessary for the adoption of any plan of government.2
The Proprietors, thus foiled by their own agents, thought that possibly a Governor from abroad would be more sub- servient to their interests, so Morton was removed and Sir Richard Kyrle of Ireland was appointed in his place in April, 1684. To fit him for the position, Kyrle was, of course. appointed a Landgrave. The Proprietors expressed to him their hope that from his abilities and activity the affairs of Carolina would be in a better condition than before; they pointed out the evils they wished him to remedy, cautioned him against the Spaniards. and advised him to put the province in a state of defence. But Sir 1 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 135. IST. 2 Ibid., 137, 138.
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Richard did not live to carry out his instructions. He died within six months after his arrival in the country.1
Upon the death of Kyrle. the Council, who under the instructions were charged in such event to choose a person to act until the Proprietors' pleasure should be known, again turned to West and chose him as Governor; but it happened that he was not at that time in the province. In their instructions to Kyrle the Proprietors had recom- mended that in case of his absence he should commission Robert Quarry, the Secretary of the province, as Governor of Charles Town; acting upon this intimation of their Lordships' opinion of Quarry. in the absence of West the Council chose him as Governor. But it was, indeed, diffi-
cult to please their Lordships. They disapproved the selection. Forgetting, apparently, that they had denied Yeamans's right to be Governor because he was a Land- grave, they now wrote to the Council that they should have chosen Landgrave Morton, whom they, the Pro- prietors, had just removed to make way for Kyrle, "to whom," they said. in the absence of Landgrave West, " by virtue of our Fundamental constitutions and instructions the government of right belonged," - a rule we shall soon see them disregarding when it conflicted with their pur- poses. Beyond the expression of their disapproval, the Proprietors did not, however, interfere. Colonel Quarry was a man of character, and subsequently occupied other high positions in colonial affairs. He succeeded Edward Randolph as Surveyor General of his Majesty's customs in America, was Vice Admiral of Carolina 2 in 1700, and after- wards became Judge of Admiralty of New York and Penu- sylvania. His short ad interim administration was not a fortunate one - responsible as it was. in part. for the ill-
! Hewatt. vol. 1, 92; Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 138.
2 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. C'a., vol. II, 265.
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treatment of the unhappy Scotch colony under Lord Cardross. But the justice of the accusation for complicity with the pirates, for which it has been most known in history, is at least not free from doubt.
On the 1st of September, 1684, an armed vessel came into the Ashley, which pretended to have been trading with Spaniards, and Quarry reported to the Proprietors that he had prohibited the landing or selling of any of its goods, as he had received information that it was a pirati- cal vessel. This statement, it was afterwards charged to the Proprietors, was false ; that in fact, although Quarry knew the vessel to be piratical, he had allowed the plun- dered goods to be landed and sold. Quarry had in the meanwhile displeased the Proprietors in other matters. particularly by his treatment of Lord Cardross. On the 15th of February. 1685-86, they ordered an inquiry as to his conduct, declaring that the truth of the charge must be proved or Quarry's reputation vindicated.1 Two months after, April 26, complaining of his conduct to Lord Car- dross, they threatened that he should be suspended from his office as Secretary if he persisted in his "refractioness. "2 Six years later, May 13, 1691, they allude to " Mr. Quarry who had been dismissed by them from the Secretaryship for harboring pirates and other misdemeanors."3 Whether his complicity with the pirates, or " other misdemeanors" which he persisted in, was the real cause of his removal from the office of Secretary may be doubted in view of his subsequent career. However this may be, we find him in 1697 apparently in full favor again with their Lord- ships.+ It is scarcely credible that he would have been chosen to the high position he afterwards occupied, both in regard to the King's revenue and as Judge of Admi-
1 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. I, 116. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., 127. + Ibid., 143.
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ralty, had not his character been fully vindicated from the charges of harboring pirates. and of a false report to cover up his conduct.
The Proprietors at this time were, no doubt, sensitive upon this subject. Sir Thomas Lynch. the Governor of Jamaica, had shortly before complained to the Board of Trade and Plantations in England of the great damage that arose to his Majesty's service, by the harboring and encouraging of pirates in Carolina and other governments and proprietaries, where there was no law to restrain them.1 Jamaica itself. it may be observed, had just been required by the Royal Government to adopt and enforce an act sent out from England for the suppression of this evil in her own waters.2 Lynch's complaint did not apply to Carolina alone, though it was the only province he mentioned by name ; nor does he mention the colony at Charles Town. His complaints are general, and may probably have been grounded upon the visits of pirates to Cape Fear, which was their favorite resort.
When the English colonists under their charter settled Carolina, pirates had been for many years occupying the coast at their pleasure. Indented as it was by numerous harbors and inlets, it afforded them a safe refuge when pur- sued by their enemies, and most available places for refit- ting and repairing after a cruise. Here they could bring their prizes ; and if ancient tradition be true, here they buried their treasures. The coast country was a wilder- ness, inhabited only by scattered tribes of Indians; and once within the headlands of the spacious harbor, they were protected from interference and could plot their nefarious schemes at their leisure.3
1 Colonial Records of No. Ca., vol. I, 347.
2 Bryan Edwards's Hist. West Indies, vol. I, 202.
3 The Caroling Pirate (Hughuson); Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies, 12th Series, V, VI, VII, 12.
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Charles II had, upon his restoration, openly encouraged these public robbers, who, sometimes under the designation of privateers, had devastated and plundered the Spanish dominions. The business was esteemed just and laudable as long as it suited the Royal interest, and was treated as an honorable mode of warfare. From mere whim his Majesty had knighted Henry Morgan, a Welshman who had plundered Porto Bello and Panama. He not only knighted this buccaneer, but had made him Deputy Gov- ernor of the Island of Jamaica, the present Governor of which was now complaining of pirates. This body of plunderers was so formidable, indeed, as to strike terror into every quarter of the Spanish dominion. When peace was declared between England and Spain, many of these so-called privateers naturally developed into avowed pirates, and cared no more for England than Spain. But at first there was doubtless a ground of legitimate sym- pathy between the colonists in Carolina and these wild rovers. Hitherto their warfare -- conducted under genu- ine or pretended commissions as privateers - had been principally, if not altogether, against the commerce and colonies of Spain. The Spaniards in Florida, though their government in Europe was actually in a treaty of peace with Great Britain, disregarded its obligations, and pur- sued the colonists of Carolina as their enemies. Were the feeble colonists in Carolina, having the Spaniards and Indians already to contend with, to incur the enmity and invite the hostility of these buccaneers that the European powers were unable or unwilling to suppress ? Were the Carolina colonists to be pillaged by the Spaniards at St. Augustine, and on their part to regard and treat these people. whether privateers or pirates. as enemies because they in turn preyed upon the Spaniards ?
But however natural, and in some sort legitimate, was
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the sympathy of the Carolina colonists with the enemies of the Spaniards -- whoever they might be; however unjust it was to expect the weak colonists on the Ashley to enter into conflict with them, - there does not appear after all that there was any sufficient ground for the charge that the Carolinians were. in fact. aiding and abetting the pirates. Nor did the Proprietors quietly submit under the charge that their colony was to be blamed in the matter. Craven, the Palatine, met the accusation promptly and with spirit. On the 27th of May, 1684, he wrote to the Board of Trade that upon inquiry he had been informed that one Jacob Hall did touch at Carolina for wood and water as he came from Vera Cruz, but belonged not to Carolina, nor was any inhabitant of the province with him. He had stayed but a few days and then sailed for Virginia. Hall. continued the Earl. acted under Van Horn, who had a commission from the French, and his Majesty's pleasure not to suffer his subjects to take commissions from foreign princes not being known in Carolina was the reason, he conceived, why the privateer had not been secured. The Earl went on to say that he could not hear but of one more that ever was in Carolina, and that that one. not pretend- ing any commission from any foreign prince, and having taken some vessels, was indicted, found guilty, and exe- cuted. The captain, with two other of the most guilty of the company, had been hung in chains at the entrance of the port, and their bones hung there to that day, an ex- ample to others. Furthermore. Lord Craven plainly in- timated that Sir Thomas Lynch, who was now so virtuously calling attention to the harboring of pirates by others, was not himself free from implication with their business. Nevertheless. Lord Craven informs the Board of Trade that the Proprietors had sent directions to Carolina to pass an act like that of Jamaica for the suppression of the evil.1
1 Colonial Records of No. Ca., vol. 1, 845.
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On the 11th of March. 1684-85, the Proprietors again issued a commission to Joseph West as Governor, but it was not until September of that year that he resumed the office he had resigned to Morton two years before.1 In the meanwhile the difficulties of political affairs had greatly increased. The apportionment of the members of Parliament was 'still warmly opposed by the inhabitants of Berkeley County, whose able leaders were displaced from the Council upon the same pretexts that West had been, two years before, removed from the governorship; viz. upon the charge of sending away Indian slaves. Another difficult question with which Governor West had now to contend was that in regard to the tenure of land. In the first Fundamental Constitutions and in the Agra- rian Laws the Proprietors had declared that lands should be held for the rent of a penny an acre. "or the value thereof." upon which terms and inducements many persons had emigrated to Carolina. But now it was declared that lands should be held only by indentures, in which the words "or the value thereof" were to be stricken out and a reservation added of reentry on failure of paying the quit-rent in money. To the opposition excited against this clear violation of the contract upon which the colo- nists had come out, and the reasonable request that, as money was scarce. the rents might be paid in merchantable produce of the land, the Proprietors only replied. " We insist to sell our lands our own way." Then their Lord- ships recurred again to the old subject of the Funda- mental Constitutions. On the 12th of March, 1684, the day after they issued his commission. they wrote to Gov- ernor West instructions containing thirty-eight articles. which repealed all former instructions and temporary laws, and ordered the third set of Fundamental Constitutions
1 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Cu., vol. I, 113.
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(i.e. of January, 1682) to be subscribed and put in prac- tice. The members of the Grand Council, who repre- sented the people. protested against this measure, which sought with so decisive a step to change the government of the colony.1
Governor West contended with these difficulties for a year without success, when, hampered by his instructions, and finding it impossible to reconcile the growing differ- ences between the Proprietors and the colonists. utterly disheartened he gave up, and, it is said, abandoned the province. Nothing is known of his subsequent career.2 Oldmixon, who wrote in 1708, mentions " Mr. Landgrave West's plantation," which implies that he was still living and owned the place; but whether alive or residing in the province is not more definitely stated.3 West had thus acted three times as Governor, on each occasion being the choice of the people, and twice under commission from the Proprietors. He was for a longer time Governor than any other under the Proprietors. In a government, says Rivers. carefully planned to be an aristocracy, and under the fostering direction of distinguished nobility in England, he. a plebeian, faithful, wise, and modest, became for fifteen years the guiding spirit of all that was good and successful.4
But wise and good as he was, twice he was put aside by the Proprietors to suit their pride or their interest - once for Sir John Yeamans, not because of any fault of his, but because Sir John was a Landgrave, and the Proprietors could not as yet bring themselves to raise their humble,
1 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 189, 140; Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. 1, 114.
" Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers). 141.
3 British Empire in Am., vol. I, 513; Carroll's Coll., vol. II, 452.
4 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 141.
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faithful servant to that dignity. The next time he was made to give way to a new-comer of wealth and influence.
It was during his administration, February 16, 1684-85, that the Proprietors announced the death of King Charles II and the accession of his brother James, and instructed him to proclaim the new King at Charles Town and Lon- don,1 which was accordingly done.
1 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. I. 113.
P
CHAPTER X
1685-92
ON the retirement of West, the Council chose Morton as Governor; the Proprietors confirmed their choice and in . September, 1685, sent him their commission. Gov- ernor Morton's second administration was still shorter than his first, but it is memorable for three important events: (1) The refusal of the representatives of the people to sub- scribe the Fundamental Constitutions ; and their conse- quent expulsion from Parliament. (2) The establishment in Carolina of a revenue officer under his Majesty to en- force the customs and the navigation laws ; and the opposi- tion of the people to his demands. (3) An invasion by the Spaniards, and the destruction of Lord Cardross's colony at Port Royal.
The Parliament which convened in November, 1685. consisted of eight deputies of the Lords Proprietors and twenty commoners, of whom one was absent. The depu- ties were Joseph Morton, Robert Quarry. John Godfrey, Paul Grimball, Stephen Bull, Joseph Morton, Jr., John Farr, and William Dunlop. Governor Morton. in obedi- ence to the instructions sent to Governor West. called on the members to subscribe the Fundamental Constitu- tions of 1682. Twelve of the nineteen refused to do so, because, as they said, they had already subscribed to those of Julv. 1669. The Governor thereupon ordered them to quit the house. They protested, without avail,
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against the tyranny of their ejectment. The remaining seven enacted all the laws passed at that session of Parlia- ment.1 These were, however, but four in number: (1) The act which had been sent out for restraining and punishing privateers. (2) An act for the better security of the province against hostile invasions and attempts by sea or land, which the neighboring Spaniards or other enemy might make upon the same. (3) An act for reviving several acts theretofore made which had expired. (4) An act fixing the fees chargeable to the register of births. marriages. and burials.2
In 1685 George Muschamp arrived at Charles Town as the first Collector of the King's revenue, and the Governor and Council were instructed "not to fail to show their forwardness in assisting in the collection of the duty on tobacco transported to other colonies ; or seizing ships that presumed to trade contrary to the acts of navigation." $ Muschamp's arrival introduced into Carolina a subject which had already been the cause of great animosity and contention in other colonies. especially in Barbadoes, - a grievance which was really the cause of the great revolu- tion of near a hundred years after.
The Navigation act, which was the basis of England's commercial prosperity. had originated in no enlarged view of statesmanship. Its rudiments were laid by the Long Parliament with the narrow view of crippling the West India sugar colonies which held out for the Royal cause, by stopping the gainful trade which they then carried on with the Dutch, and at the same time clipping the wings of those opulent and aspiring neighbors. The aet prohibited all ships of foreign nations from trading with any English
1 Hist. Sketches ( Rivers). 141, 142. 2 Statutes of So. Ca. vol. II. 7-14. 3 Chalmers's Pol. Ann. ; Carroll's Coll., 322.
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plantations without license from the Council of State. In 1651 the prohibition was extended also to the mother country, and no goods were suffered to be imported into England or any of its dependencies in any other than English bottoms. or in the ships of that European nation, of which the merchandise imported was the genuine growth or manufacture.1
The Barbadians vigorously protested against this meas- ure, which was aimed chiefly at their trade with the Netherlanders. A spirited declaration was drawn up and subscribed by Lord Willoughby, the members of his Council, and the assembly of Barbadoes, stating their objections and expressing their firm resolution of opposing the act of Parliament to the utmost extent of their power. It is most interesting to observe that in their admirable ad- dress, the Barbadians, more than a hundred years before. anticipated the fundamental ground of the American Rev- olution by the bold declaration, -" they totally disclaimed the authority of the British Parliament in which they were not represented." To submit to such a jurisdiction, they asserted. would be a species of slavery far exceeding any- thing which the nation had yet suffered, and they affected not to doubt- they declared - that the courage which had enabled them to sustain the hardships and dangers which they had encountered in a region remote from their native clime, would continue to support them in the maintenance of that freedom without which life it- self would be uncomfortable and of little value.2 Brave words, which were sustained by an equally brave resist- ance ! But Barbadoes was reduced by the parlia- mentary forces, and the act imposed upon them. The Barbadians looked with confidence that. upon the Restora-
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