Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/416

 A Three-Cornered Election.

385

A THREE-CORNERED ELECTION. By A. M. Barnes. TN the year of our Lord 17 10, and of the •*. founding of the Colony of Carolina the fortieth, Colonel Edward Tynte was distribu tor of favors and procurer of revenues — principally land rents and taxes — of all that section lying between the southern boundary of Virginia on the north and the St. John's river on the south. In other words, he was the governor selected to push the in terests of the proprietors, and right royally did he show himself capable of so doing, as well as of moving along a wheelbarrow turn of his own now and then. He had been appointed to succeed the Very Hon. Sir Nathaniel Johnson, deposed because of " ill-administration"; some said on account of his officiousness concerning the Church Acts, others, and by far the ma jority, that it had come about through lack of briskness relative to Indian matters. The trade in Indian captives shipped to the West Indies and other markets, had fallen off twenty-five to thirty per cent. Governor Sir Nathaniel being a man of peace, or it may have been that he desired more time to give to his own private affairs, didn't stomach the business of pushing the war into the Indian country, facing the risk of losing his scalp, may be his life, for the purpose of securing captives, men, women, and children to load the ships already greedily waiting at the Charlestown wharves. He vastly preferred the more gentle industry of silkworm raising, of which he was the introducer into the col ony, rather than the more risky pursuit of dealing in live Indian skins for the pocket replenishing of his masters. At any rate, Sir Nathaniel went out under a cloud, silkworms and all, and Colonel Ed ward came in, beneath skies glowing with the promise of brilliant things in the way of a

moneyed administration. Like his prede cessor, he didn't fancy the traffic in live In dians, especially as the Indians themselves objected to it in a manner that now threatened serious consequences if persistence in it were shown. At the same time, he realized that he had been elected for revenue, and " for revenue only," and forthwith set about de vising ways and means for carrying out the chief policy of the administration. Instead of pouncing upon Indians, he found it a far safer undertaking to pounce upon delinquent land-holders, upon those who, leasing lands under the provisions of the grand model — Locke's masterpiece of anything but commonsense, — were now vastly in arrears. He also set himself to the disposal of such lands as had not yet received allotment. But Governor Tynte didn't have the oppor tunity long of showing his successful adminis tration of affairs " for revenue only," for soon he was called on to meet his own arrears, to pay the tax of nature at a higher court, de parting this life rather suddenly in the summer of the same year of his beginning to reign. Now, Governor Tynte's commission as gov ernor, or procurer of revenue, provided that, in the event of his death or resignation, his deputies should have it in their power to choose one oftheir own number to be governor until another should be appointed and sent out by the proprietors. It so happened that there were at that time only three deputies in the Province, though there should have been eight, one representing each proprietor. These were Mr. ChiefJustice Roberts Gibbes, Colonel Thomas Broughton, and Fortesque Turbeville. The last had just come out as the deputy of the Duke of Beaufort. In most of the historical records he is alluded to in what seems rather a disparaging manner as