Seth Sothel.
Banishment of Sothel.
The governor who succeeded this usurper in the Albemarle colony was a new lord proprietor, by name Seth Sothel, to whom the Earl of Clarendon had sold out his rights and interests. On his way to America, early in 1680, Sothel was captured by Algerine pirates and carried off into slavery. Not until 1683 did Sothel obtain his freedom and arrive at his destination. In five years of misrule over Albemarle he proved himself one of the dirtiest knaves that ever held office in America. A few specimens of his conduct may be cited. On the arrival of two ships from Barbadoes on legitimate business, Sothel seized them as pirates and threw their captains into jail, where one of them died of ill-treatment. The dying man made a will in which he named one of the most respected men in the colony, Thomas Pollock, as his executor; but Sothel refused to let the will go to probate, and seized the dead man’s effects; the executor then threatened to carry the story of all this to England, whereupon the governor lodged him in jail and kept him there. George Durant called such proceedings unlawful, whereupon Sothel straightway imprisoned him and confiscated his whole estate. If he saw anything that pleased his fancy, be it a cow or a negro or a pewter dish, he just took it without ceremony, and if the owner objected he locked him up. From criminals he took tips and saved them from the gallows. The people of Albemarle endured this tyranny until 1688,—that year when over all English lands the sky was so black with political thunder-clouds. One day certain leading colonists laid hands upon Seth Sothel, and prepared to send him to England to be tried for a long list of felonies. Then this model for governors and lords proprietors, suddenly realizing the dismal prospect before him, with Tyburn looming up in the distance, begged with frantic sobs and tears that he might be tried by the assembly, and not be sent to England; for he felt sure that the assembly would hardly dare take the responsibility of hanging him. In this he calculated correctly; he was banished from the colony for one year, and declared forever incapable of holding the governorship.[270]
Troubles in the southern colony.
The Scotch at Port Royal, 1683-86.
A state without laws.
The prudence of the assembly was well considered. The lords proprietors in England, ill informed as to the affairs of their colony, wearied with the everlasting series of complaints, and unwilling to believe that one of their associates could be such a scoundrel, were inclined to scold the colonists for their treatment of Sothel. As for that worthy, his full career was not yet run. Scenes of turbulence were awaiting him in the little settlement between the Ashley and Cooper rivers. Joseph West had ruled there with a strong hand from 1674 to 1683, and the colony prospered during that time, but disagreements arose between West and the proprietors which ended in his removal. The next seven years were a period of anarchy. After five changes of governors in quick succession, the office was given to James Colleton, brother of Colleton the lord proprietor, but the situation was not improved. The troubles arose partly from the practice of kidnapping Indians for slaves, which invited bloody reprisals; partly from the demand that quit-rents be paid in coin, which was very scarce in Carolina; partly from the low character of many of the settlers and their dealings with pirates; partly from the unwillingness of the English settlers to admit the Huguenot immigrants to a share in the franchise; and partly from the fitful and arbitrary manner in which the lords proprietors tried from beyond sea to cure the complicated evils. The muddle was aggravated by Spanish hostility. In 1683 a few Scotch families were brought by Lord Cardross to Port Royal, where they made the beginnings of a settlement. Those were the cruel days of Claverhouse in Scotland, and a scheme was entertained for bringing 10,000 sturdy Covenanters to Carolina; but it came to nothing. Cardross got into difficulties with the people at Charleston, and went back to Scotland in disgust. In 1686, in time of peace, a Spanish force pounced upon Port Royal, murdered some of the Scotchmen, flogged others within an inch of their lives, carried off what booty they could find, and left the place a smoking ruin. Dire was the indignation of the Charleston men at these “bloody insolencies.” Two stout ships with 400 men were just ready to sail against St. Augustine, when the newly appointed Governor Colleton arrived upon the scene and forbade their sailing. His mandate was obeyed with growls and curses. The lords proprietors upheld him. “No man,” as they reasonably said, “can think that the dependencies of England can have power to make war upon the king’s allies without his knowledge or consent.”[271] It was an inauspicious beginning for Colleton. The old troubles continued, along with others growing out of the Navigation Act. The wrangling between governor and assembly grew so hot that in 1689 the proprietors instructed Colleton to summon no more parliaments in Carolina without express orders from them. The effect of such an order was probably not foreseen by those well-meaning gentlemen. It was a curious feature in the Ashley River colony that the acts of its assembly expired at the end of twenty-three months unless renewed. This term had so nearly elapsed when the order arrived that “in 1690 not one statute law was in force in the colony!”[272]
Reappearance of Sothel.
His death.
This heroic medicine did not cure the malady. Things grew worse in the spring of 1690, when Colleton proclaimed martial law. The air was thick with sedition when Sothel arrived in Charleston. As a lord proprietor he had the right to act as governor over Colleton’s head. Several of the leading colonists begged him to call a parliament, and forthwith the exemplary Sothel posed as “the people’s friend.” He summoned a parliament which banished Colleton and enacted sundry laws. A queer spectacle it was, the victim of one popular revolution becoming the ringleader of another, the banished playing the part of banisher! But the lords proprietors had become aware of Sothel’s misdeeds; they annulled the acts of his parliament, deposed him, and ordered him to return to England to answer the charges against him. Sothel did not relish this. His term of banishment from Albemarle had expired, and he believed it to be a safer hiding-place than London. Where he skulked or how he died is unknown. All we know is that his will was admitted to probate February 5, 1694; and that his tombstone, which came from England, was never paid for![273]