An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 1Hewatt, Alexander
History
An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 1
Hewatt, Alexander
Georgia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; South Carolina -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
The Episcopal party having now got their favourite form of divine worship
established by law in Carolina, began to erect churches in such
situations as were most centrical and convenient for the settlers; and,
to supply them with clergymen, application was made to the society in
England for the propagation of the Gospel. The Dissenters, despairing of
all hopes of redress from the Proprietors, became greatly discouraged,
and could not brook the thoughts of being again subjected to the same
troubles and miseries which had compelled them to leave their native
country. Some were for transporting their families and effects
immediately to Pennsylvania, in order to sit down under Penn's free and
indulgent government; others proposed an application to the House of
Lords in England, praying that august body to commiserate their distress,
and intercede with her Majesty for their relief. For this purpose a
petition was drawn up, and carried over by Joseph Boone to England.
Several merchants in London, after Boone's arrival, being convinced of
the illegal means by which those grievous acts were brought to pass, and
of their pernicious consequence to trade, joined the petitioners.
Accordingly, about the beginning of the year 1706, the following petition
was presented to the House of Lords: setting forth, "That when the
province of Carolina was granted to the Proprietors, for the better
peopling of it, express provision was made in the charter for a
toleration and indulgence of all Christians in the free exercise of their
religion; that, in the fundamental constitutions, agreed to be the form
of government by the Proprietors, there was also express provision made,
that no person should be disturbed for any speculative opinion in
religion, and that no person should, on account of religion, be excluded
from being a member of the General Assembly, or from any other office in
the civil administration: That the said charter, being given soon after
the happy restoration of King Charles II. and re-establishment of the
church of England by the Act of Uniformity, many of the subjects of the
kingdom who were so unhappy as to have some scruples about conforming to
the rites of the said church, did transplant themselves and families into
Carolina; by means whereof the greatest part of the inhabitants there
were Protestant Dissenters from the church of England, and through the
equality and freedom of the said fundamental constitutions, all the
inhabitants of the colony lived in peace, and even the ministers of the
church of England had support from Protestant Dissenters, and the number
of inhabitants and the trade of the colony daily increased, to the great
improvement of her majesty's customs, and the manifest advantage of the
merchants and manufacturers of the kingdom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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