the consideration of the subject of absolute independence, Congress, by resolution, recommended the several colonies to form permanent governments, Mr. Rutledge was associated with Richard Henry Lee and John Adams, in preparing the prefatory preamble to the recommendation. He was warmly in favor of independence, and fearlessly voted for the Declaration, notwithstanding there were large numbers of people in his State opposed to it, some through timidity, some through self-interest, and some through decided attachment to the royal cause.

When, during the summer of 1776, Lord Howe, came commissioned to prosecute the war or negotiate for peace, Mr. Rutledge was appointed one of a committee with Dr. Franklin and John Adams, to meet him in conference upon Staten Island. The commissioners were instructed not to enter upon negotiations for peace, except in the capacity of representatives of free states, and having independence as a basis. As Lord Howe could not thus receive them, or listen to such proposals, the conference, as was anticipated, failed to produce any important results.

Partly on account of ill health, and partly because of the disturbed condition of his State, he withdrew from Congress in 1777, but was returned again in 1779. In the interval he was actively engaged at home in measures for the defence of the State, and to repel invasion.

Mr. Rutledge took up arms and was placed at the head of a corps of artillery. In 1780, while Charleston was invested by the enemy, he was active in affording succor to General Lincoln, then within the besieged city. In one of these operations, in attempting to throw troops into the city, he was taken prisoner, and was afterward sent, captive to St. Augustine in Florida. He remained.

*

* After the fall of Charleston, and the capture of Lincoln and the American army, Cornwallis became fearful of the influence of many citizens, and finally

a prisoner nearly a year, and was then exchanged and set at liberty. It was a gloomy time for the patriots, and the stoutest hearts began to quail. The bulk of the southern army, under Lincoln, had been made prisoners. But still hope did not quite expire, and the successes of Greene, and the victories of Marion and Sumpter, reanimated the fainting hearts of the republicans.

After the British evacuated Charleston in 1781, Mr. Rutledge retired, and resumed the practice of his profession; and for about seventeen years, his time was alternately employed in the duties of his business and service in the Legislature of his State. In the latter capacity he uniformly opposed every proposition for extending the evils of slavery.*

In 1794, Mr. Rutledge was elected to the United States Senate, to supply the vacancy caused by the resignation of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; and in 1798, he was elected Governor of his native State. But he did not live to serve out his official term. He had suffered much from hereditary gout, and on returning to Charleston after the adjournment of the Legislature, which sat at Columbia, he caught a severe cold, that brought on a paroxysm of his disease and terminated his life on the twenty-third day of January, in the year 1800. He was in the sixtieth of his age. year

adopted a most cowardly measure. By his order, the Lieutenant Governor, (Gadsden,) most of the civil and military officers, and some others of the friends of the republicans, of character, were taken out of their beds and houses by armed parties, and collected at the Exchange, when they were conveyed on board a guard-ship, and transported to St. Augustine. Mr. Rutledge was one of the number. His mother did not escape the persecutions of their masters. Cornwallis also feared her talents and influence, and compelled her to leave her country residence and move into the city, where she would be more directly under the vigilant eye of his minions.

* As a means of relief to those who, during the war, had lost a great many slaves, and were pressed for payment by those of whom they were purchased on credit, it was proposed to import a sufficient number, either from the West Indies, or from Africa direct, to make up the deficiency. All such evil propositions met no favor from Edward Rutledge.

This May wards Jun

HOMAS HAYWARD was born in St. Luke's parish, South Carolina, in the year 1746. His father, Colonel Dame Hayward was one of the wealthiest planters in the Province, and fully appreciating the advantages of education, he placed his son Thomas in the best classical school in that region. He was a thoughtful and industrious student; and so readily did he master the Latin, that he read with fluency the works of the Roman historians and poets, in that language.

As soon as young Hayward had completed his preparatory studies, he entered as a student, the law office of Mr. Parsons, a barrister of considerable eminence in South Carolina, at that time. Having accomplished his task well, his father sent him to England at the age of about twenty years, to finish his legal education there. He entered one of the Inns of court at the Temple, and there he prosecuted his studies with as much zeal as if poverty had been his inheritance, and the bread of his future existence depended upon his personal exertion when he should enter the profession. This zeal brought him invaluable treasures in the form of a well-stored mind, and he left that intellectual retreat, a polished lawyer.

While in England, Mr. Hayward, became deeply impressed with the injustice of the prevailing feeling there, that a colonial British subject was quite inferior (and should be treated as such) to the native born Englishman. Such was the sentiment of society, and upon this sentiment, the government seemed to act by appointing to office in the colonies few but natives of the British Islands; and in its carelessness of the rights and privileges of the colonists, as if they were not equally protected by the broad ægis of the British Constitution. These things, even at that early age, alienated his affection from the mother country, and he returned to his native land with mortified feelings, and a heartfelt desire to free it from the bondage of trans-atlantic rule.

Before returning to America, Mr. Hayward visited several of the states of Europe, and instead of being dazzled by the pomp and trappings of royalty and its minions, he looked upon them all as the costly and bloodstained fruit of wrong and oppression; and he saw in the toiling, down-trodden millions of the producers, such a contrast to the happy laborers of his own dear land, that he felt an affection for his country of the tenderest nature,

and his patriotism took deep root, even while he stood before the throne of royal rulers.

Soon after his return, Mr. Hayward entered upon the practice of his profession. He married a most amiable and accomplished young lady, named Matthews; and with a sedateness and energy of purpose, rare at his age, he commenced his career of usefulness. He was among the earliest in South Carolina who resisted the oppressive measures of the Home. Government, and from the passage of the Stamp Act, until the battle of Lexington, he consistently and zealously promoted the patriot cause, ever repudiating the degrading terms of conciliation-absolute submission-which the British Government demanded. The openness and manly frankness with which he espoused the patriot cause, made him a leader in the revolutionary movements in that Province, and he was placed in the first General Assembly, that organized after the abdication of the colonial governor. He was also appointed a member of the first "Committee of Safety" there.

In 1775, Mr. Hayward was chosen a delegate to the General Congress. He at first modestly declined the honor, but being waited upon personally by a deputation of the people, he complied, and took his seat early in 1776. He warmly supported Mr. Lee's motion for absolution from British rule, when brought forward in June of that year, and he joyfully voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence. He remained in Congress until 1778, when he accepted the appointment of Judge of the criminal and civil courts of South Carolina. This acceptance and his previous offence in signing the Declaration, made him very obnoxious to the enemy, and great efforts were made, through the treacherous tories, to get possession of his person.*

*The position he held was one of great danger and trial, and nothing but the promptings of pure patriotism could have kept him there, for his pecuniary means