which <strong>the</strong> clerk appended to <strong>the</strong> volume containing <strong>the</strong> preceding <strong>Commons</strong><strong>House</strong> <strong>Journal</strong>. In this published edition, <strong>the</strong>y provide a useful continuity<strong>of</strong> subject matter, as <strong>the</strong> Cherokee War became almost <strong>the</strong> sole topicfor debate. Stung by <strong>the</strong> fall <strong>of</strong> Fort Loudoun and <strong>the</strong> massacre or capture<strong>of</strong> its troops, <strong>the</strong> legislators augmented <strong>the</strong> colony’s military establishmentand voted supplies for Lieutenant Colonel James Grant’s newly-arrived Britishregulars. Moreover, <strong>the</strong>y granted aid for victims <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> war and providedfor redemption <strong>of</strong> Cherokee captives.For historians interested in <strong>the</strong> Cherokee War, <strong>the</strong> South Carolinacolonial records are <strong>of</strong> uneven quality, for by <strong>the</strong> late 1750s, contemporarypolitics had led to erratic record-keeping. Early in his administration, GovernorLyttelton found that <strong>the</strong> clerk <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Council had been delivering itsexecutive journals and bound Indian documents to <strong>the</strong> <strong>Commons</strong> <strong>House</strong>committee that audited <strong>the</strong> public debt. <strong>The</strong> alleged purpose was to tally<strong>the</strong> pages and pay <strong>the</strong> clerk, but <strong>the</strong> procedure gave <strong>the</strong> people’s representativesunrestricted access to Crown records. Lyttelton invoked executiveprivilege and demanded that <strong>the</strong> <strong>Commons</strong> <strong>House</strong> ei<strong>the</strong>r pay <strong>the</strong> clerk onoath or put him on salary. 31Although Lyttelton’s prerogative ploy succeeded, it did little—fromtoday’s perspective—to preserve <strong>the</strong> colony’s historical records. Onceimplemented, it removed any financial incentive to copy documents into<strong>the</strong> Council <strong>Journal</strong>s. William Simpson, who served as clerk <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Councilduring Lyttelton’s administration, produced no voluminous journals likethose <strong>of</strong> his predecessor Alexander Gordon. Instead, he kept a loose file<strong>of</strong> papers that has since disappeared. And with no legislative oversight <strong>of</strong><strong>the</strong> journals, he even omitted twenty-four pages <strong>of</strong> Cherokee War documentsthat <strong>the</strong> Council had ordered him to copy into <strong>the</strong> Indian Book. 32<strong>The</strong> <strong>Commons</strong> <strong>House</strong> <strong>Journal</strong> recorded lists <strong>of</strong> enclosures to incominggovernor’s messages that, in effect, serve as calendars <strong>of</strong> Simpson’s files.During <strong>the</strong> 1759‒60 proceedings, both Governor Lyttelton and his successorLieutenant Governor William Bull transmitted large bundles <strong>of</strong> Cherokeedocuments as enclosures with <strong>the</strong>ir written messages. <strong>The</strong> footnotesto <strong>the</strong> present volume cite o<strong>the</strong>r copies <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> missing enclosures in collectionssuch as <strong>the</strong> Lyttelton Papers or <strong>the</strong> Fauquier Papers. Unfortunately,31 <strong>Journal</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Commons</strong> <strong>House</strong>, 1755–1757, p. 396.32 William L. McDowell, Jr., Documents relating to Indian Affairs, 1754–1765, <strong>The</strong> Colonial Records<strong>of</strong> South Carolina, series 2 (Columbia: University <strong>of</strong> South Carolina Press for <strong>the</strong> South CarolinaDepartment <strong>of</strong> Archives and History, 1970), p. 495n. <strong>The</strong> omission covered <strong>the</strong> period between May1759 and February 1760. This Indian Book—<strong>the</strong> only documentary publication relating to <strong>the</strong> CherokeeWar that <strong>the</strong> SC Archives has heret<strong>of</strong>ore published in letterpress—contains only eight documentswritten after <strong>the</strong> outbreak <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> war. <strong>The</strong> micr<strong>of</strong>ilm edition <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> BPRO Transcripts containsadditional documents—including a portion <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> material <strong>the</strong> clerk omitted.xxii
many <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se documents have not been found, and thus South Carolina’s<strong>of</strong>ficial archive <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> war cannot be totally reconstructed.<strong>The</strong> declining health that afflicted house clerk Childermas Cr<strong>of</strong>t in<strong>the</strong> late 1750s did not impair <strong>the</strong> quality <strong>of</strong> his <strong>Commons</strong> <strong>House</strong> <strong>Journal</strong>s.During <strong>the</strong> 1758‒59 proceedings, Cr<strong>of</strong>t turned <strong>the</strong> journals over to actingclerk John Bassnett and left <strong>the</strong> colony, but by 1760 Cr<strong>of</strong>t was back on <strong>the</strong>job. Despite <strong>the</strong> problems with South Carolina’s executive records <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>Cherokee War, historians may at least be grateful for thorough legislativeminutes.<strong>The</strong> text <strong>of</strong> this book has been taken from volume 32 (456 pages) andvolume 33 (416 pages) <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> original manuscripts in <strong>the</strong> South CarolinaDepartment <strong>of</strong> Archives and History. A few <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> papers included in <strong>the</strong>1757‒61 <strong>Commons</strong> <strong>House</strong> <strong>Journal</strong> were contemporaneously printed in <strong>the</strong>South Carolina Gazette, but most <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> material in this volume has neverbefore been published. Ano<strong>the</strong>r manuscript <strong>of</strong> this journal exists in <strong>the</strong>British Public Record Office, and <strong>the</strong> micr<strong>of</strong>ilm copy <strong>of</strong> it has been checkedwhenever <strong>the</strong>re seemed to be errors or omissions in <strong>the</strong> Archives manuscript.Comparison has also been made with fragments <strong>of</strong> rough journalsextant in <strong>the</strong> South Carolina Archives. <strong>The</strong> clerk’s rough drafts exist fromMay 12, 1758 to February 3, 1759, and from May 28, 1760 to July 14, 1760.<strong>The</strong> editor worked from an electronic text transcribed by ElizabethHarrison, Sandra K. Tomes, Julie Petr<strong>of</strong>f, and Sarah Prioleau..Return to contents ➔xxiii
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