George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 8

[84] bail for a South Carolina recruiting officer, a crowd

Chap. XLVI.} 1775. July to Oct.

broke open the gaol and set the prisoner free; and on the fifth of August he beat up for men at the door of to the chief justice himself and hard by the house of the governor. The militia officers were compelled to sign the association; and navigation was so effectually regulated, that a ship which arrived with two hundred and four slaves, was compelled to go away without landing them. In September two hundred and fifty barrels of powder were taken by the ‘liberty’ people from a vessel at Tybee.

South Carolina needed more than ever a man of prudence at the head of the administration; and its new governor owed his place only to his birth. The younger son of a noble family, Lord William Campbell knew nothing of the people whom he was to govern, and he put himself under the direction of the passionate and violent among his irresponsible subordinates. The more temperate, especially Bull, the lieutenant governor, kept aloof, and had no part in his superciliousness and mistakes. The planters were disposed to loyalty from affection and every motive of interest; but he would not notice the elements for conciliation, nor listen to the advice of the considerate and best informed. The council of safety, composed of seventeen men, elected by the convention in June, proved its dislike of independence by choosing Henry Laurens for its president; but the governor wrote home, that ‘the people of the best sense and the greatest authority, as well as the rabble, had been gradually led into the most violent measures by a set of desperate and designing men;’ and he planned the reduction of the province by arms.