political acts of these settlers, to bear in mind that they were mostly dissenters. Boone, agent in London for a large portion of the people, stated in his petition to the House of Lords (in 1706) that after the reëstablishment of the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity, many subjects of the Crown, “who were so unhappy as to have some scruples about conforming to the rites of said Church, did transplant themselves and families into said Colony, by means whereof the greatest part of the inhabitants there were Protestant Dissenters from the Church of England.” We must remember, too, that religious freedom was promised as an inducement to emigrate. As Governor Archdale said, the charter “had an overplus power to grant liberty of conscience, although at home was a hot persecuting time.” And this overplus power was at first very fairly used. All denominations lived harmoniously together, till Lord Granville became Palatine, whose tyrannical disruption of the religious privileges of the colonists (by excluding dissenters from the colonial legislature) nearly cost the Proprietors their charter. The felling of forests, clearing of plantations, experimenting in agricultural products, establishing stock farms, building habitations, opening a peltry trade with the Indians, forming military companies for mutual defence against hostile tribes, and against the French at times, and at times against the Spaniards, exploring the adjacent country, caring for and nursing the sick who succumbed to the malarial influences of the sultry low country along the coast, where the settlers were for many years compelled to reside,[748]—amidst such circumstances there was no disposition for religious dissension and none for political differences among themselves. And when political opposition did arise, it was for civil rights, and between the colonists as one party and the Lords Proprietors and their official representatives as the other party. The rights for which they contended against irritating obstacles engendered a persistent spirit of political advancement which led to the overthrow of the proprietary government in 1719, and in further development through the royal administration culminated in constitutional self-government. In this respect, the history of no other colony presents a more interesting and instructive record. The awakening of the people to a determined maintenance of what they deemed right and just began with the stubborn efforts of the Proprietors to force the colonists to adopt their scheme of government, the Fundamental Constitutions. The people declared the charter of Charles II. to be fundamental enough for them. The facts involved in this contention are now to be related.