and population rapidly increased. In 1680, when the new town became the seat of government, there were as many as sixteen vessels discharging and loading cargo at one time.
John Locke, who had written the Fundamental Constitutions for the colony, was a Socinian, but doubtless by instruction from seven of the Lords Proprietors,—Lord Shaftesbury, the eighth, was a Deist,—the philosopher declared that the Church of England was "the only true and Orthodox and the national religion of the King's Dominions."
Not until 1680 are there any authentic records of any church in Charleston, but there appears to have been a rapid growth in grace as well as population, for in 1704 there were five places of public worship, St. Philip's (Episcopal) Church, the Huguenot Church, the First Baptist Church, the White Meeting House (Presbyterian and Congregational), and the Quaker Meeting House.
General Edward McCrady, the State's latest and ablest historian, writing of the period of 1715, says of the colony:
"In this small community of less than 6,000 there
were Churchmen from England and Barbadoes, Independents
from England, Old and New, Baptists from
