different parts had resolved to take the benefit of his Majesty's bounty.
Multitudes of labourers and husbandmen in Ireland, oppressed by landlords
and bishops, and unable by their utmost diligence to procure a
comfortable subsistence for their families, embarked for Carolina. The
first colony of Irish people had lands granted them near Santee river,
and formed the settlement called Williamsburgh township. But
notwithstanding the bounty of the crown, these poor emigrants remained
for several years in low and miserable circumstances. The rigours of the
climate, joined to the want of precaution, so common to strangers, proved
fatal to numbers of them. Having but scanty provisions in the first age
of cultivation, vast numbers, by their heavy labour, being both
debilitated in body and dejected in spirit, sickened and died in the
woods. But as this township received frequent supplies from the same
quarter, the Irish settlement, amidst every hardship, increased in
number; and at length they applied to the merchants for negroes, who
entrusted them with a few, by which means they were relieved from the
severest part of the labour, then, by their great diligence and industry,
spots of land were gradually cleared, which in the first place yielded
them provisions, and in process of time became moderate and fruitful
estates.




CHAP. VIII.


[Sidenote] Trade obstructed by the Spaniards of Mexico.

For several years before an open rupture took place between Great Britain