The Gazette of the state of South-Carolina — Charles-town [S.C.], 1784-07-17 00:00:00, page 4

Anecdote of more than thirty years Landing, is well
known, that a very worthy Church Warden, long
Tince dead, to rouse his' Parifliioners from this dan
gerous lethargy, told them, if they omitted coming
to vote, lie would referoe his own vote to the last
moment, and then put it in for the mos disagreeable
man to the whole Parish, he could think of: the
hint he gave being totally disregarded, tliough a
gentleman highly esteemed amongst them, he there
fore Voted as he laid, and the member ele&ed by
his jingle vote, was returned anti served ; who af
terwards humorously declared in the house, that
he had been uqanimoufly elected. Entirely" owing
to this raging mifehief, Rapid party tools have
been often riggied into the house, that, if thetenth
part of the electors had voted, would not have
flood the leaf chance, whole business there, has
often been, with the most observant eye, to watch
their Leader, and be up or down, according to his
nod; and on prefing occasions, to flip out, or from
bench to bench, to jog or Rart the careless to attend
and mind where! their head man was fitting, that
they might not blunder when the question was put,
for want of feeing him in "time.
Let us vote with care, uninfluenced and peace
ably, avoiding all innovations that have the leaf
tendency to sap our old mode of doing it; that by
the mos mortifying disappointment, all busy party
tools, difurbers of the peace, with “ fix hundred"
or fix thousand at their heels, dangerous innovators
and officious time-servers, may be convinced, at
the elofe of the poll, that their pretty manoeuvres
were no recommendation to men who had the
good of the community at heart, wished to, be well
governed, and refolded to be so, by every prudent
conflitutional step in their power. An assembly
thus chosen, will do every thing they can for their
constituents: but blunder as they may, they will
hardly blunder Jo much as any club or society that
might b^ pitched on. It requires no great con
juration to fee a Wrong step when taken, and affem
'blies, as well as individuals, must be expelled to
make mistakes sometimes: but, because assemblies
legally chosen by the people, may and do commit
errors, shall we therefore fuller them tobe despised
and virtually, difeharged, by substituting private
clubs in their room, not votedfor at all? Can we
think these clubs will commit left mistakes? We
ought to remember, that we disgrace outflows when
ever We treat our assemblies with contempt, or
proclaim any mistakes they may have made.; the
leaf laid upon such occasions, and the fobner they
are put to rights the better; and a refpe&ful address
to the legislature, to get the matters reconsidered, is
by much the best and speediest, as well as the mos
probable way of accomplishing what we wifli for.
; The more any people rfpeEt the laws of the land,
the happier they must be amongst themselves, and
the mere refpeaable abroad. This is a very old
maxim.
I have made an obferVation or two, en baffant,
on a most extraordinary paper that has just made
Its appearance, calculated most glaringly, under
gilded appearances, for iheworft of purposes: feve
id very good recommendations are certainly in it,
but if there can be any genuine true whigs duped
into a countenance of that publication, as it ftarids,
I am sorry to fay, they could not, in my humble
opinion, besides difaracing themselves, have taken
a method more effectual, if not to prevent, at least
to retard the accomplishment of even the good
things wified for, in a desirable manner. This
paper, which it is almost impqflible to use as harsh
terms, with regard to it, as it deserves, I shall
leave to the animadversion of others, after making
a few observations on one plausible proposal, " the
" earned recommendation that no man be chosen,
'f who shall not (under his proper signature) bind
“ himfelf to vote as his ^conftituents shall direst,
", and.all, not as heretofore, but consonant to the
'• inftruHions they shall give him." This propo^
fal, however specious, has a great tendency in our
circumstances, not only at times, of hindering and
cmbarraffing public business, but, very probably, of
being the means of Setting up a directing club or
committee, in the city or diflrifl where the legi
slature may fit, which may, probably, prove a
dangerous fefuitical imperium in imperio, and serve
to put the legislature into leading fringl, and make
them as a body contemptible, and their members as
individuals obsequious to the great man of the club:
for the members of three fourths of the parishes
and diftrifts, at a distance, would frequently be at
a loss to all, on account of inadequate inftruftions,
which must often happen, unless the infiruflors can
be supposed to be conjurors. What must be done
then, when, very likely it will.be impossible their
constituents can he convened in time to collect their
general sense? To obviate this difficulty, there will
be a necessity for a secret (or some) committee,
near at hand, the chairman, or grand director of
which, will, even if not of the assembly, have
more influence than half the members of the house:
but Should he be a member, and dexterous at intrigue,
" with his committee, asunder an oath of secrecy,"
the mifehief will fill be worse. Again, can all
the electors in a parish be supposed to come into
such a proposal ? These that do not, the member
inftruHed will be no member to them; of course,
in that case, they are virtually deprived of the
efficacy of their elevon vote. Will they be fatis
fed with this? can this step then tend to harmonize
the Rate? In circumstances so various, and so fud
_d@nlv changing, as in our state, and many of those
changes of the greatest moment, it is impossible for
anv set of men, at adiftance from the legislature,
to forefee or §uard a^ainft; therefore, it hath been
-always thought better, upon the whole, to leave
the members uritrammeled, to all by their own bell
judgments, upon any point of importance, after it
has undergone a thorough dhcuffibn in the house.
Parochial business, indeed, may be abfolutcly direc
ted, and with'propriety, because the parish must
'be conceived competent to its own concerns, and
•what are merely such, the representative is obliged,
'in my mind, implicitly to comply with, be his own
opinion what it may. Instructions too, on general
matters, 'net absolute; may doubtless be of very
great use, on particular occasions, and give great
Confidence to members, to know with certainty, the
mind of the majority of their constituents; but, to
be pinned down absolutely, will, as / have feu
instances, serve not only, at times, to make your
members appear veiy ridiculous but, in conse
quence, to rcfolve never to serve you again. Will
this be the means of getting the moStcapable and
belt men ? Are such, that will serve, in plenty?
and will many such " offer them,dues as candi
dates ?" Parishioners, that do their duty as
citizens ought to do, will not fail to give their
votes at elections ; and they mutt be fad judges in
deed, if they cannot find a few honest proper men
that they can trust, to serve them only two years;
but if any representatives wantonly counteract the
plain sense of their parish, choose them no more,
Which is much better upon the whole than fettering
them with absolute instructions ; these like quack
Remedies are often worse than the disease—Every
member of the legislature is under two obligations;
cue to his parish, whose inftru&ionE with'regard td
matters merely parochial are implicitly to be obeyed;
the other to the state at large; to difeharge this, he is
to attend to the general combined interest of all the
state put together, as it were upon an average. Now
is it probable, that this can be done in the best
tnanner, as it ought to be, with absolute instructi
ons, in the situation we are in in this state, and
the many uncertainties we are incumbered with,
arising from indolence, negligence, and a variety
of other causes that I wish may not be incurable?
I shall mention only one instance, and then leave
this point to others to difeufs With more accuracy.
Is it easy to know when the real majority of a pa
rish have given their inftruCtions? Suppose this
difficulty fupcrable, is it more easy to bring them
together to give them in&uffions? Must it not then
greatly difrefs a gbod member, when he is uncertain
whether his in&rtifbons (the sense and propriety
whereof he may be in ^bdoubt about)' come from
the majority of the parish ? But if -he can fatisfy
his mind on 'neither of these points, how tnuft he
be fill more perflexed ?
No man in the State has opposed, in the proper
place, every appearance of Arifocracy, with more
fteadfaftnefs arid decision than myfelf. This the mem
bers, as well as the journals of the present assembly
will teftify, mid so I flatter myfelf will every gen
tleman I have had the honor of serving witli in all
former affemblies'; I don't know that 1° have devi
ated a tittle from the well-known political go
vernmental principles I set out with, on our errand
druggie, in compliance, (or in any other refpe&,)
to any man, set of men, or family in or out of the
Rate whatever.-—At the fame time, I have always
with equal warmth and decision, Shewn my detes
tation against any appearance of licentiousness; and I
ever looked upon (however disagreeable any public
measure adopted might be, and how muchfoever I
opposed it in the house) the not acquiring peaceably
without doors in what the majority had agreed upon
and fairly carried within', ks one of the frongeft
symptoms of a tendency to that flocking political
malady as can possibly Shew itfelf. This long fixed
maxim to myfelf, has more than once brought me
between two fires; and perhaps it is owing to this,
that my Nabobfliip has been so furioufly attacked in
federal papers Since my last address, all which, ex
cepting that which I have here remarked upon, pub
lished in this Gazette, the 13th of May last, (which
I looked upon ^ our Dupe-Master General's, or
wrote under h& infpe&ibn, it containing some
such things as his honor, fo??g before this, was bound
by every tie of duty, rcfpe& and gratitude to this
state, to have openly contradicted, if he had not
abetted them,) I fay excepting this, all the rest 1
palled over in fdence, as coming only from tools
or dupes; and should have done the fame with
that too, (for no personal abuse or insinuation what
ever would have drawn me into print again) had
not those alarming disturbances, that alone occafi
fioned my last, begun to be revived. It then struck
me that tltete was no end, to be see-sawing about
tools; that the only way effectually to check these
riots was to fa/Wout the principal, THE FIRST
CAUSE, which that paper gives a plainer clue to
than any other thing or paper whatever that I have
seen. This and this alone, induced me to drudge
about a work almost as offensive as rakin, into a
common jakes. °
I by no means desire to serve in the assembly
again, ardently longing to retire from all public
Bufinefs,—But I hope my fellow-citizens of all
denominations throughout the state, will do me the
justice to think that it is impoffiblc for greater and
more permanent, peace and happiness to be
wished for, than is cordially Wished for them, by
their most affectionate,
A STEADY & OPEN REPUBLICAN.
Charlefon fitly 10, 1784.
P. S. I have designedly avoided faying any
thing further about Capt. T 's affair, what is
said in my last being amply fufficient: the arguments
there used, if not unanswerable, are altogether un
unfared by thi^writer ; and even what new things
On M ONDAY Au^uft gth,
W I,L L BE SOL D,
At No. 53, ifi Church-Street.
The following effects, belonging to the estates ot
Timothy and Martha Phillips, deceased: The
. sale to begin in the morning, 10 o'clock, viz.
MAIIQGANY Chajrs and lables, Looking
Glasses; a handsome Book Case, Beds. Bed
heads, &c. &c.
...ALSO,
Two valuable Negro Wenches, one of whom i$
a good Washer, Ironer, &c. &c
And, precisely at 12 o'Clock,
The House and Lot, Feet front, and
Feet deep. ELEAAER PHILLIPS, ) Admini-
JAMES WILKINS, $ fitters.
Conditions of Sale will be declared on the Day.
CUDWORTH & WALLER.
.NO TICK.
CT-LIE Librarian of the Charlefon Library
, Society, having had information of a number
of volumes being dispersed about this city, and
different parts of the country, belonging to the
society; it is requeued, that all pei fons'poffeffcd
of any of the fame, will immediately transmit
them to the fubferjber, at the Libiary room, the
north-call corner of the Exchange.
By order of the Society,
JOHN M'CALL, Jun. Sec'ry;
N. B. The Books are marked on the outside
of the cover, next to the title page, ^ Charlefon
Library Society,' and on the back, underneath the
title, with thcinitial letters C. T.'L. S. and some
of them are marked on the cover, next to the title
page, J. MACKENZIE, Esq.
J OhlTm^ A L
NOTARY PUBLI C,
.AND
INSURANCE BROKER,
Has removed his Office to the North-east corner
Room of the Exchange.
TO BE
And immediate Pofefon given,
TH E South tenement of the House in Meeting
freet, "No. 112, with every out convenience
ncefary for a family, artel a well of exceeding good
coater. Enquire of S IMS' WHITE. '
AL L persons having any demands against the
efate of Timothy and Martha Phillips, de
ceased, are defiredto bring in their accounts attested,
on or before the 10th day of August next; and aT
those who are indebted to said estate, are requeued to
make payment to
Eleafer Phillips,)
James Wilkins ff^J^.
TTFawaE
FROM the Subscriber, the Bth instant, a Nearer
Wench named SUSANNA, 28 or 30 years
of age, about 5 feet 2 inches high, thick lips, is
coal black, speaks tolerable good English; Had
bn when flic went away, a blue and white calico
wrapper, red flannel and Huckaback coat. Who
etr apprehends the above negro, and will deliver
her to her matter, or secure her in any gaol or
work-house, so that he may get her again, shall
receive Five Guineas Reward. All matters of ves
sels and others, are forbid to harbour or take her
off on their peril.
N. B. The said wench formerly belonged to
Mrs. Russell, of Savannah, and has perhaps gone
that way. SOLOMON WOOLF,
No. g, Broad-street.
Charlefon, July 15, 1784.
~ 1 ,— — = —,—
For Private Sale,
AV aluable LOI of LAND, the upper end of
Tradd-ftreet, nearly opposite to Mr. Hum
phrey Summers's, 58 feet front, and 153 feet deep.
A Trad: of Land containing 400 Acres, in Cra
ven County, on the head of Beach Cre'ck, Waterce
River, originally granted to James Ravenel, bound
ed South on lands laid put to Ifaae Knighton, all
other rides on vacant land.
A Tra& of I.and containing 629 Acres, id
Grenville County, on the Waters of Chairs, a
branch of Big Stevens Creek, originally granted
to Mr. H'ehry Ravenel, bounding Northwell on
Edward Martin, John Ryan, James Harris, Lau
rence Rambo, and William Elliott's land, South
west on John Herinton, Mr. Swingeon, Richard
Kirkland, and Leonard Noble's, and part on lands
the owners not known. The conditions may be
known by applying to
Benjamin Waring,
'arc brought by him on th: ■ crafi^ ^V^ 1Y
AkIICLE, on Britsfi but .tfei :'
luus Anti-Ericannic, he ,41; > i) 'friion,
cannot but think inadmi/fi: / hdft titl'^ the
Court of London take off the ;ekrai.:t on the Carry
ing-Trade.”
^ In the last column of the 3d page, 36 lines
from the bottom, for " different" r^C" difficult."
Iniecorid page, third column, 37th line
from the bottom, between “ a" and “ political"
insert " S WORN."