Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/317

 Pinckney, W. H. Drayton, Christopher Gadsden, Henry Laurens, John Laurens, Gabriel Manigault, William Wragg and John Foucheraud Grimké. All of these gentlemen, except one, William Wragg, were military and civil leaders in the Revolution.

Mr. Wragg, who was loyal to the King, was at first confined to the limits of his plantation, "The Barony," as it was then styled, and finally expatriated by order of the patriot Council of Safety. He went to England never to return, and up to our own day he was the only American whose name was commemorated in Westminster Abbey. Many Charlestonians were wealthy enough to travel through Europe as gentlemen of leisure, and one of them, Ralph Izard, maintained an establishment in London and travelled through France, Italy and a part of Germany.

While the pursuit of culture for its own sake is an evidence of a highly enlightened civilization, it is unfortunate that the intellectual coterie of Charleston and the neighboring parishes left so little, comparatively, to posterity. Perhaps their most notable productions during the last century were the novels of Richard Beresford and The First Comprehensive