pounds sterling, to be distributed among the sufferers at Charlestown,
which relief was equally seasonable and useful on the one side, as it was
generous and noble on the other. No time should obliterate the
impressions of such benevolent actions. This gift certainly deserved to
be wrote on the table of every heart, in the most indelible characters.
For all men must acknowledge, that it merited the warmest returns of
gratitude, not only from the unfortunate objects of such bounty, but from
the whole province.

[Sidenote] A petition in favour of the rice trade.

While the war between Great Britain and Spain continued, a bill was
brought into parliament to prevent the exportation of rice, among other
articles of provision, to France or Spain, with a view to distress these
enemies as much as possible. In consequence of which, a representation to
the following effect, in behalf of the province of Carolina, and the
merchants concerned in that trade, was presented to the House of Commons
while the bill was depending before them, praying that the article of
rice might be excepted out of the bill, and endeavouring to prove, that
the prohibiting its importation would be highly detrimental to Great
Britain, and in no respect to her enemies: "The inhabitants of South
Carolina have not any manufactures of their own, but are supplied from
Great Britain with all their clothing, and the other manufactures by them
consumed, to the amount of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling
a-year. The only commodity of consequence produced in South Carolina is
rice, and they reckon it as much their staple commodity as sugar is to
Barbadoes and Jamaica, or tobacco to Virginia and Maryland; so that if
any stop be put to the exportation of rice from South Carolina to Europe,
it will not only render the planters there incapable of paying their
debts, but also reduce the government of that province to such