After the death of Queen Anne, George, Elector of Hanover, ascended the British throne, and was crowned on the 12th of October, 1714. This event was far from giving general satisfaction to the British nation. A considerable party of the principal landholders favoured the pretensions of the house of Stewart, but were so divided in their councils and schemes, that they lost all influence and weight. Having no head, they were unable to turn the balance against the party in the other scale, who, by degrees, engrossed the royal favour, and all offices of power and trust in the kingdom. By this difference, however, a spirit of civil discord and sedition was excited in the nation, and the Chevalier, encouraged by it, and flattered with the hopes of assistance from France, formed a project of snatching the scepter by force of arms from the family of Hanover. For this purpose, a party in Scotland had recourse to arms, but meeting with little assistance from the pretended friends of the cause in England, the insurrection was soon quelled, and their rash design totally defeated. [Sidenote] A design formed for purchasing all charters and proprietary governments. During the former reign the Lord Commissioners of trade and plantations, from the contentions that prevailed in some of the colonies, had taken occasion to look more narrowly than formerly they used to do, into the state of proprietary governments in America, in order to form a plan for purchasing and uniting them more closely to the crown. They easily perceived the advantage of beginning this negotiation as soon as possible, for the sooner the purchase was made, the earlier it would be obtained. Accordingly, they wrote to the Proprietors of each colony, acquainting them, it was her Majesty's pleasure and command, that all governors of her foreign plantations do transmit to them frequent and full information of the state of their respective colonies, as well in respect to the administration of government and justice, as to their progress in trade and improvements. The Queen, though no friend to non-conformists, had also stretched out a hand of relief to the distressed Dissenters of Carolina, and publicly disapproved of some oppressive acts to which they had been subjected. This served to encourage a spirit of murmur and discontent among the Carolineans at the proprietary government, and to give their eyes a direction to the crown at every future period, when they thought themselves aggrieved under it. [Sidenote] The Yamassees conspire the destruction of the colony.