George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 3, 15th edition.

[330] of December; and that day was selected for pro

Chap. XXIII.}

claiming the new chief magistrate. To Parris, the 1719 commanding officer, Johnson issued particular orders

1719

to delay the muster, nor suffer a drum to be beat in the town. But the people of Carolina had, by the power of public opinion, renounced the government of the proprietaries; and, on the appointed day, with colors flying at the forts and on all the ships in the harbor, the militia, which was but the people in arms, drew up in the public square. It would be tedious to relate minutely by what menaces, what entreaties, what arguments, Johnson struggled to resist the insurrection. In the king's name, he commanded Parris to disperse his men; and Parris answered, ‘I obey the convention.’ ‘The revolutioners had their governor, council, and convention, and all of their own free election.’ Peacefully, and without bloodshed, palatines, landgraves, and caciques, were dismissed from Carolina, where they had become so little connected with the vital interests of the state, that history with difficulty preserves them from oblivion.

The agent from Carolina obtained in England a

1720

ready hearing from the lords of the regency. The proprietors were esteemed to have forfeited their charter; measures were taken for its abrogation; and, in the mean time, Francis Nicholson—an adept in co-Icnial governments, trained by experience in New York, in Virginia, in Maryland; brave, and not penurious, but narrow and irascible; of loose morality, yet a fervent supporter of the church—received a royal commission as provisional governor of the province. The bold act of the people of Carolina, which in England was respected as an evidence of loyalty, was remembered in America as an example for posterity. The