The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1915-07-03

the governor ready for it's first as
sembly, and he called upon the free
men to make their choice of represen-
tatives.
1t was to be many years yet, as it
turned out, before the conduct Of the
government of the colony was to be
satisfactorily provided for. The sew
eral scattered settlements had little
sympathy with each other, and New
Jersey was not yet a complete or or
ganized colony.
At the very time when Gov. Car
teret was trying to form govern
ment that would hold the scattered
towns of New Jersey together in some
sort of discipline and order, the rep
resentatives of another proprietary
government of the same kind were
trying the same experiment with
much the same fortune in the south
on the Carolina" grant, which the
King had made the year before he
gave New Netherland to his brother.
In 1868 he had granted the lands
which lay south of Virginia between
the thirty-frst and the thirty-sixth
degrees of north latitude to eight
proprietors.
There were by that time quite
three hundred families settled there;
and there were none besides in all the
vast tract that the Kings charter
called Carolina" The first grant of
1868, had not in fact included the
Albemarle settlements, though those
who framed it supposed that it did;
but in 1865 a. new charter was OBJ
tanned which advance the boundary
line far enough northward to make
sure of including them. And then the
proprietors, having taste for a
more elaborate way of governing,
adopted a highly complicated and de-
tailed plan, drawn up by Mr.. John
Locke, who was then, at thirty-seven,
secretary to Anthony Lord Ashley,
one of the proprietors. The docu-
ment contained eighty-one articles,
was called the fundamental Consti-
; buttons" of Carolina, and was elab-
crate enough for populous king
/ dom. It bore date ri July, 1869.
: The proprietors were too much men
7 of the world and of affairs to sup
pose that that simple community, only
' just now begun, was ready for an
: elaborate government, which, among
| other things, proposed change very
radically the free tenure of the land
t into a sort of feudal holding under
t hereditary mobiles; but they meant to
e establish their system when they
could, and were in too great haste
f it turned out, to believe that parts OF
: it could at once be made to apply
' Even yet "Carolina" had no settle
i. ments except those at Albemarle.
e It proved no light matter to gov
: ern the little settlements at Abe
marie. The colonists preferred theil
: trade to the laws of Parliament, anC
: their freedom to the laws of the lords
: proprietors. In 1876 their governor
Y Carteret, Stephens successor, went t
o England in a sort of despair, to ex
plain that he was not allowed to gov
ern. In 1877 the colonists seized tn
2 collector of the revenue, and severa
thousand pounds of the revenue witt
him, because he tried to break VI
: their trade with New England and tn
8 West Indies.
The proprietors were to find that
was not much easier to govern set
Elements of their own planting thai
to govern the rough-and-ready ham
lets at Albemarle, which had been Sc
: up without them. By August, 1865
2 the month after they signed the frs
draft of their Fundamental Consti
buttons, they had an expedition read
to go into the southern parts of Caro-
lima and plant a colony which shout
!. be worth helping and worth govern
), ing and by April of the next year
was actually planted. The plac
chosen for the settlement was pleas
= ing bluff within the fair HAWAII rive
Il which they presently called tn
Ashley, in honor of the distinguishe
nobleman for whom Mr.. Locke ha
written the Fundamental Constitr
tons. Their settlement they Gale
Charlestown; and there they lived fo
~ ten years without notable inciden
~ except that Sir John Yeamans, VIII
was their governor from 1671-167
brought negro slaves with him whe
he came from the Barbados in 167'
Mr.. Joseph West was governor mo;
of the time during the first years {
settlement, and ruled very sensibl,
assisted by a council of which I'll
freemen of the colony elected a par
Things went quietly enough until ii
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