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CHAPTER IX BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH WESTERN POLICY, 1715-1721 The Yamasee War began a new era in British frontier policy as well as in the border history of the South. The threatened ruin of South Carolina for the first time definitely focussed the attention of the colonial authorities upon the southern frontier . The Indian war and its aftermath served also to arouse the English as never before to the encroachments of the French west of the Appalachians. Persistently exploited by the Carolinians in their appeals at home, these apprehensions led in the next five or six years to the establishment of royal government in Carolina and to the assertion by the Board of Trade of the first clearly formulated British program for challenging the progress of the French in the West. In the spring and summer of 1715 something like panic spread along the Atlantic seaboard, and even to England. The Board of Trade was warned by William Byrd that if the Cherokee joined the conspiracy, the destruction of Carolina could not be prevented.! From New York Colonel Heathcote communicated to Lord Townshend his dread of a general Indian rising, with French support, against all of the English colonies.2 Carolina, wrote Cotton Mather, in characteristic vein, 'is newly destroy'd by the dreadful Judgments of God, for which an uncommon measure of Iniquities had ripened it.' It was much to be feared, he added, 'that the Combination of the Indians is more general, than meerly for the Destruction of Carolina; and under a French and Spanish Instigation. And that some other Colonies, which, alas, are too obnoxious, may shortly suffer grievous Depredations from them.'s Craven and Spotswood pictured the French occupying. Carolina on the heels of the barbarians.4 Soon there arrived in England from South Carolina a series of addresses and petitions appealing for aid of arms and men and also for the establishment of direct royal control. 1 JBT, July 15, 1715. 2 Docs. rei. Col. Rist. N. Y., V. 433. 3 Mass. Rist. Soc. Coll., seventh series, VIII. pp. 328 f. 4 Spotswood, Letters, II. 122; Col. Rec. N. C., II. 179. [206 ] BRITISH WESTERN POLICY 207 At the first report of the crisis, the Board of Trade was directed by Secretary Stanhope, on July 7, to report on the question of assistance.5 There followed consultation with the Secretaries, and the Cabinet, eager scanning of the letters from America, questioning of planters and merchants, and pointed interrogation of the Lords Proprietors.6 Though the latter had themselves appealed to the Board for aid, they pleaded the minority of two of their number as a reason for not pledging their charter as security.7 The Board now proposed an outright surrender, but failed to arrive at terms. On July 19 they reported to Stanhope that the Proprietors were unable 'or at least not inclin'd, at their own Charges, either to send the necessary Succours upon this Exigency, or to support that province under the like for the future.' The results of proprietary neglect in the Bahamas were recalled, and the value of South Carolina set forth, as a producer of rice, naval stores, and skins, and also as a frontier. 'The situation of Carolina,' they declared, 'makes it a Frontier, as well against the French and Spaniards, as against numerous Nations of Indians, which last, at the Instigation of the former, seem to have enter'd into a General Confederacy against all our other Plantations on the Continent.' Therefore they raised the question whether it was not proper for his Majesty 'to take the preservation of so valuable a province upon him at this Juncture.'s The attack upon the Lords Proprietors was pressed both by the Board and by the Carolina agent. It soon shifted to the House of Commons, and broadened out into a general assault upon the colonial charters. August 2, 1715, a petition of the Carolina agent and several merchants trading to that province was presented. They recited the plight of the colony, complained of French encroachments, and prayed for immediate relief. August 10, the committee, which included members of the Board of Trade and merchants, reported substantially in the 5 Ibid., p. 193. 6 JBT, July 8, 13, 14, 15, 1715 (printed in Col. Rec. N. C., II. 193-6). See also McCrady, South Carolina under the Prop. Gov., pp. 538 ff., and L. M. Kellogg, 'The American Colonial Charter,' in Am. Rist. Assoc. Rep. (1903), I. 309. 7...

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