deeper into the quicksands of dissatisfaction by govern- 1 6 8 9 mental efforts for the abrogation of their charters, such 1 7 4 5 as the bill of 1701 for the reduction of the proprietary provinces which was postponed by the death of the March 18, king, and the bill of 1706 for the reduction of the 1702 chartered colonies which was forced aside by the European war. Attempts like these followed with annoying persistence, the most dangerous being those of 1715 and 1721. It was natural that proposals for concentration or for union emanating from the governmental party were regarded with popular suspicion. The idea was coldly received in the royal provinces, opposed in the proprietary provinces, and strenuously and excitedly antagonized in the corporate colonies. For nearly a hundred years plans for colonial consolidation came from England and were vigorously opposed in America. But colonial congresses developed a habit of conference and made manifest the fact that there were questions of intercolonial interest other than Indian dangers and resistance to the French. After 1754, parties changed places, the colonists turning with growing favor to the idea of union, and the English authorities passing into opposition. Sir Robert Walpole became the earl of Orford in 1742 and died in 1745. After a continuous service of thirty years as one of the secretaries of state, the duke of Newcastle succeeded his younger brother, Henry Pelham, as Thomas Pelham Holles, Duke of Newcastle premier in 1754. George Grenville entered parliament in 1741, and Charles Townshend in 1747. With Grenville and Townshend, a new period of American history begins, the closing of the period of neglect and the inau Ministerial 1 7 4 5 guration of a policy of coercion that ended in the American revolution. Lord Bellomont's assurance that a thousand men and two warships would secure the allegiance of America "so long as the world lasts" turned out to be poor prophecy. T HE English revolution of 1688 proclaimed the 1 690 right of subjects to dethrone a dynasty. When I 7 2 1 Englishmen sat in judgment on their king, what Seth Sothell's more natural than that South Carolinians should depose Sway their governor? But Seth Sothell at Charles Town soon. opened the eyes of those who had received him as a deliverer and, within a year, he was hated there as enthusiastically as he had been at Albemarle. The commission of Governor Ludwell of North Carolina was changed to November 2, that of governor of Carolina and Sothell retired to private life at Albemarle where he died in 1694. Colonel Philip Ludwell had been secretary to Governor Berkeley of Virginia and was now the third husband of his widow. As it was not practicable for the North Carolinians to send delegates to Charles pring in Virginials Town, Ludwell appointed a Philip Ludwell Grun- Arms of Philip Ludwell South Carolina counties. The new assembly was as rigid as its predecessors and prepared a paper that has been 1691 Ludwell's mission I 1 6 9 1 called the first bill of rights drawn in America. When 1 6 9 3 they appointed a committee to frame a "system of government," the proprietors "thought it best for them and for April 12, 1693 Saint James Church, Goose Creek us to govern by all the power of the charter" and to "part with no power till the people are disposed to be more orderly." The proprietors soon wrote to the governor: "Employ no Jacobite, beware of the Goose Creek men."* Unable or unwilling to enforce His Brief a single measure that ran counter to the popular will, Administration Ludwell was removed and withdrew into Virginia. November 29 Thomas Smith was again commissioned as governor of Carolina. Thomas Smith Becomes Smith, a dissenter and one of the richest planters in the colony, was now made a landgrave with the usual accompanying grant of forty-eight thousand There is a story to the effect that, about this time, he planted some seed-rice from Madagascar, the beginnings of the great staple of the Carolina acres. lowlands, but the South Interior of Saint James Church, Goose Creek Carolina assembly had, three years before, rewarded the inventor of an improved machine for husking rice and the records of the province show that rice was largely *Goose Creek is an eastward flowing affluent of the Cooper River which it joins a few miles above Charleston. In that region were the favorite residences of many men of importance in Carolina. grown before Smith's arrival in 1684. At all events, it 1 6 9 4 was not long before Carolina rice was held to be the best Carolina Rice in the world. "Hence, the opulence of the colony; hence, also, its swarms of negro slaves." In 1694, November Smith resigned his office and almost immediately died. 16 After Smith's resignation, the council chose Joseph Joseph Blake Blake to act until a new governor should be commis sioned. Of the eight original proprietors, seven were dead-the old earl of Craven being the only survivor. The proprietary board had not even an office, commoners had taken the seats of dukes and earls, and an eighth interest in the province was bought in the market for three hundred pounds. John Archdale, a claimant to the proprietary interest once held by Sir William Berkeley, had been in North Carolina and was now willing to Medal of the Carolina Company (There were two issues of the same design: the misspelling, visit America again. He has been described as "a vain, |