XLVI.

" 1775. July

to

Oct.

He delayed calling an assembly, in the hope of hear- CHAP. ing "favorable news from the Northward" to "moderate the frenzy with which all ranks seemed possessed;' but while intercepted letters revealed the tampering of British agents with Indians, on the eighth of July news arrived from Boston of the battle of Bunker Hill. On the tenth, Campbell met his first legislature; and in his opening speech, refusing to discuss the questions that had arisen, he denied by implication the existence of grievances. "I warn you," said he, "of the danger you are in; the violent measures adopted cannot fail of drawing down inevitable ruin on this flourishing colony." These criminations and menaces left little hope of escaping war; the assembly lingered inactive through the summer, and asked in vain to be adjourned.

The patriot party was composed chiefly of residents in the low country; and hardly formed a majority of the inhabitants of the colony. The best educated were so unanimous, that when Campbell needed one more member of the council, to make up the quorum which required but three, he was under a necessity to appoint an Englishman who was collector of the port; for, said he, "there is not another person in the province whom I can recommend, who would accept of that honor, in so low an estimation is it at present held." But in the districts of Camden and Ninety-six he was assured that thousands were animated by affection to the king. In the region from the line of the Catawba and Wateree to the Congaree and SaJuda, and all the way to Georgia, embracing the part of South Carolina where there were the fewest slaves, the rude settlers had no close sympathy with the

to

Oct.

CHAP. planters. Instead of raising indigo or rice, they were XLVI. chiefly herdsmen; below, the Protestant Episcopal 1775. church was predominant; the land above tide water July thronged with various Christian sects. They had no common family recollections or ancestry, no ties by frequent intermarriages; a body of Germans who occupied Saxe Gotha on the Congaree, looked to the king as their landlord, and would not risk an ejectment from their farms; others, recently escaped from poverty in Europe, sought only subsistence and quiet in America. Still less did the two populations blend in political affinities; legislative power under the provincial government rested exclusively in the hands of men of the Church of England; delegates were elected only from the parishes, near the sea; west of Orangeburgh there had been no representation; and the occupants of the land, as a class, were too newly arrived, and too ignorant of the questions at issue, and too little trained to a participation in public life, to have fixed opinions. The planters were in constant connection with England; enough of them had been bred there to give a tone to society, and a direction to opinion; they looked down upon the boors of the interior as "men of low degree, though of eminence in that new country; totally illiterate, though of common natural parts;" and there were not wanting agents or partisans of the crown-Fletchall, the very active and spirited Robert Cunningham, Patrick Cunningham and others-to fill the minds of these rude husbandmen with bitterness against "the gentlemen." The summer was passed in indecisive struggles for superiority; the crown had its emissaries, whom the Council of safety sent William Henry Drayton and

XLVI.

1775.

July

to

Oct.

a clergyman, William Tennent, to counteract. The CHAP. opposing parties prepared for war; Fort Augusta in Georgia was taken and held by the Americans; the possession of the fort at Ninety-six was disputed. Quiet was restored by a truce rather than by the submission of the royalists. It was on this occasion that Andrew Pickens was first heard of as a captain in arms; a puritan in religion; a patriot in thought and deed. On the other hand, Moses Kirkland, who had accepted a commission from the council of safety, changed sides, came down to Campbell with the assurance, that on the appearance of a British force, it would be joined by four thousand men, and was sent to the commander in chief at Boston for the purpose of discussing an expedition against the South. The inhabitants of the interior desired to be let alone; if compelled to take sides, a large body of them, probably a majority, inclined to the royal standard.

This deep and seemingly irreconcilable division was a fearful embarrassment to the patriots; the danger from the savages was more terrible; and the discovery that a large body of them stood ready to seize the hatchet and the scalping knife at the king's behest, set the community in a blaze. Stuart, the Indian agent for the Southern department, knew the Red Men too well to advise calling them down; but he loved his office, and had withdrawn from Charleston to St. Augustine, where he was open to the worst suggestions of the most reckless underlings, who yet were always clamoring at his dilatoriness and inefficiency. The quickening authority of Gage was invoked; and one of the last acts of that commander was to write to him from Boston: "The people of

XLVI.

July

Oct.

CHAP. Carolina in turning rebels to their king have lost all faith; improve a correspondence with the Indians to 1775. the greatest advantage, and even when opportunity to offers, make them take arms against his majesty's enemies, and distress them all in their power; for no terms are now to be kept with them; they have brought down all the savages they could against us here, who, with their riflemen, are continually firing upon our advanced sentries; in short, no time should be lost to distress a set of people so wantonly rebellious; supply the Indians with what they want, be the expense what it will, as every exertion must now be made on the side of government." On receiving this order, in which Indians and riflemen of the backwoods were purposely confounded, Stuart promised the strictest obedience; he sent by way of Pensacola to the Lower Creeks and even to the Chickasaws; he looked with impatience for answers to his messages to the dif ferent nations. To the Upper Creeks he despatched his own brother as confidential envoy, "to say publicly, that the want of trade and ammunition was entirely owing to the rebels;" that, "if they would attach themselves to the king's interest, they should find plenty pouring in upon them;" and he was also to bribe Emistisico, the great chief of the Upper Creeks, by promising him "in private the greatest honor and favor, if he would exert himself to bring the king's rebellious white subjects to reason and a sense of their duty. The same method was pursued with the Second Man of the Little Tallassees, and with the Overhill Cherokees and their assembled chiefs; to whom, as well as to the Upper Creeks, ammunition was distributed, that they might be ready "to act in the execution of

XLVI.

to

any concerted plan for distressing the rebels." Cam- CHAP. eron, the deputy agent, shrunk from the thought, say- 1775. ing: "I pray God there may be no intention to in- July volve the Cherokees in the dispute; for should the Oct. Indians be prompted to take up the hatchet against the colonies, they could not be restrained from committing the most inhuman barbarities on women and children. I am averse to acts of this nature, though my duty to my sovereign exceeds all other considerations."

But the greatest danger to the planters was from the sea, and the council of safety slowly and reluctantly admitted the necessity of defending the harbor of Charleston. During the summer, ships were boarded off Savannah river, and near St. Augustine, and more than twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder were obtained. The export of rice was allowed on no other terms than that it should be exchanged for arms and ammunition, which were obtained from Hispaniola and from the French and Dutch islands. The governor was all the while urging the ministry to employ force against the three southernmost provinces; and the patriots were conscious of his importunities. A free negro man of property, charged with the intention of piloting British ships up the channel to the city, perished on the gallows, though protesting his innocence. All who refused the association were disarmed, even though they were in the service of the crown. On the thirteenth of September, just after a full discovery of the intrigues of the governor with the country people, his arrest was proposed; yet, on the opposition of Rawlins Lowndes, the motion was defeated in the general committee by a vote of twenty

VOL. VIII.

8*