Not until 1680 are there any authentic records of any church in Charleston, but there appears to have been a rapid growth in grace as well as population, for in 1704 there were five places of public worship, St. Philip’s (Episcopal) Church, the Huguenot Church, the First Baptist Church, the White Meeting House (Presbyterian and Congregational), and the Quaker Meeting House. General Edward McCrady, the State’s latest and ablest historian, writing of the period of 1715, says of the colony: “In this small community of less than 6,000 there were Churchmen from England and Barbadoes, Independents from England, Old and New, Baptists from Maine, and Huguenots from France and Switzerland, all zealous of their peculiar religious tenets, and many, if not most, with tenacity of bigotry and fanaticism. Carolina was a Church of England Province under its charter, and the Fundamental Constitutions, while offering the greatest religious freedom, provided only that God was acknowledged and publicly and solemnly worshipped, still provided for the establishment and maintenance of that Church.” [Illustration: ST. PHILIP’S CHURCH, CHARLESTON.] In 1706, the Spaniards, who had always been a menace to the infant colony, made their first and last attack on Charleston, and, one hundred and ninety-three years later, when it was rumored that Cervera and his fleet would menace the South Carolina coast and storm Charleston, the old story of their futile effort was read with intense interest. It was in Havana that Monsieur Le Feboure, the captain of a French frigate, planned and organized the memorable attack. His fleet of four armed sloops stopped at St. Augustine for reinforcements and supplies, and on August 25th “five separate smokers appeared on Sullivan’s Island as a signal to the town that that number of ships was observed on the Coast.” Yellow fever was then raging in Charleston, but Lieutenant-Colonel Rhett, commanding the militia, ordered a general alarm by drum-beat, and sent messengers to Governor Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who was at his plantation, Silk Hope, on Cooper River, and to the militia companies in the neighboring parishes, calling them to the relief of the town.