For the government of their colony the Proprietors
had prepared a singular code of laws. By their charter
from the King, Avhich granted them all the territory
now comprised in the states of North and South Carolina
and Georgia, with an indefinite extension westward " to
the South Seas," they were enjoined to establish the
Church of England, and permitted to grant liberty of
conscience. They might make iaws, but only with the
consent of the "
greater part' of the people (a most
unusual provision for those days) ; they were to establish
a nobility, but not to give the nobles English titles;
and place and people were ever to remain " of His
Majesty's allegiance."
The Province was to be created a County Palatine,
and the Proprietors, the oldest of whom, for the time
being, was to be the Palatine, were authorized to build
forts, castles, towns, etc., to appoint governors and
officers, to make laws, levy taxes and customs, establish
the Church of England, wage war, pursue their enemies,
put down rebellion, tumult, and sedition. All these
powers they were "to have, use and enjoy in as ample
a manner as any Bishop of Durham in our kingdom of
England ever heretofore held, used, or enjoyed."
A "
County Palatine '
is a frontier province where,
for the prompt action needful when enemies are close
at hand, the King delegates the supreme power to a
"
Palatine," who can exercise for the time all regal functions.
Such had been the English counties of Chester,
Lancashire, and Durham, in the days when the Welsh
threatened the west country, and the Cathedral of Durham
was " half Church of God, half tower against the
Scot." Of the three, in the reign of Charles II., Durham
alone kept its ancient privilege ; and so the powers of
that feudal potentate, the Lord Bishop, were cited as the
model for those of the Proprietors of Carolina.
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