While the population was confined to the neighbourhood of Charleston, all the members of the assembly had been elected at that place. As the settlements extended, this practice became inconvenient; and an act was passed, declaring that every parish should choose a certain number of representatives, and that the elections should be held, in each, at the parish church. As if to destroy themselves in the province, the proprietors repealed this popular law also.
Heavy expenses being still incurred for defence against the inroads of the southern Indians, the people complained loudly of the insufficiency of that government which, unable itself to protect them, prevented the interposition of the crown in their favour.
In this temper, governor Johnson, son of the former governor of that name, found the province. He met the assembly with a conciliatory speech, and received an answer expressing great satisfaction at his appointment. His original popularity was increased by the courage he displayed in two expeditions against a formidable band of pirates who had long infested the coast, which he entirely extirpated.
1717
These expeditions occasioned still farther emissions of paper money. The governor, being instructed to diminish its quantity, had influence enough with the assembly to obtain an act for redeeming the bills of credit, in three years, by a tax on lands and negroes. This tax falling heavily on the planters, they sought to elude it by obtaining an act for a farther emission of bills. The proprietors, being informed of this design, and also of an intention to make the produce of the country a tender in payment of all debts, at a fixed value, enjoined the governor not to give his assent to any bill, until it should be laid before them.
About the same time, the King, by an order in council, signified his desire to the proprietors, that they would repeal an act passed in Carolina, for imposing a duty of ten per centum on all goods of British manufacture imported into the province. The repeal of this act, and of one declaring the right of the assembly to name a receiver of the public money, and of the election law, were transmitted to the governor, in a letter directing him to dissolve the assembly, and to hold a new election at Charleston, according to ancient usage.
1718
The assembly being employed in devising means for raising revenue, their dissolution was deferred; but the repeal of the law imposing duties, and the royal displeasure at the clause laying a duty on British manufactures, were immediately communicated, with a recommendation to pass another act, omitting that clause.
Meanwhile the governor's instructions were divulged. They excited great irritation; and produced a warm debate on the right of the proprietors to repeal a law enacted with the consent of their deputy in the province.
About this time, chief justice Trott, who had become extremely unpopular in the colony, was charged with many iniquitous proceedings; and the governor, the major part of the council, and the assembly, united in a memorial representing his malpractices to the proprietors. 1719Mr. Young was deputed their agent to enforce these complaints.
Soon after his arrival in London, he presented a memorial to the proprietors, detailing the proceedings of Carolina, and stating the objections of the assembly to the right of their lordships to repeal laws, which had been approved by their deputies.
This memorial was very unfavourably received, and the members of the council who had subscribed it, were displaced. The proprietors asserted their right to repeal all laws passed in the province, approved the conduct of the chief justice, censured that of the governor in disobeying their instructions respecting the dissolution of the assembly, and repeated their orders on this subject.
However the governor might disapprove the instructions given him, he did not hesitate to obey them. The new council was summoned, the assembly was dissolved, and writs were issued for electing another at Charleston.
The public mind had been gradually prepared for a revolution, and these irritating measures completed the disgust with which the people viewed the government of the proprietors. An opportunity to make the change so generally desired was soon afforded. War with Spain.A rupture having taken place between Great Britain and Spain, advice was received from England of a plan formed in the Havanna for the invasion of Carolina. The governor convened the council, and such members of the assembly as were in town, and laid his intelligence before them. He, at the same time, stated the ruinous condition of the fortifications, and proposed that a sum for repairing them should be raised, by voluntary subscription, of which he set the example by a liberal donation.
The assembly declared a subscription to be unnecessary, as the duties would afford an ample fund for the object. The repeal of the law imposing them was said to be utterly void, and would be disregarded.
Combination to subvert the government.
The members of the new assembly, though they had not been regularly convened at Charleston, had held several private meetings in the country to concert measures of future resistance. They had drawn up an association for uniting the whole province in opposition to the proprietary government, which was proposed to the militia at their public meetings, and subscribed almost unanimously. This confederacy was formed with such secrecy and dispatch, that, before the governor was informed of it, almost every inhabitant of the province was engaged in it.
The members of the assembly, thus supported by the people, resolved to subvert the power of the proprietors.
The governor, who resided in the country, had no intimation of these secret meetings and transactions, until he received a letter from a committee of the representatives of the people, offering him the government of the province under the King; it having been determined to submit no longer to that of the proprietors.
Mr. Johnson resolved to suppress this spirit of revolt, and hastened to town in order to lay the letter before his council. They advised him to take no notice of it, until the legislature should be regularly convened. On meeting, the assembly declared, "that the laws, pretended to be repealed, continued to be in force; and that no power, other than the general assembly, could repeal them: That the writs under which they were elected were void, inasmuch as they had been issued by advice of an unconstitutional council: That the representatives cannot, therefore, act as an assembly, but as a convention delegated by the people to prevent the utter ruin of the government: And, lastly, that the lords proprietors had unhinged the frame of the government, and forfeited their right thereto; and that an address be prepared to desire the honourable Robert Johnson, the present governor, to take on himself the government of the province in the name of the King." The address was signed by Arthur Middleton, as president of the convention, and by twenty-two members.
After several unavailing efforts, on the part of the assembly, to induce Mr. Johnson to accept the government under the King; and, on his part, to reinstate the government of the proprietors; he issued a proclamation dissolving the assembly, and retired into the country.
The proclamation was torn from the hands of the officer, and the assembly elected colonel James Moore chief magistrate of the colony.
Revolution completed.
After proclaiming him in the name of the King, and electing a council, the legislature published a declaration stating the revolution that had taken place, with the causes which produced it; and then proceeded, deliberately to manage the affairs of the province.
While Carolina was effecting this revolution, the agent of the colony obtained a hearing before the lords of the regency and council in England, (the King being then in Hanover) who were of opinion that the proprietors had forfeited their charter. They ordered the attorney general to take out a scire facias against it, and appointed Francis Nicholson provisional governor of the province under the King. He was received with universal joy; and the people of Carolina passed, with great satisfaction, from the proprietary government to the immediate dominion of the crown. The proprietors surrender to the crown.This revolution was completed by an agreement between the crown and seven of the proprietors, whereby, for the sum of seventeen thousand