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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.
1
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.
2 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.’
3 The attempts were certainly unsuccessful, for the patent was now declared void,
