Chapter 13:
Shaftesbury and Locke Legislate for Carolina.
MEANTIME civilization had advanced at the southChap. XIII.} |
Massachusetts and Carolina were both colonized under proprietary charters, and of both the charters were subverted; but while the proprietaries of the former were emigrants themselves, united by the love of religious liberty, the proprietaries of the latter were a company of English courtiers, combined for the purpose of a vast speculation in lands. The government established in Massachusetts was essentially popular, and was the growth of the soil; the constitution of Carolina was invented in England. Massachusetts was originally colonized by a feeble band of suffering yet resolute exiles, and its institutions were the natural result of the good sense and instinct for liberty of an agricultural people; Carolina was settled under the auspices of the wealthiest and most influential nobility, and its fundamental laws were framed with forethought by the most sagacious politician and the [129] most profound philosopher of England. The king,
Chap. XIII.} |
The reign of Charles II. was not less remarkable for the rapacity of the courtiers, than for the debauchery of the monarch. The southern part of our republic, ever regarded as capable of producing all the staples that thrive on the borders of the tropics, was coveted by statesmen who controlled the whole patronage of the British realms. The province of Carolina, extending from the thirty-sixth degree of
1663 Mar. 24. |
Chap. XIII.} |
The grant had hardly been made before it became apparent that there were competitors, claiming possession of the same territory. It was included by the Spaniards within the limits of Florida; and the castle of St. Augustine was deemed proof of the actual possession of an indefinite adjacent country. Spain had never formally acknowledged the English title to any possessions in America; and when a treaty was
1667. May 23. |
And not Spain only claimed Carolina. In 1630, a patent for all the territory had been issued to Sir Robert Heath; and there is room to believe that, in 1639, permanent plantations were planned and perhaps attempted by his assign.6 William Hawley appeared in Virginia as ‘governor of Carolina,’ the land between the thirty-first and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude; and leave was granted by the Virginia legislature, that it might be colonized by one hundred persons from Virginia, ‘freemen, being single, and disengaged of debt.’7 The attempts were certainly unsuccessful, for the patent was now declared void,
1663. |
Chap XIII.} 1660 or 1661 |
More stubborn rivals were found to have already9 planted themselves on the River Cape Fear. Hardly had New England received within its bosom a few scanty colonies, before her citizens and her sons began roaming the continent and traversing the seas in quest of untried fortune. A little bark, navigated by New England men, had hovered off the coast of Carolina; they had carefully watched the dangers of its navigation; had found their way into the Cape Fear River; had purchased of the Indian chiefs a title to the soil, and had boldly planted a little colony of herdsmen far to the south of any English settlement on the continent. Already they had partners in London, and hardly was the grant of Carolina made known, before their agents
1663 Aug. 6. |
Chap. XIII.} |
1667. |
The conditions offered to the colony of Cape Fear ‘were not intended for the meridian’ of Virginia. ‘There,’ said the proprietaries, in their instructions to Sir William Berkeley, ‘we hope to find more facile people’ than the New England men. Yet they intrusted the affair entirely to Sir William's management. He was to get settlers as cheaply as possible; yet at any rate to get settlers. [133]
Like Massachusetts, Virginia was the mother of a
Chap XIII.} |
1622. Feb.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
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