The Journal of the Commons House of Assembly

Volume PrefaceTHE NEW COMMONS HOUSE that convened in October 1757showed no inclination to resume the fight over legislative privilege thathad inflamed relations with the Council, exasperated royal governors, andstalled public business. As great military events transpired on the NorthAmerican continent and elsewhere, the political climate changed. TheBritish Crown’s financial demands on South Carolina dampened the feudbetween the Commons House and His Majesty’s Council. But it set thegovernor and Commons House at odds, and the colony’s politics fell intoa monotonous pattern of petty bickering.The task that confronted Governor William Henry Lyttelton mighthave frustrated him even if he had been a really suave and gifted politician.By the time the newly-elected legislators assembled in Charlestown’s StateHouse, the city contained over 1,700 British troops—Royal Americans,provincials, and Highlanders—sent to defend the southern frontier againstFrench incursions. The existing barracks had been built to house only thehandful of British Independents who normally composed the Charlestowngarrison. Lyttelton had to ask the Commons House for permanent quarters,bedding, and supplies for the troops. 1Though the legislature’s allowances were neither prompt nor generous,they were adequate. But the South Carolina planters’ and merchants’penny-pinching habits irked the governor and the military. For instance,when Lyttelton and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Bouquet transmitted a statementof the quarters that Philadelphia had provided for the Royal Americans,the members of a house committee tartly observed that “they have notbeen able to Learn that it is generally Customary in all His Majesty’s Dominionsto make the same Provission for Officers as in Philadelphia wasmade for the Royal Americans; neither do they Conceive that the Practiceof Philadelphia ought to be a Rule for this Province.” 2The Commons House voted money for new barracks and bedding for1 Jack P. Greene, “The South Carolina Quartering Dispute, 1757–1758,” South Carolina HistoricalMagazine, 60 (1959): 193–204.2 Below, p. 14.xiii