f British manners even to excess. They for the most part, sent their
children to Great Britain for education, and spoke of that country under
the endearing appellation of Home. They were enthusiasts for that sacred
plan of civil and religious happiness under which they had grown up and
flourished.... Wealth poured in upon them from a thousand channels. The
fertility of the soil generously repaid the labor of the husbandman,
making the poor to sing, and industry to smile, through every corner
of the land. None were indigent but the idle and unfortunate. Personal
independence was fully within the reach of every man who was healthy
and industrious. The inhabitants, at peace with all the world, enjoyed
domestic tranquility, and were secure in their persons and property.
They were also completely satisfied with their government, and wished
not for the smallest change in their political constitution.

In the midst of these enjoyments, and the most sincere attachment to the
mother country, to their king and his government, the people of South
Carolina, without any original design on their part, were step by step
drawn into an extensive war, which involved them in every species of
difficulty, and finally dissevered them from the parent state.

... Every thing in the colonies contributed to nourish a spirit of
liberty and independence. They were planted under the auspices of the
English constitution in its purity and vigor. Many of their inhabitants
had imbibed a largo portion of that spirit which brought one tyrant to
the block, and expelled another from his dominions. They were
communities of separate, independent individuals, for the most part
employed in cultivating a fruitful soil, and under no general influence
but of their own feelings and opinions; they were not led by powerful
families, or by great officers in church or state.... Every inhabitant
was, or easily might be, a freeholder. Settled on lands of his own, he
was both farmer and landlord. Having no superior to whom he was obliged
to look up, and producing all the necessaries of life from his own
grounds, he soon became independent. His mind was equally free from all
the restraints of superstition. No ecclesiastical establishment invaded
the rights of conscience, or lettered the free-born mind. At liberty to
act and think as his inclination prompted, he disdained the ideas of
dependence and subjection.

* * * * *

=_Henry Lee,[3