USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina under the proprietary government, 1670-1719, V.2 > Part 19
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1 Hughson, Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies. 2 series, V, VI, VII: 110.
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court. It remained with the Governor to fix the day of the execution. He appointed Wednesday. the 10th of December. as the fatal day, and Bonnet was accordingly executed. It is said that he was so unnerved "that he was scarce sensible when he came to the place of exe- cution. " 1
In the meanwhile the court was again convened, and twenty-three of those captured by Governor Johnson's expedition were also convicted, and on the 24th of November were sentenced to death. They were exe- cuted, but the day upon which their execution took place is not certainly known.
The nest of pirates which had been established in Cape Fear was now thoroughly broken up. Thatch, or "Black Beard." had been killed and his crew captured by the expedition fitted out by Governor Spotswood of Virginia : Bonnet had been captured by Rhett and exe- cuted ; and Worley had been slain in the battle with Governor Johnson. Without disparagement to the con- duct of Governor Spotswood, it may be pointed out that however prompt and vigorous his action, the expedition which he sent had the advantage of being commanded by officers of the Royal Navy, whereas those of Governor Johnson were led by Colonel Rhett and himself in person. The South Carolinians had arisen against the pirates as they had done against the Indians, and, without waiting for the help they had asked. had themselves without assistance organized and conducted two brilliant and suc- cessful expeditions. They had so far been victorious, and opened the harbor of Charles Town to their commerce. But the danger was by no means past. The sea was yet covered with pirate craft. manned by as desperate outlaws as any of those who had paid the penalty of their crimes
1 Hughson. supra.
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at White Point. Every month brought intelligence of renewed outrages. of vessels sacked on the high seas. burned with their cargo, or seized and converted to the nefarious uses of the outlaws.
Governor Johnson, says Hughson, was no dreamer, and he did not lull himself into any fancied security because of the success of the plots of the daring Rhett and him- self. The province itself was scarcely able to do any- thing more. The cost of the two naval expeditions had further exhausted the already depleted treasury, and as yet the English authorities had given no indication of their intention to do anything to assist their hard-pressed fellow-countrymen in the distant colony.
But Governor Johnson did not despair, though he did not encourage the thought of expecting any assistance from abroad. On the contrary, he insisted that the people should help themselves : and in February, 1719, the As- sembly passed an act providing sufficient funds to pay the debts incurred by the equipment of the two expeditions. In the meantime the Governor had forwarded another letter to the Lords of Trade, in which he gave a full account of the recent occurrences, narrating how his fears had been realized. and urging that a ship of war should be sent to South Carolina immediately. unless their Lord- ships were willing to see the trade completely ruined. In this communication the Governor expressed himself with great earnestness, claiming for the colony some con- sideration at the hands of the board, and reminding it that during the previous year the province had supplied. for the use of his Majesty's navy, 32,000 barrels of tar. 20,643 barrels of pitch, and 473 barrels of turpentine. In a letter written the following December, after he had been deposed by the people in consequence of the neglect and tyranny of the Proprietors, he writes to them that
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"he is out of pocket £1000 sterling," by reason of the extraordinary expenses he was at in suppressing the pirates.1
Governor Johnson's appeals brought at last, on April 29. 1719. the information that the Lords of Admiralty had consented to send a frigate "as soon as possible "; and some months after, the man-of-war Flambourgh, Captain Hildesly, arrived and was placed on duty in the harbor, while the Phoenix, Captain Pierce, was sent to cruise along the coast, keeping a lookout for any free- booters who might venture to depredate on the commerce of the colonies.
1 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. II, 236-239.
CHAPTER XXVIII
1719
THE year 1719, so memorable in the annals of Carolina for the overthrow of the Proprietors' Government, opened most auspiciously to the interest of their Lordships. Gov- ernor Johnson's heroic and efficient conduct in regard to the pirates had greatly propitiated the people of the col- ony. The Assembly forgave the lecture he had read them upon his arrival upon their conduct and duties to the Proprietors, and forgot the controversy in regard to the Public Receiver. Putting aside all matters of difference, they entered into the most cordial relations with the Governor. They passed an act declaring the willingness of the people of the province to consent to any reasonable measure whereby their Lordships might have justice done them with respect to their rents ; and " for promoting so good and just a design and that the Lords Proprietors seeing the inclination of the inhabitants of this province to do them justice, and duly to pay them their rents, may assist this province. and use their interest to support the same and to promote the good thereof, and that all differ- ences and misunderstandings between their Lordships and the people may be removed," etc. They agreed that all arrears of rents, and all that should thereafter become due, should be paid either in lawful money according to the statute of the 6th of Queen Anne, which. at that time, would have required £4 in curreney to £1 in good money, or else in good merchantable rice at the rate of
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17s. 6d. per 100, or good pitch at the rate of 158. per barrel, or tar at the rate of 78. 6d. per barrel. This was a compliance with their Lordships' demand as stated by the Governor in his opening speech to the Commons the year before. They provided also for the enforcement and collection of the rents. The act went on to say that see- ing, by an order of the Board of the Lords Proprietors of the 3d of May, 1716, their Lordships had been pleased to give all their arrears that were then in Carolina due to them, whether for land sold. or for rent that should become due on the 1st of May, 1718. to the use of the public as the Governor and Council should think most proper to appropriate the same; but, by reason of some misunderstanding between the Lords Proprietors and the people, their Lordships were pleased to withdraw their intended gift ; but seeing, also, that the inhabitants of the province. by their representative in the Assembly. had showed their willingness to do their Lordships justice with respect to their rents, which made them hope that all differences would be entirely forgotten, they proceeded to appropriate the arrears of rent to the building of a state house and prison. To this act the Governor and the other Proprietors' deputies consented, without further consulting their Lordships.1
The next business of the General Assembly was to re- vise again the election law, and to make another appor- tionment of representation. the number of which they increased from thirty to thirty-six, as follows : St. Philip's parish was allowed five members instead of four: Christ Church two; St. John's three. A part of St. Andrew's had been eut off and made into a new parish. St. George's. so St. Andrew's lost one member, but St. George's was given two, a gain of one to the old parish. St. James.
1 Statutes of So. Ca., vol. III, 14-19.
2 s
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Goose Creek. was also given an additional member, mak- ing its representation four members ; St. Thomas and St. Dennis three ; St. Paul's four. An additional member was given respectively to St. Bartholomew and St. Helena. making three representatives from each. Winyaw was added to St. James, Santee, and the two were allowed together two members.1 The Assembly laid duties on negroes, liquors, and other goods and merchandise im- ported to and exported out of the province, for raising a fund towards defraying the public charges and expenses of the government ; 2 and passed an act for raising £70.000 on lands and negroes, for defraying the public debt, sink- ing the public orders, and calling in and cancelling the sum of £30.000 outstanding on bills of credit over and beside the bank bills.3 A commission was provided to regulate the Indian trade ; the commissioners appointed were Colonel Thomas Broughton. Colonel George Logan. and Ralph Izard, Esq. These acts were all ratified on the 20th of March, 1718-19, and were the last attempted legislation under the Proprietary Government.
It was while the General Assembly was thus engaged in providing for the sinking of the paper currency and in con- triving to pay for their expedition against the pirates and their other contingent debts, and while it was said "they were never observ'd to be in so good a disposition towards the Proprietors, but were doing everything that could be asked of them," that an order to the Governor came to dissolve the Assembly forthwith and to call a new one, to be elected according to the ancient custom.5
This order, under the great seal of the province, was dated the 18th of July before (1718). It was signed by Carteret, Palatine. James Bertie for the minor Duke of
1 Statutes of So. Ca., vol. III, 30-35. 2 Ibid., 56. 3 Ibid., 69. 4 Ibid., 86. 5 Proceedings of the People of Sv. Ca. (Carroll), vol. I. 150.
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Beaufort, Fulwar Skipwith for the minors Lord Craven. Maurice Ashley. John Colleton, and John Danson. Two shares were unrepresented, and two belonging to minors were represented by their guardians, who were thus inci- dentally exercising governmental powers.1
The first clause of this imperious decree stated that his Majesty had been pleased, by his order in council, to sig- nify his Royal pleasure that the Lords Proprietors should forthwith repeal the act of the province whereby a duty of ten per cent was laid upon goods of British manufact- ure imported into the province; and that in obedience to his Majesty's command their Lordships declared the same repealed. Against this Royal mandate, whether constitu- tional or not. it was vain to protest, and the colonists accepted the repeal with submission.
But it was another matter altogether when, in the same instrument, the Proprietors proceeded to repeal other measures to which their representatives. the Governor, and the other members of the Council, deputies of the Proprietors, had solemnly assented and ratified. True, the Proprietors had always claimed the right, sitting as a Palatine Court in England, to negative the proceedings of the Assembly in Carolina ; but the colonists, aware of the growing weakness of their Lordships' hold upon the charter at home, and more and more restless under the feeble and yet tyrannical rule of an irresponsible and indifferent body, were not now disposed to submit to such unjust dealings without a closer scrutiny into their right to enforce them.
The next measure to which their Lordships' order referred was that vexed one of the nomination of the Public Receiver. Finding. they said, this act to be inconsistent with the safety, welfare, and good govern-
1 Statutes of So. Ca., vol. III, 80.
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ment of the province, and inconsistent with the usage and custom of Great Britain, they declared the act giving the nomination of the Public Receiver to the House of Com- mons to be null and void. How there could have been a custom or usage upon this subject in Great Britain, it is difficult to conceive. Of course there was none. The question raised in 1707 in regard to this matter was one not free from fair doubt ; but the Proprietors had acqui- esced now for ten years in the assertion of the right of nomination by the Commons, and it was most unwise and impolitie to agitate the matter again at this time when their charter was so seriously threatened at home, espe- cially as the colonists were just now disposed to renew their loyalty to their Lordships.
But the repeal of the act in regard to the election of the Receiver did not touch the people so sensitively as the order for the repeal of the law in regard to election. " We have likewise," said their Lordships, " read and con- sidered two acts of assembly. the one entitled an act to keep inviolate and preserve the freedom of elections." etc .: "the other entitled an additional and explanatory act to the forgoing act, and finding the said two acts tend to the entire alteration and subversion of the constitution of the Province of South Carolina and are contrary to the laws and customs of Parliament in Great Britain we there- fore do declare the said two last mentioned Acts to be null and void and we do hereby repeal nullifie and make void the said two acts and every clause matter or thing therein contained whatsoever. "1
Nor was this all. The Yamassee lands, which had been recovered upon the expulsion of those Indians, had been appropriated, by the Proprietors' permission.2 to
1 Statutes of So. Ca., vol. III. 31. - Ante ; Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Cu., vol. I. 104.
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new-comers, in order to build up a more settled country between the Indians and the rest of the province. An act had been passed for the purpose, and under its provisions several hundred immigrants from Ireland had come out with the promise of 200 acres to each settler, at an expense of thousands of pounds expended by the colony to fetch them here.1 This act was also repealed. " We have read also," wrote the Proprietors, "two other acts of the Assembly the titles of which are an act to appro- priate the Yamassee lands to the use of such persons as shall come into and settle themselves in this Province etc : and an act to grant several privileges exemptions and encouragements to such of his Majesty's Protestant subjects as are desirous to come into and settle in this province - which two Acts being an encroachment upon the property of us the Lords Proprietors and tend only to the disposal of our estates to which the Assembly can pretend no manner of right, we therefore do declare the said two Acts to be null and void," etc.
The Indian Trade act they also repealed, because it was said several merchants in London had complained of it as a monopoly.
The communication announcing these repeals was re- ceived with the utmost astonishment and consternation by the Governor and Council, who had assented to these measures, supposing themselves to possess the confidence of the Proprietors-chosen, as they had so recently been, as their Lordships' deputies. There was one member of the Council. however, who did not share in the surprise, and who looked on, doubtless, with amusement and satis- faction at the alarm and embarrassment of his fellow- councillors, and that was Mr. Chief Justice Trott. It does not appear to have been known in the province that
1 Hist. Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 294.
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Trott was carrying on a regular correspondence with Mr. Shelton, the secretary of the Board of Proprietors. with the knowledge and approval of their Lordships themselves ; but it was suspected that he was in private communication with them. and that this extraordinary action on their part had been brought about by Rhett and himself, "with whom," as it was said. "they had always too much influence either for their Lordships' or the people's good."1 Trott and Rhett had exercised great political influence when the elections were all held at Charles Town, and they had opposed and obstructed the passage of the new election law, as it removed the elec- tions from their control. This they resented and, it was correctly surmised. had communicated with the Proprietors upon the subject.
There were other and still stronger grounds of opposi- tion to Trott. Though doubtless a man of great ability and learning, one to whom, as it has been seen, South Carolina is to this day indebted in a great measure for her system of laws, he was both corrupt and tyrannical as a judge. Richard Allein, the Attorney General. who had been the prosecuting officer in the recent trials of the pirates, and other practitioners of the law, charged him with many base and iniquitous practices.2
Just before the arrival of these unlooked-for orders there had been presented to the Assembly articles of com- plaint against the Chief Justice, thirty-one in number,3 setting forth, " That he had been guilty of many Partial
1 Proceedings of the People (Carroll), vol. II, 149.
2 Hewatt's Hist. of So. Cz .. vol. I. 241.
3 There are no Journals of the Commons from 1718 to 1720. Probably they were lost in the revolution which took place in 1719. The account in the text follows, therefore, Yonge's Narrative of the Proceedings of the People of No. Ca. in the year 1719. London, MDCCXXVI; republished in Carroll's Coll., vol. II, 141.
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Judgments ; that he had contriv'd many Ways to multiply and increase his Fees contrary to Acts of Assembly, and to the great Grievance to the Subjects, and that among others he had contriv'd a Fee for continuing Causes from one Court (or Term) unto another, and then he put off the Hearing for several Years together; that he took upon him to give Advice in Causes depending in his Courts, and did not only act as a Counsellor in that particular, but also had, and did draw Deeds, and other Writings between Party and Party, some of which had been con- tested before him as Chief Justice : in the determining of which he had shewn great Partialities with many other Particulars ; and lastly complaining that the whole Judi- cial Power of the Province was lodg'd in his Hands alone, of which it was evident he had made a very ill Use; he being at that time sole judge of the Pleas and King's Bench and Judge of Vice Admiralty ; so that no Prohibi- tion could be lodg'd against the Proceedings of that Court, he being in that Case to grant a Prohibition against himself ; he was also at the same time one of the Council and of consequence, of the court of Chancery."
These complaints of the attorneys who practised in the courts were fully substantiated to the Commons; but Trott refused to recognize the authority of that body to act in the matter. He insisted that he was amenable only to the Proprietors themselves, from whom he had received his commissions, and could be impeached before no other body. The Commons thereupon sent a message to the Governor and Council desiring that they wouldl join in a representation to their Lordships of Trott's mal- administration of his offices, and to supplicate them that if they did not think fit to remove him entirely from pre- siding in their courts of justice (as the Commons desired ), that they would at least restrict him to one single juris-
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diction. that they might have liberty of appealing from his sole and too often partial judgments. The Governor and a majority of his Council agreed with the Commons to represent the grievances they complained of to the Proprietors.
It was at this juncture that the orders repealing the acts mentioned, and requiring the Governor to dissolve the Assembly, arrived. This the Governor and Council con- sidered impracticable and dangerous at the time. The Commons had just passed acts to raise the funds for pay- ing the expenses of the expeditions against the pirates. for meeting in part other debts of the province. and for maintaining the government. To dissolve the Assembly. and to declare its measures null and void. because not elected under the new election law, would be to cut off the means of carrying on the government, and the Gov- ernor and Council present in Carolina knew too well the condition of the people and the public sentiment to be- lieve that any new Assembly, elected though it might be at Charles Town under the old system, would renew these grants of supplies or do anything that the Proprietors might wish. They took upon themselves. therefore. the responsibility of withholding this instruction and allowing the Assembly to proceed with its business. They com- municated, however, to the Commons the repeal of the acts sent out by the Proprietors. The Commons denied the Proprietors' right of repeal. Messages passed between the two Houses upon the subject, and a general conference of both Houses was held. at which Mr. Chief Justice Trott made a speech, maintaining the authority of their Lord- ships for the purpose ; to which the Commons replied. For this speech the Chief Justice was afterwards thanked by their Lordships. Recognizing the gravity of the situa- tion, which the Proprietors did not appear at all to appre-
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ciate, the Governor and Council determined to send one of their own number to England to inform the Proprietors personally of the situation, and to explain the reasons which had induced the withholding of their instructions to dissolve the Assembly, as well as to lay before them the complaints against Chief Justice Trott. and to confer with their Lordships upon sundry other matters. All this, it was thought, could better be done in person by one who had taken part in the councils and discussions in Carolina than by letter. Mr. Francis Yonge was selected for the purpose, was fully instructed, and sailed for England.
In the meanwhile the affairs of the colony in England were all steadily tending to the subversion of the Proprie- tors' charter. While Governor Johnson was so ably and gallantly contending with the pirates. he had not failed to represent to the Lords of Admiralty the danger to the colony from these public enemies, and to appeal to his Majesty's government that a frigate should be sent to the coast of Carolina as soon as possible.1 Such an appeal, acknowledging the inability of the Proprietary Govern- ment to defend its territory, greatly strengthened the dis- position of the Royal Government in some way to put an end to a charter which allowed the Proprietors the powers and privileges of rulers over a portion of his Majesty's subjects, without the correlative responsibility of affording them protection. The Lords of Admiralty ordered that a frigate should be sent. The Board of Trade and Plantations determined the more resolutely to get rid of the charter. To this resolve, Mr. Boone, the agent of the Carolina Commons, who was still in England, was urgent and zealous in pressing their Lordships.
The Proprietors had endeavored to persuade the board that Mr. Boone represented only a party or faction in the 1 Coll. Hist. Soc. of So. Ca., vol. II, 258.
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province. and not the people generally. In answer to this an address was signed not only by the members of the Commons. but by five hundred and sixty-eight others. - which was more than one-half of the (male) inhabi- tants of the province, - imploring to be taken under his Majesty's immediate government. In their address they say : -
" We further take the liberty to inform your Majesty that notwithstanding all our miseries, the Lords Proprie- tors of the Province instead of using any endeavors for our relief and assistance are pleased to term all our en- deavors to procure your Majesty's Royal protection the business of a faction or party. We most humbly assure your Majesty that 'tis so far from being anything of that nature that all the inhabitants of the Province (in general) are not only convinced that no human power but that of your Majesty can save them, but earnestly and fervently desire that this once flourishing Province may be added to those already under your happy protection."
Upon the receipt of the address, Mr. Boone again me- morialized the Commissioners of Trade and Plantation. " I again make bold," he said, "to trouble your Lordships in this behalf at their request entreating your Lordships once more to represent to his Majesty the miseries and distresses of his Majesty's subjects the inhabitants of the province of South Carolina and the certain inevitable ruin that must attend those that continue to remain unless his Majesty will be graciously pleased to take them under his immediate protection."
Upon the receipt of this memorial with the petition of the people of South Carolina, the Board of Trade for- warded it at once to Mr. Secretary Craggs, saying that they thought it proper to lose no time in communicating it, so that he might receive his Majesty's orders there-
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upon. The board added : "Upon this occasion we can- not help repeating the advice which has frequently been given by the Board that the proper methods be taken for resuming of this and all other proprietary governments into the hands of his Majesty." 1
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