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=David Ramsay, 1749-1815.= (Manual, p. 491.)
From "The History of the Revolution in South Carolina."
=114.= FEELING OF THE PROVINCE TOWARD GREAT BRITAIN.
In South Carolina, an enemy to the Hanoverian succession, or to the British constitution, was scarcely known. The inhabitants were fond of British manners even to excess. They for the most part, sent their children to Great Britain for education, and spoke of that country under the endearing appellation of Home. They were enthusiasts for that sacred plan of civil and religious happiness under which they had grown up and flourished…. Wealth poured in upon them from a thousand channels. The fertility of the soil generously repaid the labor of the husbandman, making the poor to sing, and industry to smile, through every corner of the land. None were indigent but the idle and unfortunate. Personal independence was fully within the reach of every man who was healthy and industrious. The inhabitants, at peace with all the world, enjoyed domestic tranquility, and were secure in their persons and property. They were also completely satisfied with their government, and wished not for the smallest change in their political constitution.
In the midst of these enjoyments, and the most sincere attachment to the mother country, to their king and his government, the people of South Carolina, without any original design on their part, were step by step drawn into an extensive war, which involved them in every species of difficulty, and finally dissevered them from the parent state.
… Every thing in the colonies contributed to nourish a spirit of liberty and independence. They were planted under the auspices of the English constitution in its purity and vigor. Many of their inhabitants had imbibed a largo portion of that spirit which brought one tyrant to the block, and expelled another from his dominions. They were communities of separate, independent individuals, for the most part employed in cultivating a fruitful soil, and under no general influence but of their own feelings and opinions; they were not led by powerful families, or by great officers in church or state…. Every inhabitant was, or easily might be, a freeholder. Settled on lands of his own, he was both farmer and landlord. Having no superior to whom he was obliged to look up, and producing all the necessaries of life from his own grounds, he soon became independent. His mind was equally free from all the restraints of superstition. No ecclesiastical establishment invaded the rights of conscience, or lettered the free-born mind. At liberty to act and think as his inclination prompted, he disdained the ideas of dependence and subjection.
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=Henry Lee,[34] 1736-1818.=
From "Memoirs" of the War in the South.