Thomas Lynch, jr., one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, born in Prince George's parish, S. C, Aug. 5, 1749, died at sea in the latter part of 1770. He was educated at Eton and at the university of Cambridge, and was subsequently admitted a student in the Temple, London. In 1772 he returned to South Carolina, relinquished the profession of the law, and settled upon a plantation on the North Santee river. At the outbreak of hostilities in 1775 he was appointed a captain in the first regiment of provincial regulars raised by South Carolina, and by his arduous exertions to recruit his command seriously impaired his health. Being unanimously chosen by the provincial assembly to succeed his father, who was unable through ill health to discharge his duties as a member of congress, he took his seat in that body in 1776, but in a few months was compelled by the precarious state of his own health to retire from active political life. One of his last public acts was to affix his signature to the Declaration of Independence. Toward the close of 1770, as the only means of saving his life, he was prevailed upon to sail for St. Eustatius, where he could find a neutral vessel which would convey him to France. The ship in which he sailed was never heard from after she had been a few days at sea, and is supposed to have been lost in a violent storm which occurred about that time.