Part 6 (1/2)

3. In the year 1663, His Majesty Charles II., King of England, Scotland and Ireland, granted to George, Duke of Albemarle; Edward, Earl of Clarendon; William, Earl of Craven; John, Lord Berkeley; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir George Carteret, Sir John Colleton, and Sir William Berkeley, as ”Lords Proprietors,” all the territory south of the lands not already granted to the province of Virginia, down to the Spanish line of Florida.

4. There were some remarkable men among these t.i.tular owners of the land we now inhabit. The Duke of Albemarle had been General George Monk before the restoration of King Charles, and was made a n.o.bleman on account of his part in that transaction. He was not possessed of very great ability, and only became famous by the accidents of fortune.

5. Very different was the astute lawyer, Edward Hyde, who, for his abilities, was made the Earl of Clarendon and Lord High Chancellor of England. He was a selfish and crafty man, and lost his offices in his old age, but had two granddaughters who became queens of Great Britain.

6. Lord Ashley, afterward the Earl of Shaftesbury, will ever be remembered for the part he bore in establis.h.i.+ng the writ of habeas corpus as a part of the British Const.i.tution. He was a bold, able and profligate man, who marred great abilities by greater vices. He combined within himself all that is dangerous and detestable in a demagogue.

7. Sir William Berkeley, then Governor of the province of Virginia, was another of these Lords Proprietors. He was the embodiment of the cruelty and religious prejudice of that age.

He whipped and imprisoned people who wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d in a way not pleasing to himself, and was immortalized by the remark of King Charles II., who said of him: ”That old fool has taken more lives without offence in that naked country than I, in all England, for the murder of my father.”

8. To these men, as Lords Proprietors, a great territory was granted, which they called ”Carolina,” in compliment to King Charles II. [Many years before this time the name of ”Carolina”

had been applied to the territory between Virginia and Florida, in honor of King Charles IX. of France. ] All of them except Governor Berkeley lived in England, but they ruled the new country and sold the lands at the highest rate of money they could get, with a tax of seventy-five cents on each hundred acres to be paid every year.

9. Many fine promises were made to the English and other people to induce them to go to Carolina and settle. Freedom to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in the way that seemed best to each individual was especially held out to poor sufferers like John Bunyan, who, in those days, were too often kept for long years in loathsome prisons because of their differing with the civil magistrates as to certain matters of faith and practice in the churches.

NOTE--Governor Berkeley exhibited some traits of his character by saying, while Governor of Virginia: ”I thank G.o.d there are no free schools nor printing here, and I hope we shall have none of them these hundred years.”

10. Religious persecutions were practiced in most of the American colonies. It had been decreed in some of the New England colonies that Quakers, upon coming into the province, should have their tongues bored with a hot iron and be banished.

Any person bringing a Quaker into the province was fined one hundred pounds sterling (about five hundred dollars), and the Quaker was given twenty lashes and imprisoned at hard labor. In Virginia the persecutions were equally as bad, if not worse, and some of the punishments were almost as severe as Indian tortures. The a.s.sembly of this colony (Virginia) levied upon all Quakers a monthly tax of one hundred dollars.

11. To escape persecution, many men who were Quakers and Baptists had already gone to the region around the Albemarle Sound; and others followed from various inducements. Their settlements were known as the ”Albemarle Colony.” The whole country was still roamed over by Indians, and even in Albemarle the rude farmhouses were widely scattered.

12. There was not even a village in the new province. No churches, courthouses or public schools were to be seen; but the men and women of that day loved liberty. They preferred to undergo danger from the Indians and the privations of lonely homes in the forest to the persecution which they found in England and in many portions of America.

13. It can hardly be realized amid the present luxuries and enjoyments of the American people, what dangers and privations were encountered by the white settlers in North Carolina two hundred years ago; for while now thronging cities, teeming fields and busy highways of a people numbering many millions cover the land, then cruel and crafty Indians, always hostile at heart to the tread of the white man, surrounded the defenceless homes of the scattered colonists and filled the great forest stretching three thousand miles toward the setting sun.

QUESTIONS.

1. What period have we now reached in our history?

What changes had taken place in the English government?

2. In what new scheme do we find Governor Berkeley taking part?

3. What new grant of this territory was made in 1663?

What was the new government called?

4. What kind of a man was George, Duke of Albemarle?

5. Who was Edward, Earl of Clarendon?

6. Who was Lord Ashley? What was his character?

7. What was Governor Berkeley's character?

What was said of him by King Charles II. ?

8. What name was given to the territory now granted? In whose honor was Carolina named? Where did the Lords Proprietors live?

What tax was to be paid to them?