S.C., where two of them were stolen, and
the rest injured by fire when the city was burned. Those left were again
sent to England, and recast in the original moulds. In March, 1867, they
once again rang out from the spire.

St. Phillip's Church stands in the old part of the town. During the
Civil War its bells were cast into cannon. For a long time its steeple
was used as a lighthouse. It is the center of forgotten things.

The bells of St. Matthew's are modern and speak of a new order, but all
the bells are the voice of the town. They speak for her silences, which
are eloquent.

NOTE ON "THE PIRATES"

The many inlets and sheltering coves of the Carolina coasts very early
made the "low country" seaboard a rendezvous for pirates and a shelter
to refit, and to bury their treasure.

As early as 1565 the French from Ribault's settlement succumbed to the
temptation to plunder their rich Spanish neighbors; and in the century
before the coming of the English, the lonely bays and estuaries saw
strange ships from time to time. There was a pirate settlement by 1664
at Cape Fear River, where Governor Sayle did not arrive until 1670 to
take formal possession for the Lords Proprietors of the colony.

The Peace of Utrecht turned many privateers into pirates, ships which
had been habitually preying upon Spanish commerce since Blake's victory
at Santa Cruz in 1657, and these gentlemen of fortune were at first
welcome in the Carolinas. Nearly all the coin in circulation then was at
first brought by such doubtful adventurers, and they were regarded as
the natural protectors of the Carolinas against their powerful enemy,
the Spaniard, to the south.

Gradually, however, this cordial attitude changed. It was a small step
from attacking Spanish to plundering English commerce, and with the
cultivation and export of rice and indigo, the demand for a safe sea
passage grew overwhelming, while the coasts continued to be ravaged. The
royal government was slow to act. In 1684 we learn that "the governor
will not in all probability always reside in Charles Town, which is so
near the sea as to be in danger of sudden attack by pirates;" nor was
this an idle thought, for the town was blockaded by pirate ships at the
harbor's mouth, and medicines and supplies demanded while citizens were
held as hostages.

In 1718 Governor Spotswood of Virginia sent an expedition to North
Carolina, which succeeded in surprising, capturing, and beheading the