138 DIVERSITY OF THE COLONISTS. acters, and represented differing religious creeds and governments. There were Vaudois from under the shadow of Mount Jura; Swiss from the mountainous and pastoral Grisons; Piedmontese from the silk-growing districts of Lombardy; Germans from the archbishopric of Salzburg in Bavaria; Moravians from Herrnhut; Jews from Portugal; Highlanders from Scotland; and English from London and its circumjacent counties. There was the mercurial Italian, the reflecting Swiss, the phlegmatic German, the solemn Moravian, the blithesome yet hardy Scotchman, and the tame and depressed Briton. There too was seen the priest of the Church of England, the minister of the Presbyterians, the bishop and elders of the United Brethren, the pastors of the Lutherans, the disciples of the German creed, and the ancient service of the Israelitish faith. It was a colony of nations and a colony of creeds; and like the ancient mundus of the Romans, each colonist seems to have brought, if not his native earth, at least his peculiar habits, customs, and feelings, out of which time and intercourse were destined to educe social union and provincial strength. The kindly feelings of Carolina had been embittered by the contests between the authorities of Georgia and those of that province respecting the admission of ardent spirits into the colony, and the licensing of traders to the Indians.26 The first arose from the fact that rum being prohibited by the Trustees, their agents in Savannah were ordered to stave all that passed up their side of the river; and the second took its rise from the requisitions issued by the Trustees, at 26 Whitehead's Life of Wesley, ii. 15, where John Wesley gives a very good resume of the whole matter. Journal of Trustees, i. 347. Stephens's DIFFERENCES WITH SOUTH CAROLINA. 139 the request of the Indians, that no traders should be permitted to sell goods in their towns, but such as had the Trustees' license; and as each province could regulate affairs within its own boundaries, they undertook to make what they esteemed wholesome laws for protecting the traders on the one hand, and the rights of the Indians on the other, within the limits of their charter. These restrictions gave umbrage to the authorities of South Carolina, because their traders and their goods were thus thrust out from the Indian nations, unless licensed by the authorities in Savannah. Several conferences were held, and though much ill-feeling was thus avoided, and a better understanding effected, yet the harmony of the two colonies. was not fully restored, but was rather placed in that balancing position, in which the slightest influences could turn it for good or for evil. Unfortunately new causes of complaint were not long wanting to increase, even to wrangling, the half-slumbering feuds. It is painful to dwell on the bickerings of colonial sisters, especially when we cannot fully justify either. Let them pass, then, as the little quarrels of childhood, and let us not spread on the grave page of history the juvenile follies of those two noble States, which now stand side by side in the confidence of a mature friendship, and in the glow of a generous rivalry. CHAPTER IV. OGLETHORPE'S DESCRIPTION OF THE FORTIFICATIONS THE Controversy which the settlement of Georgia had occasioned with the government of Spain, was fast ripening into open hostilities. Rumours of war and invasion were rife in England and America; and the most casual observer could not fail to see that if negociations failed, war must be declared. The discussion, though new to the colonists, was yet one of long standing, and dated back from the days of Queen Elizabeth; whose admiral, the famous Sir Francis Drake, had, in 1586, attacked the Spanish settlements in Florida, and sacked the Fort of St. John, driving its garrison into the neighbouring city of St. Augustine.1 In 1630, Charles I. granted, by patent, to Sir Robert Heath, then attorney-general, a tract of land lying between the river St. Matteo in the 31st degree, and the 36th degree of north latitude, and westward to New Mexico. This, in honour of the monarch, he called Carolina. Eight years after, Sir Robert conveyed the grant to Arundel, Earl Marshal of England; but he being prevented from settling it by the war with Scotland, and afterwards by the civil war and the lunacy 1 2 1 Hakluyt, iii. 547. 2 Coxe's Carolana, 2: London, 1741. ENGLISH AND SPANISH TREATIES. 141 of his eldest son, the patent became void; and in 1663, it was granted by Charles II. to the Earl of Clarendon, and several other noblemen, who erected the territory into a province, which they called Carolina. Thus the right of England to this territory, predicated on the discovery of Cabot, in 1497, and maintained by several royal grants, was then considered, by all but Spain, as true and incontestable. 3 Four years after this, a treaty was concluded between England and Spain, the 8th article of which recognized, for the first time, the existence of American commerce; and expressed, though in the usual loose way of treaties at that time, a tacit agreement to the "uti possidetis" of the respective crowns in America. These articles prepared the way for the more explicit treaty which Sir William Godolphin concluded at Madrid, in 1670. The 8th article of this also stipulated the right of England to the lands in America then held and possessed by British subjects, "insomuch that they neither can nor ought hereafter to be contested under any pretence whatever." 4 As then the lords proprietors of Carolina were already in possession of their grant, which bounded their territory on the south by the 31st degree, and as two subsequent treaties with Spain acknowledged and guarantied this right, it follows, that though the Altamaha was made the southern boundary of the Trustees' province, yet the right of England extended much beyond, and was, therefore, properly asserted and defended by Oglethorpe in all his negociations and contests with the Spaniards. But the object of these several treaties was rendered almost nugatory by the implacable hatred of the Spaniards to the English; and 3 Anderson's History of Commerce, ii. 654, Coombe's Edition, Dublin, 1790. 4 Ibid. iii. 11. 142 SPANISH AGGRESSIONS. though they refrained for a time from open aggression, they yet put in motion many secret agencies, by which the peace of Carolina was frequently disturbed; for the murders perpetrated by the Indians, the desertions practised by the negroes, and the insurrections which broke out among the slaves, were all plotted by the Spaniards in Florida. 5 These depredations, constantly thwarting the operations of the colonists, made them both disheartened and discontented. Learning this state of things by their spies, the Spaniards seized upon it as a good time to make a descent upon the new settlements, and blot them out from America. They reached St. Helena; but finding a body of men, under Colonel Godfrey, marching against them, they retreated, without effecting their design. Thus was the danger warded off, but not overcome. In 1682, Henry Erskine, second Lord Cardross, being one of thirty-six noblemen and gentlemen who, burdened by the tyranny of the Duke of Lauderdale, High Commissioner of Scotland, resolved to seek a refuge in America, led a colony of Scots to Port Royal island. Having settled the ten families which accompanied him, Cardross soon after returned to England. But in 1686, three gallies from St. Augustine arrived there, for the purpose of dislodging them. The Spaniards killed several, whipped many, plundered all, and broke up the colony. Flushed with success, they continued their depredations on North Edisto river, burning the houses, wasting the plantations, and robbing the settlers; and they finished their marauding excursion by capturing the brother of Governor More 6 5 Ramsay's South Carolina, i. 127. 6 Bancroft (ii. 173) says, 1684, but Lauderdale died in 1682. There is a short sketch of him in "The Life of Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay," 2d edition, London, 1842, p. 85. |