[Transcriber's note: The word 'sene' appears thus in the original. Might be an uncommon misprint of 'sieve'.]
But even among the most diligent and attentive planters we see not that nice arrangement and order in their fields observable in most places of Europe, probably owing to the plenty and cheapness of land. In every country where landed estates are easily procured, they engross not that care and attention requisite for making them yield the greatest returns. The freeholds in Carolina are not only easily obtained by patent or purchase, but also all alienable at pleasure; so that few of the present generation of planters regulate their system of husbandry upon any established principles or plans, much less with any views to posterity. In no country have the finest improvements been found in the first ages of cultivation. This remains for a future day, and when lands shall be more scarce and valuable, and the country better peopled; then, it is probable, Carolina will cover, like other countries, the effects of the nice art and careful management of the husbandman.
At present the common method of cultivation is as follows. After the planter has obtained his tract of land, and built a house upon it, he then begins to clear his field of that load of wood with which the land is covered. Nature points out to him where to begin his labours; for the soil, however various, is every where easily distinguished, by the different kinds of trees which grow upon it. Having cleared his field, he next surrounds it with a wooden fence, to exclude all hogs, sheep and cattle from it. This field he plants with rice or indigo, year after year, until the lands are exhausted or yield not a crop sufficient to answer his expectations. Then it is forsaken, and a fresh spot of land is cleared and planted, which is also treated in like manner, and in succession forsaken and neglected. Although there are vast numbers of cattle bred in the province, yet no manure is provided for improving the soil. No trials of a different grain are made. No grass seeds are sown in the old fields for enriching the pastures, so that either shrubs and bushes again spring up in them, or they are overgrown with a kind of coarse grass, grateful or nourishing to no animal. Like farmers often moving from place to place, the principal study with the planters is the art of making the largest profit for the present time, and if this end is obtained, it gives them little concern how much the land may be exhausted. The emulation that takes place among the present generation, is not who shall put his estate in the most beautiful order, who shall manage it with most skill and judgment for posterity; but who shall bring the largest crop to the market. Let their children provide for themselves. They will endeavour to leave them plenty of labourers, and they know they can easily obtain abundance of lands; vain and absurd, therefore, would it be to bestow much pains and time in preparing this or that landed estate for them, and laying it out in fine order, which they are certain will be deserted so soon as the lands are exhausted.
Such is the present method of carrying on agriculture in Carolina, and it may do for some time, but every one must clearly see that it will be productive of bad effects. The richness of the soil, and the vast quantity of lands, have deceived many, even those men who had been bred farmers in England, and made them turn out as careless husbandmen as the natives themselves. Wherever you go in this province, you may discover the ignorance of the people with respect to agriculture, and the small degree of perfection to which they have yet attained in this useful art. This will not be the case much longer, for lands will become scarce, and time and experience, by unfolding the nature of the soil, and discovering to the planters their errors, will teach them, as circumstances change, to alter also their present rules, and careless manner of cultivation. In every country improvements are gradual and progressive. In such a province as Carolina, where the lands are good, new staples will be introduced, new sources of wealth will open; and, if we may judge from what is past, we may conclude, that, if no misunderstandings or quarrels shall interrupt its future progress, it certainly promises to be one of the most flourishing settlements in the world. We have seen that its exports are already very great, even while the lands are negligently cultivated and ill managed; but how much greater will they be when the art of agriculture shall hare arrived at the same degree of perfection in that province as in England.
[Sidenote] An interruption of the harmony between Britain and her colonies, and the causes of it.
Such, at this period, was the happy situation of the people and province of South Carolina; safe under the royal care and protection, and advancing to an opulent state by the unlimited credit and great indulgence granted by Britain. However, if we proceed a little farther, we shall see the face of things gradually changing. We shall behold the mother country, as the wealth of her colonies increased, attempting some alteration in their political and commercial system: and the different provinces, infected with pride and ambition, aspiring after independence. Let us take a slight view of the causes of that unhappy quarrel which at this time began between them, and afterwards proceeded to such a degree of violence as to threaten a total dissolution of all political union and commercial intercourse.
It might have been expected that those colonies would not soon forget their obligations to the mother country, by which they had been so long cherished and defended. As all the colonies were in themselves so many independent societies, and as in every state protection and allegiance are reciprocal and inseparable duties, one would have thought that subjects would yield obedience to the laws, and submission to the authority of that government under which they claimed protection. Such was the constitution of the provinces, that each, by its own legislature, could only regulate the internal police within the bounds of its territory. Thus far, and no farther, did its authority extend. Not one of them could either make or execute regulations binding upon another. They had no common council, empowered by the constitution, to act for and to bind all, though perhaps good policy now required the establishment of such a council, for the purpose of raising a revenue from them. Every member of the vast empire might perceive, that some common tax, regularly and impartially imposed, in proportion to the strength of each division, was necessary to the future defence and protection of the whole. In particular, the people of Great Britain, when they looked forward to the possible contingency of a new war, and considered the burdens under which they groaned, had a melancholy and dreadful prospect before them; and the parliament considered it as their indispensible duty to relieve them as much as possible, and provide for the safety of the state by a proportionable charge on all its subjects. For as the exemption of one part from this equal charge was unreasonable and unjust, so it might tend to alienate the hearts of these subjects residing in one corner of the empire from those in another, and destroy that union and harmony in which the strength of the whole consisted.
Such were probably the views and designs of the parliament of Great Britain at this juncture, with respect to America. At the same time, if we consider the genius, temper and circumstances of the Americans, we will find them jealous of their liberties, proud of their strength, and sensible of their importance to Britain. They had hitherto obeyed the laws of the British parliament; but their great distance, their vast extent of territory, their numerous ports and conveniencies for trade, their increasing numbers, their various productions, and consequently their growing power, had now prepared and enabled them for resisting such laws as they deemed inconsistent with their interest, or dangerous to their liberty. Some of these colonists even inherited a natural aversion to monarchy from their forefathers, and on all occasions discovered a strong tendency towards a republican form Of government, both in church and state. So that, before the parliament began to exert its authority for raising a revenue from them, they were prepared to shew their importance, and well disposed for resisting that supreme power, and loosening by degrees their connection with the parent state.
America was not only sensible of her growing strength and importance, but also of the weakness of the mother country, reduced by a tedious and expensive war, and groaning under an immense load of national debt. The colonies boasted of the assistance they had given during the war, and Great Britain, sensible of their services, was generous enough to reimburse them part of the expences which they had incurred. After this they began to over-rate their importance, to rise in their demands, and to think so highly of their trade and alliance, as to deem it impossible for Britain to support her credit without them. In vain did the mother country rely upon their gratitude for past favours, so as to expect relief with respect to her present burdens. We allow, that the first generation of emigrants retained some affection for Britain during their lives, and gloried in calling her their home and their mother country; but this natural impression wears away from the second, and is entirely obliterated in the third. Among the planters in all the colonies this was manifestly the case; the sons of Englishmen in America by degrees lost their affection for England, and it was remarkable, that the most violent enemies to Scotland were the descendants of Scotchmen.
But among merchants, the attachment to any particular country is still sooner lost. Men whose great object is money, and whose business is to gather it as fast as possible, in fact retain a predilection for any country no longer than it affords them the greatest advantages. They are citizens of the world at large, and provided they gain money, it is a matter of indifference to them to what country they trade, and from what quarter of the globe it comes. England is the best country for them, so long as it allows them to reap the greatest profits in the way of traffic; and when that is not the case, a trade with France, Spain, or Holland will answer better. If the laws of Great Britain interfere with their favourite views and interests, merchants will endeavour to elude them, and smuggle in spite of legal authority. Of late years, although the trade of the colonies with the mother country had increased beyond the hopes of the most sanguine politicians, yet the American merchants could not be confined to it, but carried on a contraband trade with the colonies of France and Spain, in defiance of all the British laws of trade and navigation. This illicit trade the people had found very advantageous, having their returns in specie for their provisions and goods, and the vast number of creeks and rivers in America proved favourable to such smugglers. During the late war this trade had been made a treasonable practice, as it served to supply those islands which Britain wanted to reduce; but, after the conclusion of the war, it returned to its former channel, and increased beyond example in any past period.