wishing to impress on the English Court the necessity of keeping friends with them, he took five of their chiefs over to England. While it remained in the possession of the Dutch, New York enjoyed no great prosperity, but under English rule it became one of the richest and most thriving of the American colonies. The climate was good, and the soil fertile. As in Virginia, the rivers gave great facilities for carriage. The people were more frugal in their habits, and, it is said, more thrifty and gain-loving, than the New Englanders. Their exports consisted mainly of farm-produce, timber, and fur. In the fur trade, the neighbourhood of the Mohawks and the possession of the Hudson gave New York a great advantage over the other States. As under Dutch rule, the colony continued to be a refuge for emigrants of all nations. Governor Hunter brought out three thousand German Protestants who had fled from the Palatinate to avoid persecution. A number of French Huguenots also came out. Among this multitude of different races there was of course great diversity of religion. There were English Episcopalians, Dutch and French Calvinists, Scotch Presbyterians, German Reformers, Quakers and Moravians, Baptists and Jews. In fact, whether we look to the variety of its resources, the diversity of its people, or the number of its religions, we may say that New York in the eighteenth century was a sort of model and representative of the whole body of English colonies.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CAROLINAS.

First settlement (1)—disturbances (2)—improvement under Archdale (3)-wars with the Indians (4)—war with the Spaniards and their Indian allies (5)—abolition of the proprietary government (6)—general condition (7).

1. First Settlement. Between the southern frontier of Virginia and the Spanish settlements lay a large tract of land, for the most part fertile and well watered. Raleigh's two colonies had been placed on this coast. After them no English settlement seems to have been made south of Virginia till about 1650. At that time two small parties of emigrants established themselves in this country, one from Virginia, the other from Massachusetts. In 1663 Lord Clarendon, Lord Shaftesbury, and other friends of Charles II., obtained from him a grant of land. Their territory began at the southern boundary of Virginia, and reached nearly five hundred miles along the coast. It was to be called Carolina, in honour of the King. The colony was probably intended in a great measure as a refuge for those royalists who had suffered heavy losses in the civil war, and whom the King was unable or unwilling to compensate in any other way. Full power was given to the proprietors to make laws and to manage the affairs of the province. One of the first things that the proprietors did was to draw up a most elaborate constitution for their new State. This was done by John Locke, the great philosopher, and Lord Shaftesbury, and was called the Fundamental Constitutions. The country was to be minutely and exactly divided into

counties, which were to be subdivided into seignories, baronies, precincts, and colonies. There were to be noblemen of two orders, in numbers proportioned to those of the settlers. The eldest of the proprietors was to be called the Palatin, and was to be the supreme officer. Each of the proprietors was to hold a court in his own barony with six councillors and twelve deputies, called assistants. There was to be a parliament, meeting once in two years, and consisting of the proprietors, the noblemen, and the representatives elected by the freeholders. This constitution met with the same fate as the claborate one devised by Gorges for his colony. It was drawn up without any real knowledge of the special wants and the manner of life of a new State, nor do the proprietors, after framing it, ever seem to have made any vigorous effort to put it in force. At first they did not even attempt to unite the various settlements under a single government. Each of those already existing was placed under a separate government, composed like those in the other colonies of a Governor, a Council, and a House of Representatives. The Council was to be appointed by the proprietors out of a number of candidates chosen by the people. The two settlements, were called after two of the proprietors, the Duke of Albemarle (formerly General Monk), and the Earl of Clarendon. Albemarle was the settlement formed by the emigrants from Massachusetts. The other settlers, those from Virginia, soon left, driven away either by fear of the Indians or by the barrenness of the soil. Their place was filled by emigrants from Barbadoes. The proprietors, anxious to people their territory, tempted their settlers by very liberal terms. They gave each man a hundred acres of land for himself, a hundred for every one of his children, and fifty for every woman or slave that he took out. In return he had to provide himself with a gun, a supply of ammunition, and food for six months. Besides

these settlements the proprietors formed a third, about three hundred miles to the south. This was divided into four counties, and like the northern settlement was at first chiefly peopled from Barbadoes. Though they were not yet so called, we may for convenience speak of these settlements by the names which they afterwards bore, North and South Carolina, the former including both Albemarle and Clarendon.

2. Disturbances.—The whole country before long fell into confusion. The proprietors always gave out that the separate governments were only temporary, and were to be replaced by the Fundamental Constitutions. Thus the people, though enjoying present freedom, were dissatisfied, not knowing how soon they might be subjected to a government distasteful and unsuited to them. Moreover many of the settlers seem to have been men of doubtful character. The pro

prietors ordered that no person should be sued for debts incurred out of the colony. This apparently was done to attract settlers thither. Thus the colony, like Virginia in early times, was in danger of becoming a refuge for the destitute and ill-conducted. Their mode of life was not likely to better matters. For several years there was no minister of religion in Albemarle. The proprietors too. showed little regard for the welfare of the colony in their choice of officers, and disturbances soon broke out. In the northern province the proprietors appointed one of their own body, Millar, who was already unpopular with the settlers, to be the collector of quit-rents. Among a poor and not over-loyal people, the post was a difficult one, and Millar made it more so by harshness and imprudence. A revolution broke out. Millar was seized, but he escaped, and the Governor, Eastchurch, was deposed. He died just after, and one of the proprietors, Sothel, went out as Governor. He fared no better, and after six years of confusion was forced

to resign. He then went to South Carolina, where he took up the cause of the settlers, headed an insurrection, in which Colleton the Governor, also a proprietor, was deposed, and was himself chosen by the people in his stead. From this it would seem as if either Sothel's misdeeds in North Carolina had been exaggerated by his enemies, or as if there was hardly any communication between the Northern and Southern provinces. The proprietors, though they had been indifferent to the welfare of the settlers, showed no wish to deal harshly with them. In 1693 they passed a resolution declaring that, as the settlers wished to keep their present government rather than adopt the Fundamental Constitutions, it would be best to give them their own way. Thus Locke's constitution perished, having borne no fruit.

3. Improvement under Archdale.-Two years later John Archdale, one of the proprietors, went out as Governor. He was a Quaker, and seems to have been in every way well fitted for the post. By lowering the quit-rents and allowing them to be paid in produce instead of money, by making peace with the Indians, and by attention to roads and public works, he gave prosperity and, for a time, peace to the colony. One thing which especially furthered its welfare was the introduction of rice. The climate and soil of South Carolina were found to be specially suited to it, and the colony soon became the rice-market for all the American colonies. Silk and cotton also might have been produced to advantage, but the cultivation of rice was so profitable that little time or labour was left for any other work. One bad effect of this was that it forced the colonists to employ large numbers of negro slaves. The work in the rice plantations was very unhealthy, and could only be endured by the natives of a sultry climate. This familiarized the Carolina settlers with slavery, and they fell into the regular practice of kidnapping the Indians and selling them to the West India Islands.