Lives of Signers of the Declaration of Independence by Benson John Lossing

Author:Benson John Lossing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors

THOMAS HEYWARD, JR.

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THOMAS HAYWARD WAS BORN IN St. Luke’s parish, South Carolina, in the year 1746. His father, Colonel Dame Hay’ ward was one of the wealthiest planters in the Province, and fully appreciating the advantages of education, he placed his son Thomas in the best classical school in that region. He was a thoughtful and industrious student; and so readily did he master the Latin, that he read with fluency the works of the Roman historians and poets, in that language.

As soon as young Hay ward had completed his preparatory studies, he entered as a student, the law office of Mr. Parsons, a barrister of considerable eminence in South Carolina, at that time. Having accomplished his task well, his father sent him to England at the age of about twenty years, to finish his legal education there. He entered one of the Inns of court at the Temple, and there he prosecuted his studies with as much zeal as if poverty had been his inheritance, and the bread of his future existence depended upon his personal exertion when he should enter the profession. This zeal brought him invaluable treasures in the form of a well-stored mind, and he left that intellectual retreat, a polished lawyer.

While in England, Mr. Hayward, became deeply impressed with the injustice of the prevailing feeling there, that a colonial British subject was quite inferior (and should be treated as such) to the native born Englishman. Such was the sentiment of society, and upon this sentiment, the government seemed to act by appointing to office in the colonies few but natives of the British Islands; and in its carelessness of the rights and privileges of the colonists, as if they were not equally protected by the broad aegis of the British Constitution. These things, even at that early age, alienated his affection from the mother country, and he returned to his native land with mortified feelings, and a heartfelt desire to free it from the bondage of trans-atlantic rule.

Before returning to America, Mr. Hayward visited several of the states of Europe, and instead of being dazzled by the pomp and trappings of royalty and its minions, he looked upon them all as the costly and bloodstained fruit of wrong and oppression; and he saw in the toiling, down-trodden millions of the producers, such a contrast to the happy laborers of his own dear land, that he felt an affection for his country of the tenderest nature, and his patriotism took deep root, even while he stood before the throne of royal rulers.

Soon after his return, Mr. Hayward entered upon the practice of his profession. He married a most amiable and accomplished young lady, named Matthews; and with a sedateness and energy of purpose, rare at his age, he commenced his career of usefulness. He was among the earliest in South Carolina who resisted the oppressive measures of the Home Government, and from the passage of the Stamp Act, until the battle of Lexington, he consistently and

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