Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH '
his acquaintance through the world indicates how cosmopolitan in its culture
the little city was, and how prosperous if not opulent. One of the significant
characteristics of this correspondence is that a great portion of
it is addressed to merchants or planters all along the Atlantic coast of
America from Boston to Savannah and the West Indies. Those who have
seen little communication among the colonies up to the very threshold of
the Revolution have only to look here to learn otherwise.164
Christopher Gadsden (1724-1805 ), like Pringle and Laurens, married
into one of the first families of Charleston, though his success as merchant
and political figure seems to have been the result of his own exertions.
From 1760 to 1761, writing letters to the newspapers under the pseudonym
"Philopatris," Gadsden made himself popular with local people and anathema
to the Crown supporters, for he wrote defending the conduct of the
provincial militia in a campaign against the Cherokees. As a member of
the Commons House of Assembly, he became a "patriot" leader, a leader
of the "mechanics," continually pleading for resistance to British tyranny.
A constant supporter of independence, he had his quarrels with other
Revolutionary leaders in South Carolina. But he always wanted Ctliberty
with order," and consequently later as party lines developed he became an
ardent Federalist. He was a believer in "mixed government," which maintained
a balance between the wealthy and the needy, between aristocrats
and democrats.
Though his most famous letters are the political arguments published
from 1763 on, he also wrote effective and significant personal epistles to
his friends and business colleagues earlier and elsewhere, letters which
were also often strongly political and often showed a genuine comprehension
of the movements of his time and the character of his own
province. He wrote for public or private perusal letters to Charles Woodmason,
William Henry Drayton, John Swift of Philadelphia, Samuel
Adams of Massachusetts, Thomas and William Bradford of Philadelphia,
and a number of other notables in colonies to the north, including Major
General Charles Lee. Among his Carolina personal correspondents (besides
Woodmason and Drayton ) were Colonel William Moultrie, John
Lewis Gervais, Governor John Rutledge, and Thomas Heyward the Signer.
One of the more interesting groups of letters are those of 1782 to General
Francis Marion. Among his last communications was an 1801 letter to
John Adams. Gadsden's was a correspondence in its surviving examples
confined essentially to business and public affairs, primarily the latter, but
its style and tone are as individual as much private communication. It will
remain a part of the major literature of the Revolutionary era.
The Papers of Henry Laurens are more abundant and richer in their variety
than Gadsden's. Though Laurens was, like Gadsden, of the wealthy