Full Title: The World in Miniature: or, The Entertaining Traveler. Giving an Account of every Thing necessary and curious; As to situation, Customs, Manners, Genius, Temper, Diet, Diversions, Religious and other Ceremonies; Trade, Manufacturers, Arts, and Sciences; Government, Policies, Laws, Religions, Buildings; Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Plants, Reptiles, Drugs; Cities, Mountains, Rivers, and other curiosities, belonging to each Country. Vol. II. Containing AMERICA, and the Isles thereof To which is added, an Account of England, Scotland, and Ireland; with the Isles adjacent. With several curious and useful Tables. By Mr. John Fransham of Norwich. London: Printed and sold by John Torbuck, In Clare-Count near Drury Lane, and most Booksellers and Publishers in Town and Country.
SOUTH-CAROLINA
Situation.
South-Carolina is not only situated in the same Degree of Heat, Fertility, and Temperature of Air, as Barbary, Syria, Persia, China, and in general all the best Countries in the Universe, viz. in about 33 Deg, of Lat but is also the only Country of all those the English possess, that is situated in that Degree. The entire Liberty of Conscience, and Commerce, in all Probability will in Time make it a very flourishing Settlement. They now produce and ship off yearly about 60,000 Barrels of Rice, each of 400 Weight; they have also shipp’d off about 70,000 Deer-Skins, at a Medium, for ten Years past; about 20,000 Barrels of Pitch; and 10,000 of Turpentine. the Pitch-pine is as good for Masts and Planks as any in the world, and their Live-oak the best (not excepting the English) for Knees for Shipping. This part of Carolina produces much Rice, but little Tobacco. On the contrary, N. Carolina produced a good Quantity of Tobacco, and but little Rice.
In 1729 King George the II. having purchased all Carolina of the former Proprietors, sent over SirAlexander Cummins, a Scotch Gentleman, to take a View of the most distant Parts of the Country: He went to the first Town of the Charokee-Indians, being about 300 Miles from Charles-Town, and there met with some of their Chiefs, and receiv’d their Submission to the King of Great Britain on their Knees, whom Sir Alexander call’d the Great Man on the other Side the Great Water, telling them that all his Subjects were to him as his Children. He pros’d to take six of their chiefs with him to England to do Honour to King George in Person. Six of them immediately offer’d to go with him, they all embark’d the 4th of May, and arriv’d in Dover the 6th of June, 1730; they were all admitted to an Audience by his Majesty, and they, in the Name of their respective Nations, promis’d to remain his most faithful and obedient Subjects: Then a Treaty of Alliance was drawn up, which was sign’d by the six Chiefs on the one Side, and by Allured Popple, Esq; Secretary to the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations on the other. They were afterwards shewn the publick buildings, and being loaded with Presents, were sent back in one of his Majesty’s Ships.
There is a rational Prospect of considerable Advantage to the English from this Settlement, since we find this Country will produce those many articles we want most, such as Silk, Wine, Oil, Rice, Furs, Skins, and naval Stores.
As to the Spaniards attacking us there, what they do of that Nature must be done very suddenly, if at all; for that Frontier will be put into such a Posture of Defence in a very little Time, that it will not be in the Power of Spain to hurt us. The Crown of Great Britain has never interpos’d with that Vigour in Defence of any of her Colonies, as it has in Behalf of Georgia, and that with very good Reason, it being the King’s peculiar Property, as well as both the Carolina’s all of which will be secur’d by this Barrier, and the Lands of those Colonies consequently render’d of ten Times the Value, they were, when they lay exposed to the Ravages of the Spaniards and the Indians. As to the French they have a desart Country of 3 or 400 Miles to pass over from their Settlements, before they can reach the Frontiers of Carolina. The Spaniards in Florida are much more in Dangerfrom them, than the English and therefore it stands them in Hand, to have a good Understanding with Great Britain.
Eighteenth-Century Reading Room 