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flag arrived, he had so disposed the provincial militia and a host of Indian warriors, as to give an exaggerated idea of the strength of the Carolinians. Without giving the messenger an opportunity to make any extended observation, he was dismissed with a defiant reply that the English were ready to repel any attack they chose to make on them.

Scarcely was the messenger gone, when the governor began to plan an assault on the Spanish troops landed. With a select party of militia and Indians, he went, under cover of night, to a suitable location for assaulting the enemy. Just at dawn a blast of trumpets sounded the assault, and a volley of musketry followed. The Spanish guards fell, and the Carolinians, with their Indian allies, dashed into the camp, shooting and cutting down or capturing all whom they found.

Many were killed, more captured, and the remnant were driven back to their ships. At the same time the provincial navy, small as it was, prepared to attack the invading squadron. The French admiral, amazed as well as alarmed at the display of valor shown, weighed anchor and fled to sea. Next day a French war ship with recruits, not knowing what had happened, sailed into the harbor and was captured by the colonists.

This made the victory complete. The dark storm cloud which had threatened the destruction

of all the colony had been dissolved and all was sunshine and peace; but not for long were the colonists of South Carolinia to enjoy peace and prosperity. A more frightful tempest was brooding over the colony, which gathered with fearful celerity. A league had been formed among the surrounding Indian tribes to exterminate the English. This league was the secret work of the Spaniards in Florida, and the French in the Mississippi Valley, who were planning for the extermination of the English. Within the space of forty days a confederacy had been formed, including the whole Indian tribes from Cape Fear on the north to the St. Mary's on the south and back to the rivers beyond the mountains in the west. The warriors of the league were fully six thousand strong. It comprised the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Catawbas and Congarees on the west and the Creeks, Yammasees and Appalachians on the south. At the same time, a thousand warriors broke forth from the forests of the Neuse region to avenge their misfortunes in the war of two or three years before.

So secretly had the savages organized, that not a whisper of impending danger had reached the inhabitants of Charleston, before the news came that on the morning of Good Friday, April 13, 1715, the Yammasees had begun an indiscriminate

massacre of the white people along the seaboard. The news had been carried from the scene of destruction by a swift-footed seaman, who broke through the lines of the furious savages, ran ten miles, and swam one, and told the dreadful tale to the settlers at Port Royal. There was consternaPeople fled in canoes

tion and dread everywhere.

and in a ship, and carried the first intelligence of the sad event to Charleston.

For days a stream of terror-stricken planters and their families was pouring into the city, and it was thought that the capital was in danger. The governor acted promptly and with efficiency in the emergency. He took measures to prevent men leaving the colony. He placed the province under martial law; took measures to secure all arms and ammunition to be found, and called upon the citizens to prepare to fight valiantly for their lives and prosperity. Even the negro slaves, or those who had proved faithful, were armed; and with the motley army of white men, Indians and negroes, twelve hundred strong, he marched to meet the savages, who were approaching from the interior, spreading death and devastation as they came.

Twenty miles east of the Savannah River, the governor met the oncoming band of savages, and a sharp fight followed, which lasted for three hours with doubtful results. Each party fell back from

the field; but the governor, rallying his forces before the Indians expected him, dashed with implacable fury on them. They retreated, and the Carolinians, with their motley allies, drove the Yammasees across the Savannah River and through Georgia, giving them no rest, until they found it under the protection of the Spanish cannon at St. Augustine.

Not only were the Yammasees punished, but the warriors from the north were driven back into the forests, and the Cherokees and their neighbors, who had not yet taken up the hatchet, retired to their hunting grounds, deeply impressed by the strength and prowess of the white people.

So completely were the Indians humbled, that they were willing to sue for peace, and so in the beautiful month of May, in the year 1715, a treaty was made, which brought peace and sunshine once more to unhappy South Carolinia.

vancement.

The storm and tempest over, the people began once more to look about them and prepare for adThe little cabin home, which had been so long neglected that weeds and bushes had begun to grow about the door-step where the children played, was once more opened. The blackened and long disused chimney once more emitted the blue smoke, and all was peace, tranquillity and progress. Once more the woodman's axe was

heard echoing throughout the forest, and the crash of falling timber made music less terrible than the crack of rifles and war-whoop of savages.

Proprietary government in South Carolinia was nearing its end. From the beginning, it had been a heavy burden on the colonists. The governors appointed by the proprietors, being independent of the people, and conceiving themselves infinitely above them, had often been haughty and exacting, rather irritating than conciliating the popular mind. While the colonists were laboring to build up a permanent and prosperous state, the proprietors refused to assist them in times of danger or to reimburse their expenses incurred in defending the domain from invasion. The people were compelled to bear the whole expense of the late war with the Indians, although the proprietors enforced their claims for quit-rents more remorselessly than ever.

"What care they for the people?" asked Roger Stevens, a grandson of Philip Stevens of Virginia. Roger Stevens had served as an officer in the Indian trouble, and had also been a member of the assembly. He was a well-to-do planter and a man of unbounded influence among his fellow-men. When questions of deep import came up for discussion, the opinion of Roger Stevens was sought. Being thoroughly indignant at the proprietors, he spoke with a boldness, which, in any other man, would

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