Part 13

I have already observed, that the colony was in a deplorable state with respect to religion. The first emigrants from England, where public worship was countenanced, and had the sanction of the civil authority, retained indeed for a little time some sense of religion, and showed some respect for the ordinances of the gospel: but their children, born in a wilderness, where there was not so much as even the semblance of public worship, were likely to grow up in ignorance, and to live entirely void of all sense of religion. Proprietors were either unable to furnish them with the proper means of instruction, or they were unwilling to bear the expence of it, having as yet received little recompence for the past charges of the settlement. Not only the emigrants from England, but also those from France and Holland, were much divided in their private opinions with respect to modes of religious worship; and for this reason all governors, excepting the last, had prudently deferred meddling in a matter which would occasion uneasiness and confusion among the settlers. Still, however, the establishment of the church of England in Carolina was the chief object in view with the Proprietors. The Palatine was a bigoted zealot for this mode of ecclesiastical worship and government: the governor was strongly attached to it. James Moore, who was made Receiver-general, and Nicholas Trott the Attorney-general, were also men of the same complexion. These men, assisted by a majority of the council, now began to concert measures with art and skill, and to pursue them with firmness and resolution, for accomplishing this end, and gratifying the earnest desire of the Palatine.

[Sidenote] Pursues violent measures for that purpose.

It was not, however, without some difficulty and considerable struggles, that the keen opposition raised by Dissenters, who now plainly perceived their design, and who had an irreconcilable aversion from Episcopacy, could be overcome. This the governor and his party foresaw, and therefore it became necessary first to exert themselves to secure a majority in the assembly in favour of the measure they had in view. Hitherto the riotous proceedings at the former election had been overlooked, and the rioters, by the countenance and protection of the preceding governor had escaped prosecution. The grand jury presented this neglect as a grievance to the court; but the judge told them, "That was a matter which lay before the governor and council, his superiors." When the complaint was made to the governor in council, he replied, "That these irregularities happened before his appointment to the government, but that he would take care to prevent them for the time to come." Notwithstanding this declaration, if we may believe the Dissenters, at the following election still greater irregularities prevailed. By the same undue influence and violence the governor and his adherents gained their point, and secured a majority in the house; for that a species of corruption had now infected the great fountain of liberty, the election of representatives.

It would appear that some of the colonists at this period had distinguished themselves by loose principles and licentious language, and had treated some of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion with the ridicule and contempt of professed infidelity. To bring an odium upon this class of Dissenters, and to discourage such licentious practices, a bill was brought into the new assembly for the suppression of blasphemy and profaneness; by which bill, whoever should be convicted of having spoken or written any thing against the Trinity, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testament, by the oath of two or more credible witnesses, were to be made incapable, and disabled in law to all intents and purposes, of being members of assembly, or of holding any office of profit, civil or military, within the province: and whoever should be convicted of such crimes a second time, were also to be disabled from suing or bringing any action of information in any court of law or equity, from being guardian to any child, executor or administrator to any person; and without fail suffer imprisonment for three years. Which law, notwithstanding its fine gloss, savoured not a little of an inquisition, and introduced a species of persecution ill calculated to answer the end for which it was intended. To punish men guilty of blasphemy and profaneness in this way, instead of bringing their atrocious crimes into public disrepute and abhorrence, served rather to render their persons objects of compassion, and induce men to pity them on account of their sufferings. Bad as the world is, these wicked practices seldom miss their deserved rewards, public ignominy and detestation, which perhaps would fall heavier on such wretches without penal laws than with them.

[Sidenote] The church of England established by law.

However, had Sir Nathaniel Johnson stopt here, many reasons might have been urged in his vindication; but he had other measures in view, much more unpopular and oppressive. He looked upon Dissenters of every denomination as enemies to the constitutions of both church and state, and therefore, to subvert their power and influence, or compel them to uniformity of sentiment, another bill was brought into the assembly, framed in such a manner as to exclude them entirely from the house of representatives. This bill required every man who should hereafter be chosen a member of assembly, to take the oaths and subscribe the declaration appointed by it, to conform to the religion and worship of the church of England, and to receive the sacrament of our Lord's Supper, according to the rites and usage of that church; a qualification which Dissenters considered as having a manifest tendency to rob them of all their civil rights or religious liberties. To carry this bill through the house, all the art and influence of the governor and his party were requisite. In the lower house it passed by a majority of one vote, and in the upper house Landgrave Joseph Morton was refused liberty to enter his protest against it. At this juncture no bill could have been framed more inconsistent with the rights and privileges of the freemen, and more pernicious to the interest and prosperity of the country. Dissenters, who were a numerous and powerful body of the people, were highly offended, and raised a great outcry against it. Seeing themselves reduced to the necessity of receiving laws from men whose principles of civil and ecclesiastical government they abhorred, and subjected to greater hardships than they suffered in England, many had formed resolutions of abandoning the colony. Loud clamours were not only heard without doors, but jealousies and discontent filled the hearts of many within them, not of Dissenters only, but also of those who adhered to the church.

[Sidenote] The inhabitants of Colleton county remonstrate against it.

In this distracted state of the colony, the inhabitants of Colleton county, composed chiefly of Dissenters, met and drew up a state of their grievous circumstances, which they resolved to transmit to the Proprietors, praying their Lordships to repeal this oppressive act. John Ash, one of the most zealous men in the opposition, agreed to embark for England as agent for the aggrieved party, computed to be at least two thirds of the whole inhabitants of the colony. The governor and his friends, apprized of this design, used all possible means to prevent him from obtaining a passage in any ship belonging to Carolina. Upon which Ash went to Virginia, to which province his instructions were conveyed to him, and from thence he set sail for England.

After his arrival he waited on Lord Granville, the Palatine, acquainting him with the design of his message; but met with a very cold reception. That nobleman was too deeply concerned in bringing about that establishment against which Ash came to complain, favourably to listen to his representations. Accordingly, after staying some time in London, and giving the Proprietors all the information in his power relating to public affairs, the only satisfaction he could obtain from the Palatine was this, that he should cause his secretary write to the governor an account of the grievances and hardships of which Mr. Ash complained, and require an answer from him with respect to them. Mr. Ash, observing how the Palatine stood affected, and despairing of success, immediately began to draw up a representation of their case, which he intended for the press: but before he had finished it he was taken sick, and died; and his papers fell into his enemies hands. He was a man of a warm and passionate temper, and possessed of all those violent sentiments which ill usage, disappointment, and oppression, naturally kindle in the human breast. His representation, intended as an appeal to the nation in general, for the sufferings of the people under the tyrannical proprietary government, was full of heavy charges against the governor and his party in Carolina, and bitter reflections on their conduct, which he considered as in the highest degree injurious to the colony.

Without doubt the Lords Proprietors planned this establishment with a view to the peaceful influence it would have upon the civil government of the country, as the preamble to the act expressly indicates. Their feeble and fluctating state required the assistance and authority of an established church, and the sanction of religion, to give it more weight and influence with the people. How far the measures adopted served to promote the desired end, and were consistent with prudence and good policy, will afterwards more clearly appear.

[Sidenote] Lay commissioners appointed. [Sidenote] The acts ratified by the Proprietors.

Sir Nathaniel Johnson having advanced so far, was determined to proceed in spite of every obstacle thrown in his way. He instituted what the inhabitants of Carolina took to be a high-commission court, like that of King James the second. It was enacted, that twenty lay-persons be constituted a corporation for the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with full power to deprive ministers of their livings at pleasure, not for immorality only, but also for imprudence, or on account of unreasonable prejudices taken against them. In vain did many persons complain of this institution, as tearing the ecclesiastical jurisdiction out of the hands of the bishop of London, in whose diocese the whole British colonies in America were included. The governor, bent on carrying into execution the favourite plan of the Palatine, paid little regard to the uneasy apprehensions of the people. According to the act for erecting churches, the colony is divided into ten parishes; seven in Berkeley, two in Colleton, and one in Craven counties. Money is provided for building churches; lands are granted for glebes and church-yards; and salaries for the different rectors are fixed and appointed, payable from the provincial treasury. When these bills were transmitted to England, to be ratified and confirmed by the Proprietors, John Archdale opposed them, and insisted, that the Dissenters of Carolina had not yet forgot the hardships they suffered in England from acts of uniformity; that the right of private judgment in religious matters was the birth-right of every man; that undisturbed liberty of conscience was allowed to every inhabitant of Carolina by the charter; that acts of conformity, with penalties annexed to them, have in general proved destructive to the cause they were intended to promote, and were utterly inconsistent with Protestant principles; and therefore that these bills, so unpopular and oppressive in Carolina, ought to be repealed, as contrary to sound policy and religious freedom. The majority of the Proprietors, however, did not view them in this light, and the debate ran high between them. At length the Palatine, equally tyrannical as bigotted put an end to the dispute, by telling Mr. Archdale: "Sir, you are of one opinion, I am of another; our lives may not be long enough to end the controversy. I am for the bills, and that is the party that I will head and support." In consequence of which the acts were ratified by four Proprietors, and the following letter was sent to Sir Nathaniel Johnson. "Sir, the great and pious work which you have gone through with such unwearied and steady zeal, for the honour and worship of Almighty God, we have also finally perfected on our part; and our ratification of that act for erecting churches, _&c._ together with duplicates of all other dispatches, we have forwarded to you by Captain Flavel."

[Sidenote] The petition of Dissenters to the House of Lords.

The Episcopal party having now got their favourite form of divine worship established by law in Carolina, began to erect churches in such situations as were most centrical and convenient for the settlers; and, to supply them with clergymen, application was made to the society in England for the propagation of the Gospel. The Dissenters, despairing of all hopes of redress from the Proprietors, became greatly discouraged, and could not brook the thoughts of being again subjected to the same troubles and miseries which had compelled them to leave their native country. Some were for transporting their families and effects immediately to Pennsylvania, in order to sit down under Penn's free and indulgent government; others proposed an application to the House of Lords in England, praying that august body to commiserate their distress, and intercede with her Majesty for their relief. For this purpose a petition was drawn up, and carried over by Joseph Boone to England. Several merchants in London, after Boone's arrival, being convinced of the illegal means by which those grievous acts were brought to pass, and of their pernicious consequence to trade, joined the petitioners. Accordingly, about the beginning of the year 1706, the following petition was presented to the House of Lords: setting forth, "That when the province of Carolina was granted to the Proprietors, for the better peopling of it, express provision was made in the charter for a toleration and indulgence of all Christians in the free exercise of their religion; that, in the fundamental constitutions, agreed to be the form of government by the Proprietors, there was also express provision made, that no person should be disturbed for any speculative opinion in religion, and that no person should, on account of religion, be excluded from being a member of the General Assembly, or from any other office in the civil administration: That the said charter, being given soon after the happy restoration of King Charles II. and re-establishment of the church of England by the Act of Uniformity, many of the subjects of the kingdom who were so unhappy as to have some scruples about conforming to the rites of the said church, did transplant themselves and families into Carolina; by means whereof the greatest part of the inhabitants there were Protestant Dissenters from the church of England, and through the equality and freedom of the said fundamental constitutions, all the inhabitants of the colony lived in peace, and even the ministers of the church of England had support from Protestant Dissenters, and the number of inhabitants and the trade of the colony daily increased, to the great improvement of her majesty's customs, and the manifest advantage of the merchants and manufacturers of the kingdom.

"But that, in the year 1703, when a new assembly was to be chosen, which, by the constitution, is chosen once in two years, the election was managed with very great partiality and injustice, and all sorts of people, even aliens, Jews, servants, common sailors and negroes, were admitted to vote at elections: That, in the said assembly, an act was passed to incapacitate every person from being a member of any General Assembly that should be chosen for the time to come, unless he had taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the church of England; whereby all Protestant Dissenters are made incapable of being in the said assembly; and yet, by the same act, all persons who shall take an oath that they have not received the sacrament in any dissenting congregation for one year past, though they have not received it in the church of England, are made capable of fitting in the said assembly: That this act was passed in an illegal manner, by the governor calling the assembly to meet the 26th of April, when it then stood prorogued to the 10th of May following: That it hath been ratified by the Lords Proprietors in England, who refused to hear what could be offered against it, and contrary to the petition of one hundred and seventy of the chief inhabitants of the colony, and of several eminent merchants trading hither, though the commons of the same assembly quickly after passed another bill to repeal it, which the upper house rejected, and the governor dissolved the house.

"That the ecclesiastical government of the colony is under the bishop of London; but the governor and his adherents have at last done what the latter often threatened to do, totally abolished it; for the same assembly have passed an act, whereby twenty lay-persons, therein named, are made a corporation for the exercise of several exorbitant powers, to the great injury and oppression of the people in general, and for the exercise of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with absolute power to deprive any minister of the church of England of his benefice, not only for immorality but even for imprudence, or incurable prejudices between such minister and his parish; and the only minister of the church established in the colony, Mr. Edward Marston, hath already been cited before their board, which the inhabitants of the province take to be an high ecclesiastical commission-court, destructive to the very being and essence of the church of England, and to be held in the utmost detestation and abhorrence by every man that is not an enemy to our constitution in church and state.

"That the said grievances daily increasing, your petitioner Joseph Boone is now sent by many principal inhabitants and traders of the colony, to represent the languishing and dangerous situation of it to the Lords Proprietors; but his application to them has hitherto had no effect: That the ruin of the colony would be to the great disadvantage of the trade of this kingdom, to the apparent prejudice of her Majesty's customs, and the great benefit of the French, who watch all opportunities to improve their own settlements in those parts of America."

[Sidenote] Resolutions of the House of Lords.

After reading this petition in the house of Lords, the Palatine desired to be heard by his council, which was granted, and the further consideration of the matter was postponed for one week. Then having heard what Lord Granville had to offer in his behalf, the Lords agreed to address her Majesty in favour of the distressed petitioners of Carolina. They declared, that, after having fully and maturely weighed the nature of the two acts passed in Carolina, they found themselves obliged in duty to her Majesty, and in justice to her subjects, (who, by the express words of the charter, were declared to be the liege people of the crown of England, and to have a right to all the liberties, franchises, and privileges of Englishmen), to come to the following resolutions: "First, That it is the opinion of this house, that the act of assembly in Carolina, lately passed there, signed and sealed by John Lord Granville, for himself, Lord Carteret and Lord Craven, and by Sir John Colleton, four of the Proprietors of that province, in order to the ratifying of it, entitled, An Act for the Establishment of Religious Worship in the Province according to the Church of England, _&c._ so far forth as the same relates to the establishing a commission for the displacing of rectors and ministers of the churches there, is not warranted by the charter granted to the Proprietors, as being not consonant to reason, repugnant to the laws of the realm, and destructive to the constitution of the church of England. Secondly, That it is the opinion of this house, that the act of assembly in Carolina, entitled, An Act for the more effectual Preservation of the Government of the Province, by requiring all persons that shall hereafter be chosen members of the Commons House of Assembly, and sit in the same, to take the oaths and subscribe the declaration appointed by this act, and to conform to the religious worship in this province according to the Church of England, and to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the rites and usage of the said church, _&c._ is founded on falsity in matter of fact, is repugnant to the laws of England, contrary to the charter of the Proprietors, is an encouragement to atheism and irreligion, destructive to trade, and tends to the depopulation and ruin of the Province".

[Sidenote] Their address to the Queen.

After which resolutions the house addressed her Majesty in the following words: "We your Majesty's dutiful subjects, having thus humbly presented our opinion of these acts, we beseech your Majesty to use the most effectual methods to deliver the said province from the arbitrary oppressions under which it now lies, and to order the authors thereof to be prosecuted according to law; at the same time we represent to your Majesty, how much the powers given by the crown have been abused by some of your subjects, justice requires us to acquaint your Majesty, that some of the Proprietors absolutely refused to join in the ratification of these acts. We humbly beg permission to inform your Majesty, that other great injustices and oppressions are complained of in the petition; but the nature of the fact requiring a long examination, it was not possible for the house to find time for, so near the conclusion of the session; and therefore we presume with all duty to lay the petition itself before your Majesty, at the same time we present our address. We cannot doubt but your Majesty, who from the beginning of your reign has shewn to great a concern and tenderness for all your subjects, will extend your compassion for those distressed people, who have the misfortune to be at so great a distance from your royal person, and not so immediately under your gentle administration. Your Majesty is fully sensible of what great consequence the plantations are to the crown of England, and to the trade of your subjects, and therefore we rest assured, that as your Majesty will have them all under your royal care, so, in particular, you will be graciously pleased to find out and prosecute the most effectual means for the relief of the province of Carolina."

[Sidenote] The Queen's answer.