The public mind had been gradually prepared for a revolution, and these irritating measures completed the disgust with which the people viewed the government of the proprietors. An opportunity to make the change so generally desired was soon afforded. A rupture having taken place between Great Britain and Spain, advice was received from England of a plan formed in the Havanna for the invasion of Carolina. The governor convened the council, and such members of the assembly as were in town, and laid his intelligence before them. He, at the same time, stated the ruinous condition of the fortifications, and proposed that a sum for repairing them should be raised, by voluntary subscription, of which he set the example by a liberal donation. The assembly declared a subscription to be unnecessary, as the duties would afford an ample fund for the object. The repeal of the law imposing them was said to be utterly void, and would be disregarded. [Sidenote: Combination to subvert the government.] The members of the new assembly, though they had not been regularly convened at Charleston, had held several private meetings in the country to concert measures of future resistance. They had drawn up an association for uniting the whole province in opposition to the proprietary government, which was proposed to the militia at their public meetings, and subscribed almost unanimously. This confederacy was formed with such secrecy and dispatch, that, before the governor was informed of it, almost every inhabitant of the province was engaged in it. The members of the assembly, thus supported by the people, resolved to subvert the power of the proprietors. The governor, who resided in the country, had no intimation of these secret meetings and transactions, until he received a letter from a committee of the representatives of the people, offering him the government of the province under the King; it having been determined to submit no longer to that of the proprietors.