from, and the offending party at the beginning is now reduced to the use of the spade and pickaxe for defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude to acknowledge his obligations." Governor Trumbull of Connecticut expressed the belief of his state when he said: "In the series of marvellous occurrences during the present war he must be blind who doth not see the divine ordering thereof."

On the third of October the commissioners for restoring peace to the colonies addressed a farewell manifesto to the congress, assemblies, and other inhabitants of America, that their persistence in separating from Great Britain would "change the whole nature and future conduct of this war;" that "the extremes of war" should so distress the people and desolate the country as to make them of little avail to France. Congress published the paper in the gazettes to convince the people of the insidious designs of the commissioners. In the British house of commons Coke of Norfolk proposed to disavow the declaration. Lord George Germain insisted that the Americans by their alliance were become French, and should be treated as Frenchmen. Burke pointed out that the "dreadful menace was pronounced against those who, conscious of rectitude, stood up to fight for freedom and country." The commissioner, Johnstone, who, in changing sides on the American question, had not tamed the fury of his manner, said: "No quarter ought to be shown to their congress; and, if the infernals could be let loose against them, I should approve of the measure. The proclamation certainly does mean a war of desolation; it can mean nothing else." Gibbon divided silently with the friends of America, who had with them the judgment, though not the vote, of the house. Three days later Rockingham in the house of lords denounced the "accursed" manifesto, and declared that "since the coming of Christ war had not been conducted on such inhuman ideas." Lord Suffolk, in reply, appealed to the bench of bishops; on which the bishop of Peterborough, tracing the resemblance between the proclamation and the acts of Butler at Wyoming, added: "There is an article in the extraordinaries of the army for

scalping-knives. Great Britain defeats any hope in the justness of her cause by means like these to support it."

The debate closed well for America, except that Lord Shelburne was provoked into saying that he never would serve with any man who would consent to its independence.

The British army under Clinton could only ravage and destroy by sudden expeditions. Toward the end of September, Cornwallis led a foray into New Jersey; and Major-General Grey with a party of infantry, surprising Baylor's lighthorse, used the bayonet mercilessly against men that sued for quarter. A band, led by Captain Patrick Ferguson in October, after destroying the shipping in Little Egg Harbor, spread through the neighboring country to burn the houses and waste the lands of the patriots. On the night of the fifteenth they surprised light infantry under Pulaski's command; and, cumbering themselves with no prisoners, killed all they could. In November a large party of Indians, with bands of tories and regulars, entered Cherry valley by an unguarded pass, and, finding the fort too strong to be taken, murdered and scalped more than thirty of the inhabitants, most of them women and children.

Immediately after the general declaration of independence the citizens of South Carolina, by common consent, intrusted constituent powers to their representatives. In January 1777, a bill for a new constitution was introduced. The senate was to be chosen by the electors in the several parishes; the distribution of the representation in the general assembly was left unchanged. The bill was printed, and submitted for examination to the people for more than a year. The legislature, in March 1778, gave it their sanction; and it was then presented to the president for confirmation. Every one expected that in a few hours it would be proclaimed, when Rutledge, the outgoing president, called the council and assembly into the council chamber, and, after a formal speech, gave it a negative, because it took from the chief of the executive his veto power. The majority determined to vote no taxes until the veto should be reversed. After a three days' adjournment, which was required by the rules before a rejected bill could be again brought forward, Rawlins Lowndes, the newly elected president, gave his sanction to the re-enacted bill.

The new constitution might be altered by legislative authority after a notice of ninety days. None but freeholders. could elect or be elected to office; and for the higher offices the possession of a large freehold was required. In any redistribution of the representation of the state, the number of white inhabitants and the amount of taxable property were to be considered. The veto power was taken from the president. Till this time, the church of England had been the established church in South Carolina. The Christian Protestant church was now declared to be the established religion of the state; and none but Protestants were eligible to high executive or any legislative office. The right of suffrage was conferred exclusively on every free white man who, having the requisite age and freehold, acknowledged God and a future state of rewards and punishments. All persons who so believed, and that God is publicly to be worshipped, might form religious societies. The support of religious worship was voluntary; the property then belonging to societies of the church of England, or any other religious societies, was secured to them in perpetuity. The people were to enjoy forever the right of electing their own pastors or clergy; but the state was entitled to security for the due discharge of the pastoral office by the persons so elected. Of slaves or slavery no mention was made except by implication.

The constitution having been adopted on the nineteenth of March 1778, to go into effect on the following twenty-ninth of November, all resident free male persons in the state above sixteen years, refusing to take the oath to maintain it against the king of Great Britain and all other enemies, were exiled; but a period of twelve months after their departure was allowed them to dispose of their property. In October 1778, after the intention of the British to reduce South Carolina became known, death was made the penalty for refusing to depart from the state, or for returning without permission.

At this time the British ministry, resigning the hope of reducing the North, indulged the expectation of conquering all the states south of the Susquehannah. For this end the British commander-in-chief at New York was ordered to despatch before October, if possible, a thousand men to reinforce

Pensacola, and three thousand to take Savannah. Two thousand more were destined as a reinforcement to St. Augustine.

The new policy was inaugurated by remonstrances from the highest British officials in America, and was followed by never-ending complaints. Lord Carlisle and his associate commissioners deprecated the policy of enfeebling New York by detachments for distant services. "Under these appearances of weakness," so they reported, "our cause has visibly declined." Sir Henry Clinton remonstrated against being "a mournful witness of the debility" of his army "reduced to a starved defensive." Every detachment for the southern campaign was made with sullen reluctance; and his indirect criminations offended the unforgiving minister.

The use of paper money by the Americans and its ever-accelerated depreciation, and the want of a central government, revived the hope of subjugating them. The United States closed the campaign of 1778 before autumn, for want of money. Paper bills, emitted by congress on its pledge of the faith of each separate state, supported the war in its earliest period. Their decline was hastened by the disasters that befell the American armies. Their value was further impaired by the ignoble stratagem of the British ministers, under whose authority Lord Dunmore and others introduced into the circulation of Virginia and other states a large number of bills counterfeited for the purpose in England. In October 1776, congress, which possessed no independent resources and no powers on which credit could be founded, opened loan offices in the several states, and authorized a lottery. In December it issued five million dollars more in continental bills. In January 1777, when they had sunk to one half of their pretended value, it denounced every person who would not receive them at par as a public enemy, liable to forfeit whatever he offered for sale; and it requested the state legislatures to declare them a lawful tender. This Massachusetts had enacted a month before; and the example was followed throughout the union.

The loan offices exchanged United States paper money at par for certificates of debt bearing six per cent interest. a hint from Arthur Lee, congress resolved to pay this interest by drawing on its commissioners in Paris for coin, though the

commissioners had no funds. The bills were of a very long date; and, before they became due, one dollar in coin was worth six in paper.

In the middle of November 1776, Massachusetts, which had grown opulent before the war by tolerating no currency but hard money, proposed a convention of committees from the several New England states to consider all questions relating to public credit. Connecticut feared the measure would give umbrage to congress. Upon this, a convention of the New England states, called by Rhode Island under the name of "a council of war," met on Christmas day at Providence. They regulated prices, proposed taxation and loans, and recommended that the states should issue no more paper, "unless in extreme cases." Congress liked their doings so well that, in January 1777, it advised similar conventions of the middle and of the three southernmost states. Striving for the monopoly of paper money, it asked the states to call in their bills, and to issue no more.

All the measures hitherto suggested having failed of their object, Massachusetts once more took the lead; and, on her invitation, the four New England states and New York met, near the end of July, at Springfield on the Connecticut. With one voice, they found the root of all financial difficulties in the use of irredeemable paper. As the only remedy, they proposed to sink all bills of the states, and to provide alike for their local expenses and those of the war by quarter-yearly taxes. Their example showed how readily the people of the states could come together by their delegates for the purpose of reforming the government; prices rose and bills went down with accelerated speed.

The anxious deliberations of the committee of congress during more than two months at Yorktown, with the report of the Springfield convention before them, produced only a recommendation, adopted in November 1777, that the several states should become creditors of the United States by raising for the continental treasury five millions of dollars in four quarterly instalments, the first payment to be made on the coming New Year's day, and the whole to bear six per cent interest until the final adjustment of accounts, after the con