On this day 250 years ago at Long Bluff (present day Society Hill in Darlington County), South Carolina, Judge William Henry Drayton delivered the following charge to the Grand Jury of the Cheraws District:

By as much as you prefer freedom to slavery, by so much ought you to prefer a generous death to servitude…..Hence, by all the ties which mankind hold most dear and sacred; your reverence to your ancestors; your love to your own interest; your tenderness to your posterity; by lawful obligations of your oaths; I CHARGE YOU TO DO YOUR DUTY; to maintain the laws, the rights,, the constitution of your country, even at the hazard of your lives and fortunes.

In reply to Judge Drayton’s charge the Grand Jury adopted this declaration:

We present, as a grievance of the first magnitude, the right claimed by the British Parliament to tax us, and by their acts to bind us in all cases whatsoever. When we reflect on our other grievances, they all appear trifling in comparison with this; for if we may be taxed, imprisoned, and deprived of life, by the force of edicts to which neither we or our Constitutional Representatives have ever assented, no slavery _can be more abject than ours.

We are however, sensible that we have a better security for our lives, our liberties, and fortunes, than the mere will of the Parliament of Great Britain; and are fully convinced that we cannot be constitutionally taxed BUT by Representatives of our own election, or bound by any laws than those to which they have assented.”

This right of being exempted from all laws but those enacted with the consent of Representatives of our own election, we deem so essential to our freedom, and so engrafted in our Constitution, that we are determined to defend it at the hazard of our lives and fortunes; and we earnestly request that this Presentment may be laid before our Constitutional Representatives, the Commons House of Assembly of this Colony, that it may be known how much we prize our freedom, and how resolved we are to preserve it.”

We recommend that these Presentments be published in the several “Gazettes of this Province.

The Long Branch declaration was signed by:

Alexander McIntosh, Foreman, Henry W. Harrington, Thomas Ayers, Robert Blair, William Pegues, Robert Lide, George Hicks, John Hodges, Arthur Hart, Elias DuBose, Robert Clary, Martin DeWitt, Martin Kolb, John Kimbrough, Moses Speight, Thomas Lide, Thomas James, John Wilds. Thomas Edwards.

Almost all of these men continued to serve during the Revolutionary War. McIntosh was an immigrant from Scotland who became a Brigadier General in the South Carolina militia and died in British captivity in 1780 after the capture of Charleston. Harrington became a Brigadier General in the North Carolina militia. Ayers became a Captain in the Militia and died in service in 1781. Pegues became a member of the South Carolina Assembly. Robert and Thomas Lide both became Lt. Colonels in the militia. Hicks became a Colonel in the militia. And I assume most of the rest also served.

Source: https://darlingtoncountymuseum.org/2016/11/15/independence-at-long-buff-on-november-15-1774/; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=31778