My first day at the National Archives was extremely, unbelievably fruitful. Remember when I joked that I would find the secret of Lord William Campbell's administration? Well, I found a wealth of material in CO 5/396, the original correspondence of the Secretary of State from 1773 to 1775 regarding South Carolina. (Honestly, that file alone could write a large bit of my future dissertation if I get into grad school.) By October 1775, Campbell was in full panic mode. Even Dartmouth was telling him to calm down! I'm starting to think his panic was warranted, though, especially given the state of the province by then.
Translation: "Billy Boy, calm yourself."
Campbell and his secretary, Captain Alexander Innes, also kept track of who was in the Provincial Assembly and various committees, and they reported these revolutionaries back to Dartmouth. William Henry Drayton was quite the rabble-rouser, in case you were wondering. I'm going to call him South Carolina's Sam Adams.
LWC's "Dead to Me" List.
Oh, Edward Rutledge showed up several times in CO 5/396 too. Imagine my unbridled joy.
O Captain, My Captain!
I also looked at claims for reimbursements for aiding the "Friends of the Government" in East Florida (T 1/530/53-56) and a draft of Campbell's commission for governor of South Carolina (PC/1/3132). And, let me just state for the record, Campbell's secretary, Innes, really needed to work on his penmanship.
I judge dead people based on their handwriting.
I discovered that Campbell was more familiar with the Charleston area than I originally thought, especially from a naval perspective. While in command of the Nightingale in 1763, he was stationed in Charleston from February until April (during which time he met and married Sarah Izard, his smoking hot wife). In his journal, ADM 346/20/5, he detailed the fortifications, provisions, trade and commerce, and other port-activities of the city itself. He knew its defenses well which, I imagine, would have been useful to the commanders in the area when the fleet got into position. In fact, he noted in his 1763 journal that Rebellion Road, where the Tamar, Cherokee, and other such ships anchored, was one of the most ideal places in Charleston harbor.
Possibly one of the coolest things I saw today was Campbell's memorial claim (T 1/541/395-410), which was an entire inventory of the contents of his home at 34 Meeting Street when he left on September 15, 1775. His final total was well over £23,000 when he submitted the claim in 1778. This included every single room of his house and the outlying service buildings, as well as his plantation properties--including his slaves and what he deemed their values to be. Campbell, apparently a musician in his free time, owned a guitar and bassoon that were kept in the parlor. And I would have partied at Campbell's house if his extensive booze collection (scattered around the house) is any indication of the good times that could have been had there.
Party like a Tory.
His entire library was especially impressive. With easily over 300 volumes, it included everything from plays, philosophies, and Anson's Voyage to Don Quixote, Assembly proceedings from Nova Scotia, and his own mathematical manuscripts. I can only assume Campbell knew Spanish, Italian, French, and Latin in addition to English. But the question remains: did he speak these with a Scottish brogue?
It's too bad I'll never be able to find out--unless someone invents a time machine. Hint, hint.
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