gatherer thence of many
that were hardy and sound, many that were unfortunate, and many that
were shiftless and untamed. An uncouth nurse of a turbulent democracy
was Albemarle.

Cape Fear, far down the deeply frayed coast, seemed a proper place to
which to send a colony. The intrusive Massachusetts men were gone. But
"gentlemen and merchants" of Barbados were interested. It is a far
cry from Barbados to the Carolina shore, but so is it a far cry from
England. Many royalists had fled to Barbados during the old troubles, so
that its English population was considerable. A number may have welcomed
the chance to leave their small island for the immense continent; and an
English trading port as far south as Cape Fear must have had a general
appeal. So, in 1665, came Englishmen from Barbados and made, up the Cape
Fear River, a settlement which they named Clarendon, with John Yeamans
of Barbados as Governor. But the colony did not prosper. There arose the
typical colonial troubles--sickness, dissensions, improvidence, quarrels
with the aborigines. Nor was the site the best obtainable. The settlers
finally abandoned the place and scattered to various points along the
northern coast.

In 1669 the Lords Proprietaries sent out from England three ships,
the Carolina, the Port Royal, and the Albemarle, with about a hundred
colonists aboard. Taking the old sea road, they came at last to
Barbados, and here the Albemarle, seized by a storm, was wrecked. The
two other ships, with a Barbados sloop, sailed on anal were approaching
the Bahamas when another hurricane destroyed the Port Royal. The
Carolina, however, pushed on with the sloop, reached Bermuda, and rested
there; then, together with a small ship purchased in these islands, she
turned west by south and came in March of 1670 to the good harbor of
Port Royal, South Carolina.

Southward from the harbor where the ships rode, stretched old Florida,
held by the Spaniards. There was the Spanish town, St. Augustine. Thence
Spanish ships might put forth and descend upon the English newcomers.
The colonists after debate concluded to set some further space between
them and lands of Spain. The ships put again to sea, beat northward a
few leagues, and at last entered a harbor into which emptied two rivers,
presently to be called the Ashley and the Cooper. Up the Ashley they
went a little way, anchored, and the colonists going ashore began to
build upon the west bank of the river a town wh