The Life of Francis Marion [8]
our English," when placed in like circumstances -- that they were no longer desolate and dependent, and had grown vigorous, and perhaps wanton, in the smiles of fortune -- was quite enough to re-awaken in the bosoms of "our English" the ancient national grudge upon which they had so often fed before. The prejudices and hostilities which had prevailed for centuries between their respective nations, constituted no small part of the moral stock which the latter had brought with them into the wilderness. This feeling was farther heightened, at least maintained, by the fact that France and England had contrived to continue their old warfare in the New World; and, while French emissaries were busy in the back parts of the colony, stimulating the Creeks and Cherokees to hostility, it was perhaps natural enough that the English, whose frontiers were continually ravaged in consequence, should find it easy to confound the "parley-vous", their enemies, with those, their neighbors, who spoke the same unpopular language. It is not improbable, on the other hand, that the Huguenot settlers were a little too exclusive, a little too tenacious of their peculiar habits, manners, and language. They did not suffer themselves to assimilate with their neighbors; but, maintaining the policy by which they had colonized in a body, had been a little too anxious to preserve themselves as a singular and separate people. In this respect they were not unlike the English puritans, in whom and their descendants, this passion for homogeneousness has always been thought a sort of merit, appealing very much to their self-esteem and pride. In the case of the French colonists, whether the fault was theirs or not, the evil results of being, or making themselves, a separate people, were soon perceptible. They were subjected to various political and social disabilities, and so odious had they become to their British neighbors, that John Archdale, one of the proprietors, a man like Wm. Penn (and by Grahame, the historian, pronounced very far his superior), equally beloved by all parties, as a man just and fearless, was, when Governor of the colony, compelled to deny them representation in the colonial Assembly, under penalty of making invalid all his attempts at proper government. Under this humiliating disability the Huguenots lived and labored for a considerable period, until the propriety of their lives, the purity of their virtues, and their frequently-tried fidelity in the cause of the country, forced the majority to be just. An act, passed in 1696, making all aliens, THEN inhabitants, free -- enabling them to hold lands and to claim the same as heirs -- according liberty of conscience to all Christians (except Papists), &c. -- placed our refugees on a footing of equality with the rest of the inhabitants, and put an end to the old hostilities between them. --
When our traveller turned his back upon this "kind, loving, and affable people," to pursue his journey into North Carolina, his first forward step was into a howling wilderness. The Santee settlement, though but forty miles distant from Charleston, was a frontier -- all beyond was waste, thicket and forest, filled with unknown and fearful animals, and "sliding reptiles of the ground, Startlingly beautiful," -- which the footstep of man dreaded to disturb. Of the wild beasts by which it was tenanted, a single further extract from the journal of Mr. Lawson will give us a sufficient and striking idea. He has left the Santee settlements but a single day -- probably not more than fifteen miles. His Indian companion has made for his supper a bountiful provision, having killed three fat turkeys in the space of half an hour. "When we were all asleep," says our traveller, "in the beginning of the night, we were awakened with the dismallest and most hideous noise that ever pierced my ears. This sudden surprisal incapacitated us of guessing what this threatening noise might proceed from; but our Indian
When our traveller turned his back upon this "kind, loving, and affable people," to pursue his journey into North Carolina, his first forward step was into a howling wilderness. The Santee settlement, though but forty miles distant from Charleston, was a frontier -- all beyond was waste, thicket and forest, filled with unknown and fearful animals, and "sliding reptiles of the ground, Startlingly beautiful," -- which the footstep of man dreaded to disturb. Of the wild beasts by which it was tenanted, a single further extract from the journal of Mr. Lawson will give us a sufficient and striking idea. He has left the Santee settlements but a single day -- probably not more than fifteen miles. His Indian companion has made for his supper a bountiful provision, having killed three fat turkeys in the space of half an hour. "When we were all asleep," says our traveller, "in the beginning of the night, we were awakened with the dismallest and most hideous noise that ever pierced my ears. This sudden surprisal incapacitated us of guessing what this threatening noise might proceed from; but our Indian