The Life of Francis Marion | Page 8

the hearts of
men, was to be expected from their past experience and history. They
had endured too many and too superior evils in the old world, to be
discouraged by, or to shrink from, any of those which hung upon their
progress in the new. Like the hardy Briton, whom, under the
circumstances, we may readily suppose them to have emulated, they
addressed themselves, with little murmuring, to the tasks before them.
We have, at the hands of one of their number, -- a lady born and raised
in affluence at home, -- a lively and touching picture of the sufferings
and duties, which, in Carolina, at that period, neither sex nor age was
permitted to escape. "After our arrival," she writes, "we suffered every
kind of evil. In about eighteen months our elder brother, unaccustomed
to the hard labor we were obliged to undergo, died of a fever. Since
leaving France, we had experienced every kind of affliction, disease,
pestilence, famine, poverty and hard labor! I have been for six months
together without tasting bread, working the ground like a slave; and I
have even passed three or four years without always having it when I
wanted it. I should never have done were I to attempt to detail to you
all our adventures."*
-- * The narrative of Mrs. Judith Manigault, wife of Peter Manigault, as
quoted by Ramsay. -- Hist. S. C. Vol. I., p. 4. For a graphic detail of the
usual difficulties and dangers attending the escape of the Huguenots
from France, at the period of migration, see the first portion of this
letter. --

We may safely conclude that there was no exaggeration in this picture.
The lot of all the refugees seems to have been very equally severe. Men
and women, old and young, strove together in the most menial and
laborious occupations. But, as courage and virtue usually go hand in
hand with industry, the three are apt to triumph together. Such was the
history in the case of the Carolina Huguenots. If the labor and the
suffering were great, the fruits were prosperity. They were more.
Honors, distinction, a goodly name, and the love of those around them,
have blessed their posterity, many of whom rank with the noblest
citizens that were ever reared in America. In a few years after their first
settlement, their forest homes were crowned with a degree of comfort,
which is described as very far superior to that in the usual enjoyment of
the British colonists. They were a more docile and tractable race; not so
restless, nor -- though this may seem difficult to understand to those
who consider their past history -- so impatient of foreign control. Of
their condition in Carolina, we have a brief but pleasing picture from
the hands of John Lawson, then surveyor-general of the province of
North Carolina.* This gentleman, in 1701, just fifteen years after its
settlement, made a progress through that portion of the Huguenot
colony which lay immediately along the Santee. The passages which
describe his approach to the country which they occupied, the
hospitable reception which they gave him, the comforts they enjoyed,
the gentleness of their habits, the simplicity of their lives, and their
solicitude in behalf of strangers, are necessary to furnish the moral of
those fortunes, the beginning of which was so severe and perilous.
"There are," says he, "about seventy families seated on this river, WHO
LIVE AS DECENTLY AND HAPPILY AS ANY PLANTERS IN
THESE SOUTHWARD PARTS OF AMERICA. THE FRENCH
BEING A TEMPERATE, INDUSTRIOUS PEOPLE, some of them
bringing very little of effects, YET, BY THEIR ENDEAVORS AND
MUTUAL ASSISTANCE AMONG THEMSELVES (which is highly
to be commended), HAVE OUTSTRIPT OUR ENGLISH, WHO
BROUGHT WITH THEM LARGER FORTUNES, though (as it seems)
less endeavor to manage their talent to the best advantage. 'Tis
admirable to see what time and industry will (with God's blessing)
effect," &c. . . . . . . "We lay all that night at Mons. EUGEE'S (Huger),
and the next morning set out farther, to go the remainder of our voyage

by land. At ten o'clock we passed over a narrow, deep swamp, having
left the three Indian men and one woman, that had piloted the canoe
from Ashley river, having hired a Sewee Indian, a tall, lusty fellow,
who carried a pack of our clothes, of great weight. Notwithstanding his
burden, we had much ado to keep pace with him. At noon we came up
with several French plantations. Meeting with several creeks by the
way, THE FRENCH WERE VERY OFFICIOUS IN ASSISTING US
WITH THEIR SMALL DORIES TO PASS OVER THESE WATERS:
whom we met coming from their church, BEING ALL OF THEM
VERY CLEAN AND DECENT IN THEIR APPAREL; their HOUSES
AND PLANTATIONS