The " paternal command " of Charles I. that 

 th'3 planters should make no more than 100 lbs. 

 of tobacco per man, on the ground that he could 

 not aiford to give them above '-is. the pound lor 

 it, they had affectionately resisted so far as the 

 obstacles in their way permitted them : it was 

 not, therefore, to be supposed that the^' would 

 now curtiiil their field labors in relation to their 

 favorite product, the foreign demand for which 

 \vas annually increasing. When, however, ne- 

 cessity constrained them to try the expedient of 

 fabricating cloth, other than hemp and flax, for 

 family use, strong opposition was quickly mani- 

 fested. Francis Nicliolson, Governor of Virgi- 

 nia, in 1698 "recommended to Parliament to pass 

 an act forbidding the plantations to make their 

 own clothing ; in other words, that the planters 

 shall go naked.''* In reference to Carolina, the 

 conduct of the Colonial authorities to the planters 

 was perhaps unexceptionable. From physical 

 causes, their labor, it was foreseen, could never 

 come in competition with that of Britain. From 

 the inaptitude of Europeans for the labor requi- 

 site in such a climate, and more especially for 

 the crops suitable to the .soilof an uncleared and 

 heavily-timbered country, added to the utter' 

 ignorance of many of the emigrants in the art of 

 Agriculture, and the unacquaintance of all with 

 the productions most likely to reward their 

 labor, the early settlers, though living in a higher 

 latitude, continued to cultivate the same crops 

 in Carolina that they had done in England; »nd 

 thus, by exhausting their strength in fruitless 

 struggles, continued poor, whilst the best lands 

 were procurable at the rate of one thou.sand 

 acres for twenty pounds sterling. Insensibly, 

 however, they engaged in that department of 

 husbandry, which, while it required little ex- 

 posure and personal strength, served to supply 

 England and the West-Indies with such articles 

 as they respectively needed, in exchange for 

 what the Colony was unable to produce.! The 

 raising of silk was introduced into the country 

 by Sir Nathaniel .Johnson about the year 1703. 

 The mulberry being an indigenous tree, and the 

 great demand for silk in England, concurred to 

 render this an encouraging branch of industry. 

 In 17.59, 10,000 lbs. of raw silk were produced 

 in this State.l The growing of rice§ followed 



* Idem, p. 92. 



f To Great Britain were exported ftirs, deer skinsi 

 rosin, tar, pitcfi, and raw silk, in exchange for woolent 

 cotton and silk goodB, arms, ammunition, and agricul- 

 tural implements ; to the \Ve.'t-Indie?, beef, pork, 

 butter, candles, soap, tallow, myrtle wax candles, 

 pitch and tar, cedar and pine boards, shingles, hoops, 

 gtaves, and heads fur ban-els, in return for rum, mo- 

 lasses, sugar. Cotton, chocolate made up, and cocoa- 

 nuts. 



t To a verj' rich satin damask, now in the poRsea- 

 sion of Mrs. F. Rutledge of Charleston, the following 

 memorandum is affixed : — " In 175.3, Mrs. Pinckney 

 [see page 177 j took with her to Kngland a quantity of 

 silk spun fi-om worms of her own raising at Belmont, 

 near Charleston. It was considered by the manufac- 

 turers equal to any imported from Itiily. The quan- 

 tity was sufficient to be woven into three dress pat- 

 teiiis; one of whicli IVIrs. Pinckney presented to the 

 Princess Dowager of Wales, mother of George III. ; 

 another to Lord Chesterfield, the third she brought 

 back to America.'' 



§ A bag of rice was given to Landgrave Praith, in 

 1695, by ihe Captain of a Briganrine from Madagas- 

 car, that touched at Charleston on her way to Britain. 

 The Governor divided the rice between Stephen 

 Bull. Joseph Woodward, and some other friends, who 

 planted their small parcels in different soils. — [Hctcitt's 

 Historical AccaurU of South- Carolina and Georgia. 

 (380) 



the business of making tar, pilch and turpen- 

 tine, that had long been one of the principal 

 employments of the land-owners. To this, about 

 forty years afterwards, was added indigo,* 

 which was soon extensively grown in certain 

 locations, where it continued to be the sole 

 staple commodity until the tobacco culture be- 

 gan to be attended to. Although the climate 

 and soil were experimentally known to be well 

 adapted to the Cotton Plant, yet, as before the 

 introduction of negroes, other crops had em- 

 ployed the time of the planters, when that event 

 occurred, rice proved to be so lucrative a busi- 

 ness that, from 1703, it engrossed their whole 

 strength and attention. 



In the infancy of the Colony, the advice of 

 the Trustees of Georgia to the planters to culti- 

 vate the vine and mulberry to make wine and 

 silk, because " in work of that light kind, poor 

 women and children might be usefully and ad- 

 vantageously employed," was generally un- 

 heeded. Like their more northern neighbors, 

 thej' obeyed the dictates of their own will, in 

 the belief that their sagacity would soon discov- 

 er the shortest -way of arriving at the goal of 

 their desire. They continued, therefore, in the 

 vocation of growing rice and indigo, and provid- 

 ing naval stores for the West India and English 

 trado until the breaking out of hostilities with 

 the mother country. In that year, while a Cot- 

 ton patch was no unusual spectacle. Col. Dela- 

 gall, of South Carolina, who bad joined Gen. 

 Oglethorpe, as Lieut. Delagall, cultivated thirty 

 acres of the green seed kind, near Savannah. 



In a pamphlet of the date of 1666, entitled 

 "A Brief Description of the Province of Caroli- 

 na, on the Coast of Florida," the writer, in speak- 

 ing of the Cape Fear settlements, made only 

 two j-ears before, says they have " indigo, tobac- 

 co, very good, and Cotton, wool." Dr. Hewitt, 

 in his historical account of South-Carolina and 

 Georgia, while commenting on the introduction 

 of silk into the fonner, and the products of the 

 earth for which premiums ought then to have 

 been given to those vvho should bring to market 

 the greatest quantities of them, alluded particu- 

 larly to Cotton, and, after detailing the manner 

 of planting it, remarks that this article, " though 

 not of importance enough to have occupied the 

 whole attention of the Colonists, might, never- 

 theless, in conjunction with other staples, have 

 been rendered profitable and u.seful.''t In Wil- 

 son s account of the "Province of Carolina in 

 America," published in 1682, it is stated that 

 Cotton of the Cyprus and Malta sort grows well, 

 and a good plenty of the seed is sent thither."! 

 In Peter Parry's description of the Province of 



* In 1741 or '42, George Lucas. Governor of An- 

 tigua, sent to his daughter Eliza, afferwards Mi-s. 

 Pinckney, the distingiiit^hed lady previously alluded 

 to, some seed, its an experiment. From its pro- 

 duce was made the first indigo that was grown in 

 South-Carolina. In 1745, this plant was discovered 

 growing spontaneously in the woods. Two years 

 afVerwai'ds, a large quantity of indigo (from imported 

 seed principally) was sent to Enyland, which induced 

 the merchants trading to Cai-olina to petition Parlia- 

 ment for a bounty on Carolina indigo. — Hewitt. The 

 Ka.st is indebted to the Western continent for this 

 plant. The high bounties of the Briti.ah Goveniment, 

 assisted by the knowU dge of a Mr. Gray, once the 

 overseer of John Bowman of Charleston, who carried 

 to Bengal the American mode of manufacturing the 

 produce, extended its growth in India. 



t Carroll's Historical Collections of South-CarollDa, 

 vol. L p. 141. 



t Idem, vol. ii. p. 84 



