That serious distrust, among thoughtful men, to

1 The Provincial Congress of South Carolina assembled at Charleston, on Wednesday, the eleventh of January, 1775, and adjourned on Tuesday, the seventeenth of the same month. Besides approving the doings of the Continental Congress, it forbade the commencement of any Action for Debt, and the prosecution of any such Action as had been commenced since the preceding September, unless with the consent of the Committee of the Parish in which the Defendant resided; "that " Seizures and Sales upon Mortgages should he considered on the same " footing as Actions for Debts ; " "that no Summons should be issued "by any Magistrate, in small and mean Causes, without the like con- " sent of the Parish Committee ; " that " compensation should be made " by those who raise articles which may be exported " [which, agreeably to the Association of the Continental Congress, was only Sice] " to those " who cannot raise such articles, for the losses which they may sustain "by not exporting the commodities they raise," "that if the Exportation " of Rice should be continued *' [under the exception, in its favor, whicfi the Continental Congress had made'] "one-third of the llice made in the " Colony should be deposited in the hands of Committees " appointed to receive it, for the public use, at prices named by the Congress, and payable in the paper currency of the Colony, which was depreciated to seven for one of specie ; and other decrees of the most oppressive characters.