boasted act of navigation was not intended for our jus from supplying our wants by the improvement advantage, nor for the advantage of the whole em- of those articles which the bounty of Heaven had pire; but was a glaring monument of the all grasping bestowed on our country. So numerous were the nature of unlimited power. To enumerate all the inhabitants of some provinces, that they could not ungenerous restrictions imposed by the British go all find employment in cultivating the earth; and vernment on American commerce, would be an yet a single hat, manufactured in one colony, and outrage on patience. Time only will unfold the exported for sale to another, forfeited both vessel whole of this mystery of iniquity. A few years and cargo. The same penalties were inflicted for experience will shew such an amazing difference transporting wool from one to another. Acts of parbetween the fettered trade of the British colonies, liament have been made to prohibit the erection of and the extensive commerce of the free, inde. slitting mills in America. Thus did British tyranny pendent states of America, as will cause us to exert her power, to make us a needy and dependent stand amazed, that we so long and so patiently people, obliged to go to her market, and to buy at submitted to so many and such cruel restrictions. her prices; and all this at a time when, by her In one word, so long as we remained dependent, exclusive trade, she fixed her own prices on our the commerce of this great continent would have commodities. been sacrificed to the interest of a selfish European island.

How widely different is our present situation? The glorious fourth of July, MDCCLXXVI, repealed all these cruel restrictions, and holds forth generous prices, and public premiums, for our encouragement in the erection of all kinds of manufactures.

Carolina had particular reason to wish for the free trade of independence. The whole island of Great Britain did not annually consume more than 5000 barrels of her staple commodity, rice, and yet it was an enumerated article. The charge on We are the first people in the world who have unloading, reloading, and shifting every cask, owing had it in their power to choose their own form of to this enumeration, was immense, though it served government. Constitutions were forced on all no other purpose, but to procure jobs for British other nations, by the will of their conquerors; or, coopers and wharfingers. So little regard was had they were formed by accident, caprice, or the overto our interest, while dependent, that this enumera-bearing influence of prevailing parties or particular tion was obtained by the instigation of a captain persons: But, happily for us, the bands of British Cole: Several vessels coming from England be fore him, and purchasing rice for Portugal, prevented the aforesaid captain of a loading; he returned, and in resentment said, carrying rice to Portugal was a prejudice to the trade of England: And on this single instance, so ill founded and sup-ple. Our deliberations, on this occasion, were not ported, rice became an enumerated article. How could our trade flourish, or our produce bring its full value, while restricted by a legislature so regardless of our interest, that a petty captain, to secure himself a cargo, could prevent our staple from being sent directly to a foreign market?

Union with Great Britain confined us to the consumption of her manufactures, and restrained

government were dissolved at a time when no rank above that of freemen existed among us, and when we were in a capacity to choose for ourselves among the various forms of government, and to adopt that which best suited our country and peo

directed by the over-grown authority of a conquer. ing general, or the ambition of an aspiring nobility, but by the pole-star of public good, inducing us to prefer those forms that would most effectually secure the greatest portion of political happiness to the greatest number of people. We had the example of all ages for our instruction, and many among us were well acquainted with the causes of prosperity and misery in other governments.

The tobacco colonies were also great losers by the British monopoly of trade. The duties on their In times of public tranquility, the mighty have staple, amounted to more than half the first cost. been too apt to encroach on the rights of the many: Tobacco, exported from Britain, sold in European But it is the great happiness of America, that her markets for more than double the sum the Ameri-independent constitutions were agreed upon by can planter received for it.-If it should become

a custom in the United States, to celebrate the common consent, at a time when her leading men anniversary of independence with an annual oration, needed the utmost support of the multitude, and it is hoped that some citizen of Virginia or Mary-therefore could have no other object in view, but land, will place the selfish restrictions on the exportation of this valuable commodity, in a proper the formation of such constitutions as would best light. suit the people at large, and unite them most heartily in repelling common dangers..

Gee on Trade, page 21,

As the strength of a people consists in their num dragged into every war, which her pride or ambi. bers, our separate states, sensible of their weak-tion might occasion. Besides, as she considered ness, were actually excited by self-interest to form the colonies as her property, what was to hinder such free governments, as would encourage the her from ceding any or all of them to the different greatest influx of inhabitants. In this manner, an European states. Thus, while we had no inde. emulation has virtually taken place in all the pendent government of our own, we might have thirteen states, each contending with the others, been the sport of various contending powers, and who should form the freest constitution. Thus tossed about, like a foot-ball, from one to the other. independence has been the fruitful parent of go. vernments formed on equal principles, more favorable to the liberty and happiness of the governed, than any that have yet been recorded in the annals

of history.

Our independence will naturally tend to fill our country with inhabitants. Where life, liberty, and property, are well secured, and where land is easily and cheaply obtained, the natural increase of people will much exceed all European calculations. Add to this, the inhabitants of the old world, becom

ment, will emigrate by thousands. In their native lands, the hard-earned fruits of uninterrupted labor are scarcely equal to a scanty supply of their natural wants, and this pittance is held on a very precarious tenure: while our soil may be cheaply purchased, and will abundantly repay the toil of the husbandman, whose property no rapacious landlord dare invade. Happy America! whose extent of territory,

thousands and millions of the virtuous peasants, who now groan beneath tyranny and oppression in three quarters of the globe. Who would remain in Europe, a dependent on the will of an imperious landlord, when a few years industry can make him an independent American freeholder?

While we were dependent on Britain, our freedom was out of the question; for what is a freeing acquainted with our excellent forms of govern. state, but one that is governed by its own will? What shadow of liberty then could we possess, when the single NO of a king, 3000 miles distant, was sufficient to repeal any of our laws, however useful and salutary; and when we were to be bound in all cases whatsoever by men, in whose election we had no vote, who had an interest opposed to ours, and over whom we had no control? The wit of man could not possibly devise any mode westward, is sufficient to accommodate with land that would unite the freedom of America with Britain's claim of unlimited supremacy. We were therefore reduced to the alternative of liberty and independence, or slavery and union. We wisely chose to cut the Gordian knot, which tied old Britain to the new, and to assume our independent station among the empires of the world. Britain, had she honestly intended it, was incapable of governing us for the great purposes of govern ment. Our great distance, and other local circumstances, made it impossible for her to be sufficiently acquainted with our situation and wants. But, admitting it was in her power, we had no reason to expect that she would hold the reins of government for any other end but her own advantage. Human nature is too selfish, too am bitious, for us to expect, that one country will govern another, for any but interested purposes. To obtain the salutary ends of government, we must blend the interests of the people and their rulers; or else, the former will infallibly be sacri ficed to the latter. Hence, the absurdity of our expecting security, liberty and safety, while we were subjects of a state a thousand leagues distant.

Such will be the fruits of our glorious revolu tion, that in a little time gay fields, adorned with the yellow robes of ripening harvest, will smile in the remotest depths of our western frontiers, where impassable forests now frown over the uncultivated earth. The face of our interior country will be ble abodes of peace and plenty. Cities too will changed from a barren wilderness into the hospitawhich are now howled over by savage beasts and rise majestic to the view, on those very spots

more savage men.

The population of this country has been hereto. fore very rapid; but it is worthy of observation, that this has varied, more or less, in proportion to the degrees of liberty that were granted to the different provinces, by their respective charters. Pennsylvania and New England, though inferior in soil, being blest originally with the most free forms Connection with Britain involved us in all her of government, have outstripped others in the rela quarrels; and such is the fluctuating state of her tive increase of their inhabitants. Hence I infer, politics, that we could not long expect a political that as we are all now completely free and indecalm. In vain did the Atlantic ocean interpose; pendent, we shall populate much faster than we for, by our unnatural union, we were necessarily lever have done, or ever would, while we were

3

controled by the jealous policy of an insignificant | The tyrants and landlords of the old world, who island. hold a great part of their fellow men in bondage, We possess thousands and millions of acres, because of their dependence for land, will be obligwhich we may sell out to new settlers, on terms ed to relax of their arbitrary treatment, when they very easy to them, and yet sufficient to defray the find that America is an asylum for freemen from whole expense of the present war. When the quit-all quarters of the globe. They will be cautious rents, formerly paid to the king, shall be appro- of adding to the oppressions of their poor subjects priated to the benefit of the independent states, and tenants, lest they should force them to abanthey will fill our treasuries to so great a degree, don their country, for the enjoyment of the sweets that foreign nations, knowing that we abound in of American liberty. In this view of the matter, I the sinews of war, will be afraid to provoke us. am confident that the cause of America is the cause In a few years, when our finances are properly of human nature, and that it will extend its influarranged, the stoppage of those sums which were ence to thousands who will never see it, and proformerly drained from us, to support the pride cure them a mitigation of the cruelties and oppresand extravagance of the British king, will be an ample provision, without taxes, for defraying the expense of our independent governments.

It is difficult to compute the number of advan tages arising from our present glorious struggle; barder still, perhaps impossible, precisely to ascertain their extent. It has attracted the attention of all Europe to the nature of civil liberty, and the rights of the people. Our constitutions,

sions imposed by their arbitrary task-masters.

If such be the glorious consequences of independence, who can be so lost to every generous sentiment, as to wish to return under royal domination? Who would not rather count it an honor to stand among the foremost, in doing and suffering in a cause so intimately connected with the happiness of human nature? Away with all the peevish complaints of the hardness of the times, pregnant with the seeds of liberty and happiness, and the weight of the taxes. The prize for which have been translated into a variety of languages, and spread far and wide. Who can tell what great double the expense of blood, treasure, and diffiwe contend, would be cheaply purchased with events, now concealed in the womb of time, may culty, it will ever cost us.

be brought into existence by the nations of the old world emulating our successful efforts in the Our independent constitutions, formed on the cause of liberty? The thrones of tyranny and des justest principles, promise fair to give the most potism will totter, when their subjects shall learn perfect protection to life, liberty and property, and know, by our example, that the happiness of equally to the poor and the rich. As at the conof the people is the end and object of all govern-flagration of Corinth, the various melted metals ment. The wondering world has beheld the smiles running together, formed a new one, called Corinof Heaven on the numerous sons of America, re- thian brass, which was superior to any of its comsolving to die or be free: Perhaps this noble ex-ponent parts; in like manner, perhaps it is the will ample, like a wide spreading conflagration, may of Heaven, that a new empire should be here formcatch from breast to breast, and extend from na ed, of the different nations of the old world, which tion to nation, till tyranny and oppression are ut will rise superior to all that have gone before it, terly extirpated from the face of the earth.* and extend human happiness to its utmost possible limits. None can tell to what perfection the arts * Britain will eventually lose less by our independence, than is commonly supposed. The king of government may be brought. May we not thereand ministers may be cured of their lust of domi- fore expect great things from the patriots of this nation, and will be deprived of influence and the generation, jointly co-operating to make the new means of corruption. While she had a monopoly born republic of America as complete as possible? of our trade, it encouraged idleness and extrava gance in her manufacturers; because they were Is it not to be hoped, that human nature will here Sure of a market for their goods, though dear and receive her most finished touches? That the arts jl made: But, as independence will bestow our commerce on those who most deserve it, this will and sciences will be extended and improved? That be the means of introducing frugality and indus religion, learning, and liberty, will be diffused try among her laboring poor. Our population will over this continent? and in short, that the Ameribe so much the more rapid for our free govern. ments, that, in my humble opinion, that part of our can editions of the human mind will be more pertrade which will fall to the share of Great Britain, fect than any that have yet appeared? Great things if she has the wisdom to conclude a speedy peace, have been achieved in the infancy of states; and will be more to her advantage than a monopoly of the whole of it, if we had remained subjects. the ardor of a new people, rising to empire and

renown, with prospects that tend to elevate the hu-[by what has heretofore happened, considered the man soul, encourages these Battering expectations. expectation thereof as romantic: But He, who sitShould any puny politician object, that all these teth at the helm of the universe, and who boweth prospects are visionary, till we are certain of inde- the hearts of a whole nation as the heart of one pendence, I reply, that we have been in possession man, for the accomplishment of his own purposes, of it for two years, and are daily more able to sup has effected that, which to human wisdom and port it, and our enemies less able to overset it. foresight seemed impossible. A review of the When we first dared to contend with Britain, we history of America, from its first discovery to the were a loose, disjointed people, under no other present day, forces upon us a belief, that greater government but that of a well regulated mob. If blessings are reserved for this continent, than she in these circumstances, we were able to defend ever could have possessed whilst lying low at the ourselves, what may we not expect, when we can foot of an European island. draw forth our whole strength in a regular, constiIt has never yet been fairly tried how far the tutional manner? If the maiden courage of our equal principles of republican government would new levies, has successfully withstood the well secure the happiness of the governed. The antrained bands of our enemies, can we distrust, cients, unacquainted with the present mode of taking when three campaigns have made them equal in the sense of the people by representatives, were too discipline, with those whom they are to contend? apt, in their public meetings, to run into disorder Such is the situation of Britain, that were we only and confusion. The distinction of patricians and pleable to keep up the appearance of an army, she bians, laid the foundation of perpetual discord in the could not afford to protract the war: But instead of Roman commonwealth. If the free states of Greece this, our troops are more numerous, better discip had been under the control of a common superintendlined, cloathed and armed, than they ever were. ing power, similar to our continental congress,* The most timid may dismiss all their doubts, since they could have peaceably decided their disputes, Louis the XVI. of France, that illustrious protec-and probably would have preserved their freetor of the rights of human nature, with a magnani dom and importance to the present day. Happily mity worthy of himself, has guaranteed to us our for us, warned by experience, we have guarded independency. If Britain could not subdue Ame- against all these evils. No artificial distinction of rica, when she stood single and alone, how abortive ranks has been suffered to take place among us. must all her attempts prove, when we are aided We can peaceably convene a state in one small asby the power of the greatest European monarch?sembly of deputies, representing the whole in an The special interposition of Providence in our behalf, makes it impious to disbelieve the final establishment of our heaven-protected independence. Can any one seriously review the beginning, progress, and present state of the war, and not see indisputable evidence of an over-ruling influence on the minds of men, preparing the way for the accomplishment of this great event?

*Their council of Amphictyones in some things, resembled our congress; but their powers were too limited. This suggests a hint, that a consideration of the United States, on principles that vest the congress with ample powers, is most likely to perpetuate our republican governments and internal tranquility. The union of independent commonwealths, under one common head, is an application of the social compact to states, and requires powers proportionably enlarged. TreaAs all the tops of corn, in a waving field, are in-son in our governments, puts on a new aspect, and clined in one direction by a gust of wind, in like manner, the governor of the world has given one, and the same universal bent of inclination to the

may be committed by a state as well as an individual; and therefore ought to be clearly defined, and carefull guarded against.

To give permanency to our confederation on rewhole body of our people. Is it a work of man, expedient: That congress should have a power to publican principles, the following regulations seem that thirteen states, frequently quarrelling about limit or divide large states, and to erect new ones: boundaries, clashing in interests, differing in poli-To dispose of the money arising from quit-rents and vacant lands, at least till all the expenses of ey, manners, customs, forms of government, and the war ar sunk: To establish a general intercourse religion, scattered over an extensive continent, between the states, by assigning to each, one or under the influence of a variety of local prejudices, more manufactories, with which it should furnish the rest; so as to create a reciprocal dependence jealousies, and aversions, should all harmoniously of each, upon the whole: To erect a great conti. agree, as if one mighty mind inspired the whole?

nental university, where gentlemen from all the

Our enemies seemed confident of the impossi-states may form an acquaintance, receive the finishing touches of education, and be inspired with bility of our union; our friends doubted it; and all continental liberality of mind, superior to local indifferent persons, who judged of things present, prejudices, and favorable to a confederated union.

liberty, light, and polished life. Our independence will redeem one quarter of the globe from tyranny and oppression, and consecrate it the chosen seat of truth, justice, freedom, learning and religion. We are laying the foundation of happiness for countless millions. Generations yet unborn will bless us for the blood-bought inheritance, we are are about to bequeath them. Oh happy times! Oh glorious days! Oh kind, indulgent, boun

equal proportion. All disputes between the dif- the mountains, illuminating our hemisphere with ferent states, and all continental concerns, are to be managed by a congress of representatives from each. What a security for liberty, for union, for every species of political happiness! Small states are weak, and incapable of defence, large ones are unwieldly, greatly abridge natural liberty, and their general laws, from a variety of clashing interests, must frequently bear hard on many individuals: But our confederation will give us the strength and protection of a power equal to that of the tiful Providence, that we live in this highly favorgreatest; at the same time that, in all our internal ed period, and have the honor of helping forward concerns, we have the freedom of small indepen- these great events, and of suffering in a cause of dent commonwealths. We are in possession of such infinite importance! constitutions that contain in them the excellencies

of all forms of government, free from the inconve.

Judge Drayton's Charge.

niences of each; and in one word, we bid fair to be At an adjournment of the court of GENERAL SESthe happiest and freest people in the world for ages yet to come.

When I anticipate in imagination the future glory of my country, and the illustrious figure it will soon make one the theatre of the world, my heart distends with generous pride for being an American. What a substratum for empire! compared with which, the foundation of the Macedonian, the Roman, and the British, sink into insignificance. Some of our large states have territory superior to the island of Great Britain; whilst the whole, toge ther, are little inferior to Europe itself. Our independence will people this extent of country with freemen, and will stimulate the innumerable inbabitants thereof, by every motive, to perfect the acts of government, and to extend human happiness.

SIONS OF THE PEACE, OYER AND TERMINEN, ASSIZE AND GENERAL GAOL DELIVERY, held at Charleston for the district of Charleston, on Tuesday the 23d day of April, 1776-Before the hon. WILLIAM HENRY DRAYTON, esq. chief justice, and his associates, justices of the colony of SouthCarolina.

On motion of Mr. Attorney General, ORDERED, That the charge of his honor, the chief justice, delivered to the grand jury, be published together with their presentments.

May 2d.

By order of the court,
JOHN COLCOCK, C. C. S.

THE CHARGE TO THE GRAND JURY.

Gentlemen of the grand jury-When, by evil machinations tending to nothing less than absolute tyranny, trials by jury have been discontinued, and juries, in discharge of their duty, have assembled, and as soon as met, as silently and arbitrarily disI congratulate you on our glorious prospects. missed without being impannelled, whereby, in conHaving for three long years weathered the storms tempt of magna charts, justice has been delayed of adversity, we are at length arrived in view of the and denied; it cannot but afford to every good citicalm haven of peace and security. We have laid the zen, the most sincere satisfaction, once more to foundations of a new empire, which promises to see juries, as they now are, legally impannelled, to enlarge itself to vast dimensions, and to give hap- the end, that the laws may be duly administered— piness to a great continent. It is now our turn to I do most heartily congratulate you upon so imfigure on the face of the earth, and in the annals of portant an event.

the world. The arts and sciences are planted In this court, where silence bas but too long among us, and, fostered by the auspicious influ- presided, with a direct purpose to loosen the bands ence of equal governments, are growing up to ma- of government, that this country might be involv turity; while truth and freedom flourish by their ed in anarchy and confusion, you are now met to sides. Liberty, both civil and religious, in her regulate your verdicts, under a new constitution of noon-tide blaze, shines forth with unclouded lustre government, independent of royal authority: A on all ranks and denominations of men. constitution which arose according to the great Ever since the flood, true religion, literature, law of nature and of nations, and which was es arts, empire and riches, have taken a slow and tablished in the late congress, on the 26th of gradual course from east to west, and are now March last-A day that will be ever memorable about fixing their long and favorite abode in this in this country--a month, remarkable in our histo new western world. Our sun of political happi- ry, for having given birth to the original constitu. ness is already risen, and hath lifted its head over' tion of our government in the year 1669; for being