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Chapter 13:
MEANTIME civilization had advanced at the south
and twin stars were emerging beyond the limits of
Virginia.
The country over which
Soto had rambled in quest of gold, where Calvinists, befriended by
Coligny, had sought a refuge, and where
Raleigh had hoped to lay the foundations of colonial principalities, was beginning to submit to the culture of civilization.
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
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most profound philosopher of
England.
The king,
through an obsequious judiciary, annulled the government of
Massachusetts; the colonists repudiated the constitutions of
Carolina.
The principles of the former possessed an inherent vitality, which nothing has yet been able to destroy; the frame of the latter, as it disappeared, left no trace of its transitory existence, except in the institutions which sprung from its decay.
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
north latitude to the
River San Matheo, was accordingly erected into one territory; and the historian
Clarendon, the covetous though experienced minister, hated by the people, faithful only to the king;
1 Monk, so conspicuous in the restoration, and now ennobled as duke of
Albemarle; Lord Craven,
2 a brave Cavalier, an old soldier of the German discipline, supposed to be husband to the queen of Bohemia;
Lord Ashley Cooper, afterwards earl of
Shaftesbury;
Sir John Colleton, a royalist of no historical notoriety;
Lord John Berkeley, with his younger brother,
3 Sir William Berkeley, the governor of
Virginia; and the passionate, and ignorant, and not too honest
Sir George Carteret,
4 —were instituted its proprietors and immediate sovereigns.
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Their authority was nearly absolute; nothing
was reserved but a barren allegiance.
Avarice is the vice of declining years; most of the proprietaries were past middle life.
They begged the country under pretence of ‘a pious zeal for the propagation of the gospel;’ and their sole object was the increase of their own wealth and dignity.
5
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
finally concluded at
Madrid, it did but faintly concede the right of
England to her transatlantic colonies, and to a continuance of commerce in ‘the accustomed seas.’
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,
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because the purposes for which it was granted had
never been fulfilled.
8
More stubborn rivals were found to have already
9 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
pleaded their discovery, occupancy, and purchase, as affording a valid title to the soil, while they claimed the privileges of self-government as a natural right.
10 A compromise was offered; and the proprietaries, in their ‘proposals to all that would plant in
Carolina,’ promised emigrants from
New England religious freedom, a governor and council to be elected from among a number whom the emigrants themselves should nominate, a representative assembly, independent legislation, subject only to the negative of the proprietaries, land at a rent of a halfpenny an acre, and such freedom from customs as the charter would warrant.
11 Yet the lands round
Cape Fear were not inviting
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to men who could choose their abodes from the
whole wilderness; the herds, and the fields in which they browsed, were for a season abandoned to the scare of friendly
Indians;
12 and the emigrants, revisiting their former homes,
spread a reproach on the harbor and the soil.13 But the colony was not at once wholly deserted; and if its sufferings became extreme,
Massachusetts, the young mother of colonies, not indifferent to the fate of her children, listened to their prayer ‘for some relief in their distress,’ and in May, 1667, ministered to their wants by a general contri-
ution through her settlements.
14 The infant town planted on
Oldtown Creek, near the south side of
Cape Fear River, did not prosper, the Indians took offence at the
New England planters, and though they had no guns, yet they never gave over, till, by their bows and arrows, they had entirely rid themselves of the intruders.
15 Other causes than the roving restlessness of the Independents from
Massachusetts produced ‘the distractions’ which ensued; nature herself, especially in the wilderness, prompts and encourages the love of freedom.
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.
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Like
Massachusetts,
Virginia was the mother of a
cluster of states; like the towns of
New England, the plantations of
Virginia extended along the sea. The country on Nansemund River had been settled as early as 1609; in 1622, the adventurous
Porey, then secre-
