CHAP. colony, risked their fortunes, the peace of their fami FXII. lies, and their lives, from sympathy with a distant 1776 colony with which they had no similarity of pursuits, Apr. no considerable commerce, and no personal intimacies,

they had in their rear a population still attached to the crown, as well as hostile Indian tribes; in their houses and on their estates numerous bondmen of a different race; along the sea an unprotected coast, indented by bays, and inlets, and rivers. But their spirit rose with danger; in words penned by Drayton and Cotesworth Pinckney, the assembly condemned the British plan of sending commissioners to treat with the several colonies, as a fraudulent scheme for subverting their liberties by negotiations, and resolved to communicate with the court of Great Britain only through the continental congress.

When, on the eleventh of April, they closed their session, Rutledge, knowing well that the wished-for accommodation with Great Britain could never be obtained, and willing to sacrifice every temporal happiness to establish and perpetuate the freedom of Carolina, cheered them on towards the consciousness of having formed an independent republic.

"On my part," said he, "a most solemn oath has been taken for the faithful discharge of my duty; on yours, a solemn assurance has been given to support me therein. Thus, a public compact between us stands recorded. I shall keep this oath ever in mind; the constitution shall be the invariable rule of my conduct; our laws and religion, and the liberties of America, shall be maintained and defended to the ut most of my power: I repose the most perfect confidence in your engagement. And now, gentlemen,

LXII.

let me entreat that if any persons in your several CHAP. parishes and districts are still strangers to the nature and merits of the dispute between Great Britain and 1776. Apr. the colonies, you will explain it to them fully, and teach them, if they are so unfortunate as not to know, their inherent rights. Relate to them the various unjust and cruel statutes which the British parliament have enacted, and the many sanguinary measures to enforce an unlimited and destructive claim. The endeavors to engage barbarous nations to imbrue their hands in the innocent blood of helpless women and children, and the attempts to make ignorant domestics subservient to the most wicked purposes, are acts at which humanity must revolt.

"Show your constituents, then, the indispensable necessity which there was for establishing some mode of government in this colony; the benefits of that which a full and free representation has established; and that the consent of the people is the origin, and their happiness the end, of government. Let it be known that this constitution is but temporary, till an accommodation of the unhappy differences between Great Britain and America can be obtained, and that such an event is still desired. Disdaining private interest and present emolument, when placed in competition with the liberties of millions, and seeing no alternative but unconditional submission, or a defence becoming men born to freedom, no man who is worthy of life, liberty, or property, will hesitate about the choice. Although superior force may lay waste our towns and ravage our country, it can never eradicate from the breasts of free men those principles which are ingrafted in their very nature. Such men will

CHAP. do their duty, neither knowing nor regarding conseLXII. quences, but trusting that the Almighty arm, which 1776. has been so signally stretched out for our defence, will deliver them in a righteous cause.

Apr.

"The eyes of the whole world are on America; the eyes of every other colony are on this; a colony, whose reputation for generosity and magnanimity is universally acknowledged. I trust it will not be diminished by our future conduct; that there will be no civil discord here; and that the only strife amongst brethren will be, who shall do most to serve and to save an injured country."

The word which South Carolina hesitated to pronounce, was uttered by North Carolina. That colony, proud of its victory over domestic enemies, and roused to defiance by the presence of Clinton, the British general, in one of their rivers, met in congress at Halifax on the fourth of April, on the eighth appointed a select committee, of which Harnett was the head, to consider the usurpations and violences of the British parliament and king, and on the twelfth, after listening to its report, unanimously "empowered their delegates in the continental congress to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring independency and forming foreign alliances." At the same time they reserved to their colony the sole right of forming its own constitution and laws.

North Carolina was the first colony to vote an explicit sanction to independence; South Carolina won from all patriots equal praise by her "virtuous and glorious example of instituting a complete government." When, on the twenty third of April, the courts of justice were opened with solemnity at

LXII.

Charleston, the chief justice, after an elaborate deduc CHAP. tion, charged the grand jury in these words: "The law of the land authorizes me to declare, and it is 1776. my Apr. duty to declare the law, that George the Third, king of Great Britain, has abdicated the government, that he has no authority over us, and we owe no obedience to him.

"It has been the policy of the British authority to cramp and confine our trade so as to be subservient to their commerce, our real interest being ever out of the question; the new constitution is wisely adapted to enable us to trade with foreign nations, and thereby to supply our wants at the cheapest markets in the universe; to extend our trade infinitely beyond what has ever been known; to encourage manufactures among us; and to promote the happiness of the people, from among whom, by virtue and merit, the poorest man may arrive at the highest dignity. Oh, Carolinians! happy would you be under this new constitution, if you knew your happy state.

"True reconcilement never can exist between Great Britain and America, the latter being in subjection to the former. The Almighty created America to be independent of Britain; to refuse our labors in this divine work, is to refuse to be a great, a free, a pious, and a happy people!"

The great abilities of Rutledge were equal to the office which he had fearlessly accepted; order and method grew at once out of the substitution of a single executive for committees; from him the officers of the regiments, as well as of the militia, derived their commissions; to prepare for the British army and

CHAP. naval squadron which were known to be on the way, LXII, the mechanics and laborers of Charleston, assisted by 1776 great numbers of negroes from the country, were em

Apr.

Mar.

ployed in fortifying the town. When in April, under the orders of the continental congress, the veteran Armstrong arrived to take the command of the army, he found little more to do than receive the hospitalities of the inhabitants.

The designs against the Carolinas left Virginia free from invasion. Lee, on his arrival at Williamsburg, took up his quarters in the palace of the governor; querulous as ever, he praised the provincial congress of New York as "angels of decision" compared with the Virginia committee of safety. Yet his Apr. reputation insured deference to his advice; and at his instance, directions were given for the removal of all inhabitants from the exposed parts of Norfolk and Princess Anne counties; an inconsiderate order which it was soon found necessary to mitigate or rescind.

May.

Letters, intercepted in April, indicated some concert of action on the part of Eden, the governor of Maryland, with Dunmore: Lee, though Maryland was not within his district, and in contempt of the regularly appointed committee of that colony, directed Samuel Purviance, of the committee of Baltimore, to seize Eden without ceremony or delay. The interference was resented as an insult on the authority which the people had constituted; the Maryland committee, even after the continental congress directed his arrest, still avoided a final rupture with British authority, and suffered their governor to remain at liberty on his parole.

The spirit of temporizing showed itself still more