** This statue was of marble, and stood at the intersection of Broad and Meeting Streets. During the siege of Charleston, in April, 1780, a British cannon-ball from James's Island passed up Meeting Street, struck this statue, and broke off its left arm. Several years after the war, the statue, being considered an obstruction, was rudely pulled down by some workmen employed for the purpose, when the head was broken off, and it was otherwise mutilated. Good taste would have restored the arm, and kept the statue in its place until this day.
*** The following are the names of the Sons of Liberty of Charleston, who met with Gadsden, under Liberty Tree, in 1766, and with linked hands pledged themselves to resist when the hour for resistance should arrive. They are published by Johnson from the original record of George Flagg, one of the party: General Christopher Gadsden, William Johnson, Joseph Verre, John Fullerton, James Brown, Nathaniel Libby, George Flagg, Thomas Coleman, John Hall, William Field, Robert Jones, John Lawton, Uzziah Rogers, John Calvert, Henry Bookless, J. Barlow, Tunis Tebout, Peter Munclear, William Trusler, Robert Howard, Alexander Alexander, Edward Weyman, Thomas Searl, William Laughton, Daniel Cannon, and Benjamin Hawes. The last survivor, George Flagg, died in 1824.
**** Christopher Gadsden was born in Charleston in 1724. He was educated in England, where he became accomplished in the learned languages. He returned to Ameriea at the age of sixteen, and entered the counting-house of a merchant in Philadelphia, where he remained until he was twenty-one years of age. He then went to England, and on his return engaged in mercantile pursuits in Charleston. He was successful, and was soon able to purchase all of the properly known as Ansonborough, which his father lost in play with Lord Anson. His house was upon the lot now (1848) owned by Mrs. Isaac Ball, and the kitchen is yet standing on the lot at the northeast corner of East Bay and Vernon Streets. Mr. Gadsden was one of the earliest opponents of Great Britain in South Carolina, and, as the Revolution advanced, was one of its firmest supporters. He was a delegate in the first Continental Congress in 1774, and his name is attached to the American Association agreed to by that body. In 1775, he was elected senior colonel and commandant of three South Carolina regiments, and was subsequently made a brigadier. He was in the engagement at the siege of Charleston in 1776. He was one of the framers of the Constitution of South Carolina, adopted in 1778. He resigned his commission in 1779, and when Charleston was taken by Clinton, in 1780, he was lieutenant governor; as sueh, he signed the capitulation. Three months afterward, he was taken, with others, and cast into the loathsome prison at St. Augustine (an act in open violation of the terms of capitulation), because he would not submit to indignity at the hands of Governor Tonyn. There he suffered for eleven months, until exchanged in June, 1781, when he sailed to Philadelphia with other prisoners. He returned to Charleston, and was a member of the Assembly convened at Jacksonburg in the winter of 1782. He opposed the confiscation of the property of the Loyalists, and thereby won their esteem. He was elected governor of the state in 1782, but declined the honor, and went into the retirement of private life. He died on the twenty-eighth of August, 1805, at the age of eighty-one years.
Tea repudiated.—Sympathy for Bostonians.—Provincial Convention and Congress.—Seizure of Dispatches.
1770, and faithfully adhered thereto; and when the Continental Congress of 1774 adopted the American Association, its recommendations were very generally complied with in South Carolina. When tea was sent to America, under the provisions of a new act of 1773 (see page 495, volume i.), the South Carolinians were as firm in their opposition to the landing of the cargoes for sale, as were the people of Boston. It was stored in the warehouses, and there rotted, for not a pound was allowed to be sold.
The closing of the port of Boston, by act of Parliament, on the first of January, 1774, aroused the indignation and sympathy of the South Carolinians, and substantial aid was freely sent to the suffering inhabitants of that city. When the proposition for a General Congress went forth, the affirmative voice of South Carolina was among the first heard in response. In an assembly of the people, held in Charleston, on the sixth, seventh, and eighth of July, 1774, it was declared that the Boston Port Bill was "most cruel and oppressive," and plainly showed that "if the inhabitants of that town are intimidated into a mean submission of said acts, that the like are designed for all the colonies; when not even the shadow of liberty to his person, or of security to his property, will be left to any of his majesty's subjects residing on the American continent." The same convention approved of the proposition for a General Congress, chose delegates to represent them in Federal Council, * and closed their proceedings by the appointment of a committee of ninety-nine, "to act as a general committee, to correspond with the committees of other colonies, and to do all matters and things necessary to carry the resolutions of the convention into execution." Henry Laurens was appointed chairman of this large committee, and it was agreed that twenty-one should constitute a business quorum. **
In defiance of the remonstrances and menaces of Lieutenant-governor Bull, a Provincial Congress of delegates, chosen by the people, met at Charleston on the eleventh of January, 1775. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was chosen president. That Assembly approved of the proceedings of the General Congress, and appointed a committee of inspection and observation to see that its recommendations were complied with. *** Now began those coercive measures of the Whigs which were often wrong and oppressive, but frequently necessary and salutary. The non-importation measures were rigorously enforced, and royal power was boldly defied. The people of Charleston formed themselves into volunteer companies to practice the use of fire-arms, and the boys, catching the spirit of the hour, banded together, and with mimic weapons imitated the discipline of their seniors.