The relationship between the colonists and the proprietaries increased in difficulty every succeeding year. There was little that was straightforward on either side, and where either apparently wished to do right, they were counteracted by the other. For instance, the proprietaries opposed and remonstrated against the practice of the settlers, to carry on partisan war with the neighbouring Indians for the purpose of kidnapping and selling them as slaves in the West Indies; but the settlers persisted in it; nay, even Governor West himself was accused of connivance at this barbarous practice. The payment of debts which had been contracted out of the province could not be enforced; nor would the more populous districts of Charleston, where the members of assembly were elected, allow to the other provinces the same privilege, when population extended, which they themselves enjoyed. There was a lamentable want of high moral principle among these earlier settlers of South Carolina.

Another serious charge against them is, the favour which they showed to the buccaneers. “These remarkable freebooters,” says Hildreth, “a mixture of French, English and Dutch, consisted originally of adventurers in the West India seas, whose establishments the Spaniards had broken up. Some fifty or sixty years before, contemporaneously with the English and French settlements on the Caribbee Islands, they had commenced as occasional cruisers on a small scale against the Spaniards, in the intervals of the planting season. During the long war between France and Spain, from 1635 to 1660, they had obtained commissions to cruise against Spanish commerce, principally from the governors of the French West India Islands. Almost anything, indeed, in the shape of a commission was enough to serve their purpose. As an offset to that Spanish arrogance which had claimed to exclude all other nations from these West Indian seas, the Spanish commerce in those seas was regarded by all other nations as fair plunder. The means and number of the buccaneers gradually increased. The unquiet spirits of all countries resorted to them. Issuing from their strongholds, the island of Tortugo, on the west coast of St. Domingo, and Port Royal in Jamaica, they committed such audacious and successful robberies on the Spanish American cities, as to win almost the honours of legitimate heroes. They were countenanced for a time by France and England; one of their leaders was appointed governor of Jamaica, and another was knighted by Charles II.”

Charles, spite of the favour he had shown to the buccaneer chief, was compelled however, by treaties with his allies and by the complaints of his own subjects, whose commerce was injured by these illegal traders, to use his most strenuous endeavours to put an end to them; and his successor was even still more in earnest. In 1684, a law was passed against pirates, which was confirmed by the proprietaries of South Carolina, and their commands issued, that it should be rigorously enforced within their jurisdiction. But this was not an easy matter. The colonists not only favoured the bold buccaneer, who brought abundance of Spanish gold and silver into their country, but they were irritated against the Spaniards, who, justly perhaps, incensed by the English encroachments on their borders, had destroyed the Scotch settlement at Port Royal, and were glad of any means to make reprisals. Little attention therefore was paid by the English to the suppression of piracy. “The pirates,” says Hewitt, in his history of South Carolina, “had already by their money, their gallant manners, and their freedom of intercourse with the people, so ingratiated themselves into the public favour, that it would have been no easy matter to bring them to trial, and dangerous even to have punished them as they deserved. When brought to trial, the courts of law became scenes of altercation, discord and confusion. Bold and seditious speeches were made from the bar in contempt of the proprietaries and their government. Since no pardons could be obtained, but such as they authorised the governor to grant, the assembly violently proposed a bill of indemnity, and when the governor refused his assent to this measure, they made a law empowering magistrates and judges to put in force the habeas corpus act of England. Hence it happened that several of those pirates escaped, purchased lands from the colonists, and took up their residence in the country. While money flowed into the colony by this channel, the authority of government was too feeble a barrier to stem the tide and prevent such illegal practices.” The very proprietaries themselves at length, to gratify the people, granted an indemnity to all the pirates, excepting in one case, where the plunder had been from the dominions of the Great Mogul. Very justly does this historian remark, “that the gentleness of government towards these public robbers, and the civility and friendship with which they were treated by the people, were evidences of the licentious spirit which prevailed in the colony.” And not only an evidence of this, but of the enmity which existed towards the Spaniards; so great indeed was this enmity, that but for the earnest remonstrances of the proprietaries, which in this case were regarded, they would have invaded Florida to drive the Spaniards thence, and that even while the two nations were at peace.

Affairs became still more and more difficult; and in 1685, James II. meditated a revocation of the charter itself. The Palatine Court, wishful not to offend the king at this critical moment, and to satisfy the English merchants who were jealous of the trade of South Carolina, ordered the governor and council to use their diligence in collecting the duty on tobacco transported to other colonies, and to seize all ships that presumed to trade contrary to the acts of navigation. But vain were these orders, which they had no power to enforce. The colonists resisted every attempt of this kind, disregarding the dictates of the proprietaries, and holding themselves independent almost of the English monarch.

At a loss how to manage in these perplexed circumstances, and imagining that the fault existed in the governor as well as in the people, the proprietaries resolved to remedy one error at least, by sending out James Colleton, brother of the proprietary, who, to sustain his dignity of governor-landgrave, should be endowed with 48,000 acres of land. This was like the reasoning of the founders of the Grand Model, with whom “the aristocracy was the rock of English principles,” and “the object of law the preservation of property.” Colleton arrived, armed with all the dignity that could be conferred upon his office, intending to awe the people into submission; and his first act was to come into direct collision with the colonial parliament. A majority of the members refused to obey the Grand Model constitution, and these men were excluded by him from the house, as “sapping the very foundations of government.” All returned to their several homes, spreading discontent and disaffection wherever they came. A new parliament was called, and only such members were elected to it as “would oppose every measure of the governor.” He next attempted to collect the quit-rents due to the proprietaries; but here again direct opposition met him: the people, in a state of insurrection, seized upon the public records and imprisoned the secretary of the province. Colleton not knowing how to deal with such refractory elements, pretended danger from the Indians or Spaniards; and calling out the militia, declared the province under martial law. A more unwise step could not have been taken: for men of their temper were just as likely to use their arms against a ruler whom they at once despised and disliked, as against the general enemy. Any further step in folly was saved him. The English Revolution took place; William and Mary were proclaimed, and, as if in imitation of the mother-country, Colleton was impeached by the assembly and banished the province.

Political convulsions, however, were not wholly at an end; for in the midst of the ferment, the infamous Seth Sothel, whom we have seen banished from North Carolina, suddenly made his appearance in Charleston, and thinking, probably, that this was a people kindred to himself, seized the reins of government, and for some little time found actually a faction to support him. But he was too bad even for South Carolina. After two years’ rule, he was not only deposed by the people, but censured severely and recalled by the proprietaries, who, though he was still a member of their own body, treated him as “a usurper of office.”

A new governor, Philip Ludwell, was appointed, with orders to “inquire into the grievances complained of and to inform them what was best to be done;” and in this respect they had at last discovered the true dignity of the governor. A general pardon was granted, and in April, 1693, “the Grand Model constitution” was abrogated, the proprietaries wisely conceding, “that as the people have declared they would rather be governed by the powers granted by the charter, without regard to the fundamental constitutions, it will be for their quiet, and the protection of the well-disposed, to grant their request.”

The remark of Chalmers is just, that “the Carolinian annals show all projectors the vanity of attempting to make laws for a people whose voice, proceeding from their principles, must be for ever the supreme law;” adding further, “it was not till the Carolinas, North and South, were blessed with a simple form of government, that they began to prosper; when the one acquired the manufacture of naval stores, the other the production of rice and indigo, which have made both, in modern times, populous, wealthy and great.”

CHAPTER XVIII.
VIRGINIA UNDER CHARLES II.

Of all the American colonies, Virginia, at once the most aristocratic and the most loyal, was the one for whom the Restoration produced a cup of unmixed sorrow. During the eight years of the Commonwealth, the Virginians had governed themselves “with a wise moderation;” peace and prosperity had prevailed throughout the extent of the land; the population had rapidly increased, and the present generation, being all born-Virginians, were distinguished by their patriotism and pride of country.