History of North Carolina

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HISTORY

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NORTH CAROLINA

VOLUME I

THE COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PERIODS

1584—1783

By R. D. W. CONNOR

Secretary North Carolina Historical Commission

ILLUSTRATED

PUBLISHERS

THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK

1919

1

ft

Copyright, 1919

BY

THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

I

THE NEW yr

AS
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Sir Walter Raleigh
The Founder of English-speaking America

PREFACE

In the preparation of this volume, I have approached the
history of North Carolina somewhat from a different point of
view from that adopted by the historians of this period of our
history who have preceded me. My purpose has been to bring
out more fully than has heretofore been attempted the rela-
tions of North Carolina to the British Empire in America of
which it was a part. Those incidents, therefore, in our colo-
nial history in which North Carolina participated in Conti-
nental affairs have been more fully stressed than has been the
custom with our historians, while others of purely local inter-
est and importance which they have set forth in detail have
been but briefly told or omitted altogether. The plan adopted
made necessary, of course, the rejection of the chronological
order in narrating historical incidents and movements.

These volumes are long overdue and my colleagues and I
feel that it is but right to say that the publishers are in no way
responsible for the delay. Like everybody else during the
past two years we have been constantly interrupted and di-
verted from our w^ork by numerous extra duties incident to
the crisis through which our country has been passing, so that
it has been impossible to complete these three volumes of nar-
rative history within the time originally set for their publica-
tion. To the publishers who have done everything possible
to facilitate our work and have displayed the utmost patience
at the delay, we are under many obligations.

To Colonel Fred A. Olds I am under obligations for inval-
uable assistance in securing illustrations for this volume.

Raleigh, North Carolina, R. D. W. Connor.

May 16th, 1919.

in

I dedicate this book

to mp fatfjer

HENRY GROVES CONNOR

because it was he who first aroused my interest in the
history of North Carolina; because by his own life,
character and public services he has added dignity
and honor to the annals of the State ; and because in
himself he personifies that reverence for the laws and
institutions of democracy, that love of justice, and that
faith in the common man which I believe to be char-
acteristic of the people of this Commonwealth.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
The Beginnings of English-America 1

CHAPTER II
Explorations and Settlement 21

CHAPTER III
The Proprietary Government 32

CHAPTER IV
Wars and Rebellions 47

CHAPTER V
Growth and Expansion 64

CHAPTER VI
The C ary Rebellion 84

CHAPTER VII
Indian Wars of 1711-1715 100

CHAPTER VIII

Problems of Reconstruction Ill

vu

viii CONTENTS

«

CHAPTER IX

The Passing of the Proprietary 124

CHAPTER X
English and Scotch-Highlanders on the Cape Fear 143

CHAPTER XI

The Coming of the Scotch-Irish and Germans 162

CHAPTER XII
Society, Religion and Education 180

CHAPTER XIII
Political and Constitutional Controversies 210

CHAPTER XIV
Inter-Colonial and Imperial Relations 239

CHAPTER XV
Colonial Wars 258

CHAPTER XVI
Westward Expansion 287

CHAPTER XVII
The War of the Regulation 302

CHAPTER XVIII
The Stamp Act and the Continental Association 321

CHAPTER XIX

Downfall of the Royal Government 338

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER XX

Committees of Safety 354

CHAPTER XXI
The Provincial Council 367

CHAPTER XXII
Independence 389

CHAPTER XXIII
The Independent State 411

CHAPTER XXIV
Military Problems 437

CHAPTER XXV
The War in the South 455

CHAPTER XXVI
The Invasion of 1780-1781 475

CHAPTER XXVII

Peace 495

Bibliography 503

History of North Carolina

CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH-AMERICA

The first European who is known to have visited, explored
and described the coast of North Carolina was Giovanni da
Verrazzano, a Florentine navigator in the service of France.
Some writers, it is true, suppose that the Cabots preceded
Verrazzano to this region by more than a quarter of a cen-
tury; but the voyages of the Cabots are involved in so much
obscurity, and present so many points for controversy, that it
is impossible to ascertain with any degree of certainty just
what parts of North America they visited. Verrazzano, on
the contrary, left a long and detailed account of his voyage.
His purpose, like that of the other explorers of his time, was
to find a westward route to Cathay [China]. "With a crew of
fifty men, well provided with "victuals, weapons, and other
ship munition" for an eight-months' voyage, he set sail in
the ship Dauphine, January 24, 1524, from a "dishabited
rocke by the isle of Madera." After a long and stormy
voyage, and when in the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude, he
reached a low-lying coast, "a newe land," he declared, "never
before scene of any man either ancient or moderne."

Verrazzano 's landfall was off the coast of what is now North
Carolina near Cape Fear. Turning northward, and occasion-
ally sending his men ashore, he skirted the Atlantic coast as
far as Newfoundland ; thence he set sail for France, and cast
anchor in the harbor of Dieppe early in July. At Dieppe on
July 8, 1524, he wrote and dispatched to the king, Francis I,
"the earliest description known to exist of the shores of the
United States." His observations on the people and the
country, all the circumstances considered, are remarkably ac-
curate and enlightening. Although his discoveries led to no
settlements, nevertheless they form an important link in the

Vol. I— 1 1

2 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

chain of evidence that was slowly revealing to Europe the
truth about the New World; and as his report was included in
Hakluyt's ''Divers Voyages," in 1582, it probably was not
without influence upon Sir Walter Raleigh in the formulation
of his plans for planting English colonies in America.

The marvelous deeds by which Raleigh and his associates—
a group of brilliant soldiers, sailors, adventurers, and scholars
—laid the foundation of England's vast colonial empire, found
their inspiration in loyalty to the Crown and country, love of
liberty, and devotion to religion. At various times in English
history an attack on any one of these sentiments has been
sufficient to call forth the mightiest exertions of the English
nation ; during the closing years of the sixteenth century all
three were attacked at one and the same time by one and the
same arrogant power. Philip II of Spain, proclaiming Eliza-
beth of England an usurper, had laid claim to her throne, and
throughout his boundless dominions had levied and equipped
mighty fleets and armies for the purpose of establishing the
despotism of Castile by overthrowing the liberties of England.
The Pope of Rome had commissioned His Most Catholic
Majesty to lead a crusade against the national church of Eng-
land and "to inaugurate on English soil the accursed work of
the Inquisition." As one man, without regard to religious
convictions or sectarian prejudices, the English people sprang
to the defence of the throne, the Constitution, and the Church
with an enthusiasm that stirs our blood even to this day.

In this contest with Spain, says an eminent American his-
torian, England was "pitted against the greatest military
power that had existed in Europe since the days of Constan-
tine the Great. ' ' The source of Spain 's power was her colonial
possessions whence she drew the treasure that enabled her
to fit out and maintain the armaments with which she
threatened England's existence as an independent power.
"For England the true policy was limited by circumstances.
She could send troops across the Channel to help the Dutch
in their stubborn resistance [to Spanish rule], but to try to
land a force in the Spanish peninsula for aggressive warfare
would be sheer madness. The shores of America and the open
sea were the proper field of war for England. Her task was
to paralyze the giant by cutting off his supplies and in this
there was hope of success, for no defensive fleet, however
large, could watch all Philip's enormous possessions at once."
It was as the storehouse of the enemy's treasure and the source

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 3

of his supplies that America first excited real interest among
the English people.1

The man who best understood England's problem was
Walter Raleigh. Hawkins, Grenville, Drake, Cavendish, and
those other glorious English "sea kings" of the sixteenth
century, understood it well enough so far as it involved the
ravaging of Spanish coasts and the plundering of Spanish
treasure ships. But Raleigh understood that something more
permanent was needed to establish the supremacy of England
in Europe and America. It was not enough for English states-
manship to destroy the power of Spain; it must at the same
time build up the power of England, and as a step toward
this end, Raleigh conceived the policy of establishing English
colonies in North America. Such colonies would not only off-
set the Spanish settlements in the West Indies, Mexico, and
South America, and serve as bases of operations against them ;
they would also develop English commerce and afford an out-
let for English manufactures. All this the far-seeing mind
of Raleigh perceived in his great design. The work of Haw-
kins and Drake, of Grenville and Cavendish, and their fellow
sea-rovers, though of great importance in the accomplish-
ment of England's destiny, was destructive; Raleigh's work
was constructive in the highest degree, and entitles him to
first place among those who won North America for English-
speaking peoples.

The first steps which Raleigh took toward carrying his
great scheme into execution were in conjunction with his half-
brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. In November, 1577, some one
presented Queen Elizabeth with "A discourse how Her
Majesty may annoy the Kinge of Spaine by fitting out a fleet
of shippes of war under pretence of Letters Patent, to dis-
cover and inhabit strange places, with special proviso, for
their safeties whom policy requires to have most annoyed —
by which means the doing the contrary shall be imputed to the
executor's fault; your Highness 's letters patent being a mani-
fest show that it was not your Majesty's pleasure so to have
it." The writer offered to destroy the great Spanish fleets
which went every year to the banks of Newfoundland to catch
fish for the Spanish fast days. "If you will let us do this,"
he continued, "we will next take the West Indies from Spain.
You will have the gold and silver mines and the profit of the
soil. You will be monarch of the seas and out of danger from
every one. I will do it if you will allow me ; only you must

1 Fiske: Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, Vol. I, pp. II and 22.

4 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

resolve and not delay or dally — the wings of man's life are
plumed with the feathers of death." There is no signature
tothis letter, but the same idea is expressed in several places
by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and historians believe this to be
his. At any rate within less than a year Gilbert obtained
letters patent for planting an English colony in America, with
"special proviso" that there should be no robbing "by sea
or by land." In the fall of 1578 Gilbert sailed with a fleet
of seven ships, one of which was commanded by Walter
Raleigh; but a fight with Spaniards compelled the fleet to
put back into Plymouth. Five years later Gilbert sailed again,
but this time without Raleigh, "for the Queen's mind had been
full of forebodings and she had refused to let him go." The
unhappy ending of this voyage is one of the most dramatic
episodes in American history.

In 1584 Gilbert's patent was renewed in Raleigh's name.
By this patent, dated March 25, 1584, Raleigh was given "free
liberty & license * to discover, search, finde out, and

view such remote, heathen and barbarous lands, contreis, and
territories, not actually possessed of any Christian prince,
nor inhabited by Christian people." Two provisions of
Raleigh's charter deserve especial mention. One declared
the colonists "shall and may have all the privileges of free
Denizens, and persons native of England, and within our
allegiance in such like ample manner and forme, as if they
were borne and personally resident within our said Realme
of England, any law, customs, or usage to the contrary not-
withstanding." The other provision authorized Raleigh, his
heirs and assigns to enact such laws as they judged proper for
the government of the colony provided only such laws were
not inconsistent with the laws of England.

Raleigh was prompt to take advantage of his patent. Within
less than a month he had an expedition ready to sail for
America under the command of two experienced navigators,
Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow. They sailed from the
west coast of England April 27, 1584, "with two barkes well
furnished with men and victuals." A voyage of sixty-seven
days brought them, July 2, to "shole water, wher," they said,
"we smelt so sweet, and so strong a smel, as if we had bene
in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinde
of odoriferous flowers, by which we were assured, that the
land could not be f arre distant : and keeping good watch, and
bearing but slacke saile, the fourth of the same moneth we
arrived upon the coast, which we supposed to be a continent
and firme lande, and we sayled along the same a hundred and

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The Arrival of the English in "Virginia"
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From the De Bry Engravings 'of the John Wiiite Paintings, 1590

6 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

twentie English miles before we could finde any entrance, or
river issuing into the Sea. The first that appeared to us, we
entred, though not without some difficultie, & cast anker about
three harquebuz-shot within the havens mouth, on the left
hand of the same: and after thankes given to God for our
safe arrival thither, we manned our boats, and went to view
the land next adjoining, and to take possession of the same, in
the right of the Queenes most excellent Majestie, as rightfull
Queene, and Princesse of the same, and after delivered the
same over to your [Raleigh's] use, according to her Majesties
grant, and letters patent, under her Highnesse great scale."
These important proceedings were performed " according to
the ceremonies used in such enterprises."

The purpose of Amadas and Barlow was to explore the
country and fix upon a site for the first settlement. Imme-
diately after the ceremony of taking possession they "viewed
the land" about them, which they found "very sandie and low
towards the waters side. * We passed from the Sea

side towardes the toppes of those hilles next adjoining,
being but of meane higth, and from thence wee behelde the
Sea on both sides to the North, and to the South, finding no
ende any of both waves." A few days later Barlow, with
seven of his crew, "went twentie miles" across the sound,
"and the evening following," he said, "wee came to an
Island which they [the natives] call Roanoak, distant from
the Harbour by which we entered, seven leagues: *
Beyond this Island there is the maine lande. *
When we first had sight of this countrey, some thought the
first land we saw to bee the continent: but after we entered
into the Haven, we saw before us another mighty long Sea:
for there lyeth along the coast a tracte of Island, two hun-
dreth miles in length, adjoyning to the Ocean sea :
when you entred betweene them then there ap-

peareth another great Sea : and in this inclosed

Sea there are above an hundreth Islands of divers bignesses,
whereof one is sixteene miles long, at which we were, finding
it a most pleasant and fertile ground. Besides this

Island there are many, as I have sayd, most beauti-

ful and pleasant to behold."

The visitors seemed to think they had reached a veritable
paradise. Their report glowed with enthusiasm for the new
country and its people. The "soile" was "the most plentiful,
sweete, fruitful! and wholesome of all the world." There
were "above fourteene severall sweete smelling timber trees,"
while the "underwoods," were mostly of "Baves and such

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 7

like." They found the same "okes" as grew in Europe "but
farre greater and better." In the woods grew "the highest
and reddest Cedars of the world." The island was "so full
of grapes as the very beating and surge of the Sea overflowed
them," and they were "in such plenty * both on the

sand and on the greene soile on the hills, as in the plaines, as
well as on every little shrubbe, as also climing towardes the
tops of high Cedars" that in "all the world the like abun-
dance ' ' could not be found. As the men strolled down the coast
"such a flock of Cranes (the most part white) arose under"
them "with such a cry redoubled by many ecchoes as if an
armie of men had showted all together." The island "had
many goodly woodes full of Deere, Conies, Hares, and Fowle,
* in incredible abundance;" while the waters were
alive "with the goodliest and best fish in the world." The
Indians sent them "divers kindes of fruits, Melons, Walnuts,
Cucumbers, Gourdes, Pease, and divers rootes, and fruites
very excellent good, and of their Countrey corne, which is very
white, faire and well tasted."

The Englishmen were as much delighted with the natives
as with their country. They found them "very handsome and
goodly people, and in their behaviour as mannerly and civill
as any of Europe." The chief of the country, Wingina, who
was disabled by a wound received in battle, sent his brother,
Granganimeo, to welcome the strangers. Granganimeo "made
all signes of joy and welcome, striking on his head and breast
nnd afterwards on ours, to shew wee were all one, smiling and
making shewe of the best he could of all love and familiaritie."
When the Englishmen visited the natives in their villages they
"were entertained with all love and kindnesse, and with as
much bountie (after their maner) as they could possibly de-
vise. ' Thus the visitors were deceived into the belief that
their hosts were "most gentle, loving and faithful, voide of all
guile and treason, and such as live after the maner of the
golden age." Immediately after this bit of rhapsody the re-
port adds : "their warres are very cruell and bloody, by reason
whereof, and of their civil dissentions which have happened
of late yeares amongst them, the people are marvelously
wasted and in some places the countrey left desolate. ,:

The explorers of course did not neglect the opportunity
which the friendliness of the natives gave them for trade.
They had brought with them the usual trinkets for which the
Indians were always ready to trade furs and skins, gold and
silver, pearls and coral. "We fell to trading with them,"
says Barlow, "exchanging some things we had, for Chamoys,

8 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Buffe, and Deere skinnes." A bright tin dish especially
pleased Granganimeo and he gave for it "twentie skinnes,
woorth twentie Crownes"; while for a copper kettle he ex-
changed "fiftie skinnes, woorth fiftie Crownes." Gran-
ganimeo's wife, on her visit to the English ships, wore about
her forehead "a bande of white Corall"; and ''in her ears
shee had bracelets of pearles hanging downe to her middle
* > * * and these were of the bignes of good pease." Some
of the women "of the better sort," and "some of the children
•of the kings brother and other noble men" had copper pen-
dants hanging from their ears. Granganimeo "himself had
upon his forehead a broade plate of golde, or copper, for
being unpolished we knew not what mettal it should be. ' ' He
"had great liking of bur armour, a sword and divers other
things which we had : and offered to lay a great boxe of pearle
in gage for them, but we refused it for this time, because we
would not make them know, that we esteemed thereof, until
we had understoode in what places of the countrey the pearle
grew. ' '

Two months were thus spent in exploring the country,
visiting the natives, gathering information, and trading.
"Then," says Barlow, "contenting ourselves with this serv-
ice at this time, which we hope hereafter to inlarge, as occa-
sion and assistance shal be given, we resolved to leave the
countrey and to apply ourselves to returne to England, which
we did accordingly, and arrived safely in the West of Eng-
land about the middest of September. * We brought
home also two of the savages, being lustie men, whose names
were Wanchese and Manteo." The story of this voyage was
heard in England with wonder and delight. Everybody was
charmed with this wonderful new country and its "gentle,
loving" people. Elizabeth, delighted that her reign had been
signalized by so great an event, declared that in honor of her
virgin state the new country should be called "Virginia.'1

Raleigh lost no time in preparing a colony for "Virginia."
The queen conferred upon him the honor of knighthood as a
reward for his gift of "Virginia" to the Crown. He was
wealthy and famous, high in the favor of his sovereign, and
men were anxious to enlist in his service. He found no dif-
ficulty, therefore, in securing a colony led by picked men.
For governor he selected Ralph Lane. Lane, who had
already seen considerable service, was then on duty for the
Crown in Ireland, but the queen ordered a substitute to be
appointed in his government of Kerry and Clanmorris, "in
consideration of his ready undertaking the voyage to Virginia

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 9

for Sir Walter Raleigh at Her Majesty's command."2 Others
who were members of Lane's colony were "the wonderful
Suffolk boy," Thomas Cavendish, aged twenty-two years,
who, before he reached his twenty-ninth year rivaled the ex-
ploits of Sir Francis Drake in the Pacific and circumnavigated
the globe ; Philip Amadas, one of the commanders in the first
expedition to Roanoke, and now " admiral" of "Virginia";
John White, the artist of the expedition, sent by Raleigh to
make paintings of the country and its people, afterwards
governor of the "Lost Colony"; and Thomas Hariot, the
historian and scientist of the colony, "a mathematician of
great distinction, who materially advanced the science of
Algebra, and was honored by Descartes, who imposed some
of Hariot 's work upon the French as his own."3 To none
who bore a part in the efforts to plant a colony on Roanoke
Island, save Raleigh alone, do we owe more than to White
and Hariot. The work of "these two earnest and true men"
— the splendid pictures of the one and the scholarly narra-
tive of the other — preserve for us the most valuable informa-
tion that we have of Raleigh's colonial enterprises. Two
others who sailed in Lane's expedition were Wanchese and
Manteo, the two "lustie" natives who had accompanied
Amadas and Barlow to England. The fleet was under the
command of the famous Sir Richard Grenville, whose heroic
death in the most wonderful sea fight in all history is nobly
commemorated by Tennyson in one of the most stirring bal-
lads in our language.

The colony was composed of 108 men. "With marvelous
energy, enterprise, and skill Raleigh collected and fitted out
in an incredibly short time a fleet of seven ships well stocked
and well manned to transport his 'first colonie' into the wilds
of America. * * Never before did a finer fleet leave the

shores of England, and never since was one more honestly
or hopefully dispatched. There were the 'Tyger,' and the
'Roe Buck,' of 140 tons each, the 'Dorothea,' a small bark,
and two pinnaces, hardly big enough to bear distinct names,
yet small enough to cross dangerous bars and enter unknown
bays and rivers. ' ' 4 The fleet sailed from Plymouth April 9,
1585, followed the usual route by way of the Canaries and the
West Indies, reached "the maine of Florida" June 20, and

2 William Wirt Henry: Sir Walter Raleigh, in Winsor's Narra-
tive and Critical History of America, Vol. Ill, p. 111.

3 Ibid.

4 Stevens : Thomas Hariot and His Associates, p. 50.

10 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

three days later narrowly escaped wreck "ona breach called
the Cape of Feare." June 26 brought them to Wocokon,
part of the North Carolina banks, on the modern map called
, Ocracoke. The next month was spent in exploring the coast
and making the acquaintance of the natives. In the course
of these explorations an Indian stole a silver cup from one of
the visitors, whereupon the Englishmen "burned and spoiled
their corn," and thus sowed seeds of hostilitv that were soon

7 v

to ripen into a harvest of blood and slaughter. July 27 the
fleet reached Hatteras "and there rested." A month later,
lacking two days, Grenville weighed anchor for England, leav-
ing at Roanoke the first English colony that had landed on
the shores of America.

Lane's first work was to build a fort and "sundry neces-
sary and decent dwelling houses." From this "new Fort
in Virginia," September 3, 1585, he wrote to his friend Rich-
ard Hackluyt of London, the first letter, of which we have
record, written in the English language from the New World.
Lane fairlv bubbled over with enthusiasm for the new conn-
try, which, he declared, was "the goodliest soyle under the
cope of heaven." In fact, he thought "if Virginia had but
horses and kine in some reasonable proportion, * * being
inhabited with English, no realme in Christendom were com-
parable to it." To his exaggerated estimate of the riches of
the country, we may trace the failure of Lane's colony.
Three things only, he declared, were indispensable to
make Virginia desirable for colonization by the English,
viz., the finding of a better harbor than that at Roanoke;
the discovery of a passage to the South Sea; and gold.
Accordingly those energies which he ought to have devoted
to the clearing of the forest, the erection of houses, and the
tilling of the soil, he exhausted in premature explorations
and a vain search for precious metals. In the prosecution of
these undertakings the colonists consumed all of their pro-
visions and before the close of their first winter in "Virginia"
found themselves reduced to dependence upon the liberality
of the savages for food. This, of course, soon proved a pre-
carious and treacherous source of supplies.

During the winter Lane's relations with the Indians
seemed to be all that could be desired. Two of the most
powerful chiefs sent in their submission and the Indians on
Roanoke Island built weirs for the white men and planted
enough corn to feed them a year. But appearances were
deceiving. Familiarity bred contempt, and the awe with which
the red men at first regarded the whites rapidly disappeared

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when familiarity proved them to be but common men. No
longer to be welcomed as gods, they must be expelled as
intruders, and around their council fires painted warriors con-
sidered how this object might be most easily accomplished.
Their leaders in these plots were Wingina and Wanchese. It
was the former's brother Granganimeo, it will be recalled, who
had welcomed Amadas and Barlow to the New World; the
latter with Manteo had accompanied them on their return to
Europe. Granganimeo and Manteo became the fast friends,
Wingina and Wanchese the steadfast enemies of the English.
Soon after Lane 's arrival Granganimeo died, whereupon Win-
gina, in accordance with some savage custom, changed his
name to Pemisapan and began to plot the destruction of the
invaders. His plot, which came to a head in the spring of
1586, was shrewdly laid. , It embraced all the tribes north of
Albemarle Sound, numbering about 1,500 warriors. They
agreed to supply no food to the English, and to destroy their
weirs, thus compelling them to scatter in search of food.
After setting a day for the general attack, Pemisapan, in
order to avoid Lane's daily demand for food, withdrew to
Dasamonguepeuk on the mainland.

Pemisapan had planned well. Famine soon threatened
the colony and Lane was about to walk into his enemy's cun-
ning trap, when the whole plot was revealed to him. In this
emergency he acted wTith enterprise and courage. Sending
word to Pemisapan at Dasamonguepeuk that his fleet had
arrived at Croatan from England — "though I in truth," he
confesses, "neither heard nor hoped for so good adventure"
—he said that on his way to meet it he would stop by Dasa-
monguepeuk for supplies. Pemisapan was completely
deceived. Lane marched upon his camp where he found the
savage chief with several of his warriors awaiting him. At
the signal agreed upon — the slogan "Christ our victory" —
the Englishmen fell upon the savages "and immediately," as
Lane reports, "those his chief e men and himself e had by the
mercy of God for our deliverance, that which they had pur-
posed for us.': Pemisapan and several of his warriors were
killed, the rest scattered, and the conspiracy fell to pieces.
The Englishman adopted the strategy of the savage and beat
him at his own game.

A few days after this victory, Sir Francis Drake in com-
mand of a fleet of twenty-three sail arrived off the coast.
He was a welcome visitor for, says Lane, he made "a most
bountiful and honorable offer for the supply of our neces-
sities to the performance of the action wee were entered into;

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 13

and that not only of victuals, munitions, and clothing, but
also of barks, pinnesses, and boats; they also by him to be
victualled, manned and furnished to my contentation. " But
while preparations were being made to carry these generous
measures into execution, "there arose such an unwonted
storme, and continued foure dayes that had like to have
driven all on shore, if the Lord had not held his holy hand
over them." The vessels of Drake's fleet were "in great dan-
ger to be driven from their ankoring upon the coast. For we
brake many cables and lost many ankors. And some of our
fleet which had lost all, (of which number was the ship
appointed for Master Lane and his company) was driven to
put to sea in great danger, in avoyding the coast, and could
never see us againe untill we met in England. Many also of
our small pinnaces and boates were lost in this storm." As
a result of this experience, Lane, after consultation with
Drake, decided to embarke his colony for England. Then
Drake, says Lane, "in the name of the Almighty, weying his
ankers (having bestowed us among his fleet) for the reliefe
of whom hee had in that storme sustained more perill of
wrake then [than] in all his former most honourable actions
against the Spanyards, with praises unto God for all, set
saile the nineteenth of June, 1586, and arrived in Portsmouth
the seven and twentieth of July the same yeere."

Lane and his colonists found no precious metals in "Vir-
ginia," but they introduced to the English people three arti-
cles that have brought more gold and silver into the coffers
of English-speaking peoples than the Spaniards took from
the mines of Mexico and Peru. These were "uppowoc,"
"pagatour," and "openauk," articles first described for the
English people by Hariot. Though now masquerading under
other names we have no difficulty in recognizing in "uppo-
wac" our tobacco, in "pagatour" our Indian corn, and in
"openauk" our Irish potato. Everybody knows that the first
man of rank to introduce the use of tobacco to the English
people was Sir Walter Raleigh. He also introduced the cul-
tivation of the potato into England and Ireland. No greater
service was ever rendered the Irish people. So important
to their welfare lias the potato become that, though not native
to the Emerald Isle, it is best known as the Irish potato.

Shortly before Lane's embarkation for England a ship
fitted out by Ealeigh "at his owne charge" and "fraighted
with all maner of things in a most plentifull manner, for the
supply and reliefe of his colony then remaining in Virginia,"
sailed from England for Eoanoke Island. This vessel

14 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

reached Hatteras immediately after the departure of the
English colony, ''out of this paradise of the world," but find-
ing no settlers, returned to England. Two weeks later Sir
Richard Grenville arrived with three ships. After diligent
search for Lane's people he too turned his prow homeward;
but "unwilling to loose the possession of the countrey which
Englishmen had so long held, after good deliberation, he
determined to leave some men behinde to reteine possession
of the Countrey, whereupon he landed flfteene men in the Isle
of Roanoke, furnished plentifully wTith all maner of provi-
sions for two yeeres, and so departed for England.' !

Raleigh was not to be deterred from his great work by a
single failure. The next year, 1587, "intending to persevere
in the planting of his Countrey of Virginia," he sent out a
new colony "under the charge of John White, whom hee
appointed Governor, and also appointed unto him twelve
assistants, unto whom he gave a Charter, and incorporated
them by the name of Governor and Assistants of the Citie of
Raleigh in Virginia." This colony contained seventeen wom-
en and nine children. Ten of the men, it may be inferred
from their names, were accompanied by their wives and chil-
dren. They were, therefore, goin^ to "Virginia" to seek per-
manent homes. Three vessels, the Admiral, .120 tons, a fly-
boat, and a pinnace, sailed from Portsmouth April 26, 1587,
bearing this little colony to its mysterious fate. Following
advice he had received from Lane, Raleigh ordered the fleet
only to touch at Roanoke in order to bring off the men left by
Grenville, and then to proceed to the Chesapeake Bay where
he intended the settlement to be made. This order was not
obeyed because the commander of the fleet, Simon Ferdi-
nando, turned out to be a treacherous villain. LTpon reaching
Hatteras. the governor with forty men embarked in the pin-
nace for Roanoke Island, and as they left the ship Ferdinando
sent an order to the sailors in the pinnace "charging them not
to bring any of the planters backe againe," but to leave them
in the Island, "except the Governour, & two or three such
as he a) (proved, saying that the Summer was farre spent,
wherefore bee would land the planters in no other place."
From this decision there was no appeal this side of England
and White was forced against his will to land his colony on
Roanoke Island. This landing occurred "in the place where
our fifteene men were left, but we found none of them, nor
any signe that they had bene there, saving onely wee found
the bones of one of those fifteene, which the Savages had
slaine long before.'1 Passing to the north end of the island

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 15

they found the houses and the ruins of the fort built by Lane.
The houses were in good condition but the outer rooms "were
overgrown with Melons of divers sorts, and Deere within
them, feeding on those Melons." The work of repairing these
houses and the building of new ones was undertaken without
delay, and thus was begun the second attempt to found an
English colony in America.

Two incidents in the life of this colony will always have a
romantic interest. One was the baptism of Manteo who, in
accordance with Raleigh's instructions, was christened Lord
of Roanoke and Dasamonguepeuk "in reward of his faithful
service." This ceremony occurred on August 13, 1587, and
is the first instance on record of a Christian service by Eng-
lish Protestants within the boundaries of the United States.
A few days later occurred the second such service in connec-
tion with the most interesting incident in the life of the little
colony. On the 18th of August, Eleanor Dare, daughter of
Governor White and wife of Ananias Dare, gave birth to a
daughter, who was baptised on the following Sunday, "and
because this child was the first Christian borne in Virginia,
shee was named Virginia." More people perhaps know the
story of Virginia Dare than of any other baby that ever lived
in America, though the last ever heard of her was when she
was but nine days old. The State of North Carolina has com-
memorated her birth by embracing the very spot whereon
she was born into a county called Dare.

Virginia Dare was but a few days old when occurred the
last recorded event in the life of the settlement. It was neces-
sary for somebody to return to England for supplies. Two
of the governor's assistants were expected to go, but when
the time came they refused to make the trip. Then "the
whole company both of the Assistants and planters came to
the Governour, and with one voice requested him to returne
himselfe into England, for the better and sooner obtaining
of supplies, and other necessaries for them." At first he
would not listen to their entreaties, alleging that many of
the colonists had been induced to come by his persuasion, and
that if he left them he would be accused of deserting the col-
ony. Besides they "intended to remove 50 miles further up
into the maine presently," and he must remain to superin-
tend this removal. But the next day "not onely the Assist-
ants but divers others, as well women as men," renewed their
request and offered to sign a statement "under their hands
and seals" that his return was made at their earnest entreat-
ies. This statement was duly executed and White "being at

16 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the last through their extreme intreating constrayned to
returne into England," set sail from Roanoke August 27th.
From that day to this the fate of Virginia Dare and the Roan-
oke settlers has been a mystery.

Upon his arrival in England, White found the whole coun-
try astir over the approach of the Spanish Armada called
"Invincible." Every English vessel and every English sailor
was in demand for the defence of the kingdom. There was
no busier man in all England than Sir Walter Raleigh, yet
he found time to listen to White's story and to prepare a
small expedition for the relief of his colony ; but at the very
last moment orders came forbidding it to sail. Raleigh's
influence, however, was deservedly great, and in April, 1588,
he secured permission for two small vessels to go to Roanoke.
They set sail but were driven back by Spanish war vessels.
It was then too late to give any further attention to the hand-
ful of settlers across the Atlantic; the great "Invincible
Armada" was bearing down on England's coast and every
man's first duty was at his post to defend his home and fire-
side. Finally the great battle was fought and the Spaniards
were driven crushed and shattered from the English Chan-
nel. "God blew with his winds and they were scattered."

It was March, 1590, before White finally sailed for Roan-
oke. Unfortunately he did not command the vessel in which
he sailed but embarked as a passenger in a ship engaged in
the West Indian trade. He arrived at Hatteras in the after-
noon of August 15th. "At our first coming to anker on this
shore," he wrote, "we saw a great smoke rise in the He Roan-
oke neere the place where I left our Colony in the yeere 1587,
which smoake put us in good hope that some of the Colony
were there expecting my returne out of England." The sea
was rough and the crew experienced great difficulty in reach-
ing Roanoke Island. On one of the attempts seven men were
drowned. The last attempt was made with two boats manned
by nineteen men. The experience of this party can best be
given in White's own language. Says he: "before we could
get to the place, where our planters were left, it was so
exceeding darke, that we overshot the place a quarter of a
mile ; there we espied towards the North end of the Hand ye
light of a great fire thorow the woods, to which we presently
rowed: when wee came right over against it, we let fall our
Grapnel neere the shore, & sounded with a trumpet Call, &
afterwards many familiar English tunes of Songs, and called
to them friendly ; but we had no answer, we therefore landed
at day breake, and coming to the fire, we found the grasse &

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 17

sundry rotten trees burning about the place. From hence
we went thorow the woods to that part of the Island directly
over against Dasamonguepeuk, & thence we returned by the
water side, round about the North point of the Island, untill
we came to the place where I left our Colony in the yeere

1586 [1587]. In all this way we saw in the sand the print of
the Savages feet of 2 or 3 sorts troaden ye night, and as we
entered up the sandy banke upon a tree, in the very browe
thereof were curiously carved three faire Romane letters
CRO: which letters presently we knew to signifie the place,
where I should find the planters seated, according to a secret
token agreed upon between them & me at my last departure
from them, which was, that in any wayes they should not fail
to write or carve on the trees or posts of the dores the name of
the place where they should be seated ; for at my coming away
they were prepared to remove from Roanoke 50 miles into
the maine. Therefore at my departure from them in An.

1587 I willed them, that if they should happen to be distressed
in any of those places, that then they should carve over the
letters or name, a Crosse X in this forme, but we found no
such sign of distresse. And having well considered of this,
we passed toward the place where they were left in sundry
houses, but we found the houses taken down, and the place
very strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees,
with cortynes and flankers very Fortlike, and one of the chiefe
trees or postes at the right side of the entrance had the barke
taken off , and 5 foot from the ground in fayre Capitall letters
was graven CROATOAN without any crosse or signe of dis-
tress ; this done, we entered into the palisado, where we found
many bares of Iron, two piggies of lead, foure yron fowlers,
Iron sacker-shotte, and such like heavie things, throwen here
and there, almost over-grown with grasse and weedes. * * *
Presently Captaine Cooke and I went to the place, which was
in the ende of an olde trench, made two yeeres past by Cap-
tain Amadas: where wee found five Chests, that had bene
carefully hidden of the Planters, and of the same chests three
were my owne, and about the place many of my things spoyled
and broken, and my books torne from the covers, the frames
of some of my pictures and Mappes rotten and spoyled with
rayne, and my armour almost eaten through with rust . * * *
but although it much grieved me to see such spoyle of my
goods, yet on the other hand I greatly joyed that I had safely
found a certaine token of their safe being at Croatoan, which
is the place where Manteo was borne, and the Savages of the
Hand our friends."

Vol. 1—2

18 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Preparation- were made to proceed to Croatan "with as
much speede" as possible, for the sky was threatening and
promised a "foule and stormie night." The sailors embarked
"with much danger and labour." During the night a fierce
storm swept the sound and the next day "the weather grew
to be fouler and fouler." The winds lashed the sea into a
fury, cables snapt as though made of twine, three anchors
were cast away and the vessels escaped wreck on the sand
bars by a hair's breadth. Food ran low and fresh water gave
out. Captain Cooke now refused to continue the search and
determined to go to St. Johns, or some other island to the
southward for fresh water and to continue in the West Indies
during that winter "with hope to make 2 rich voyages of
one.': Governor White, much against his wishes, was com-
pelled to acquiesce in this arrangement, but at his "earnest
petitions" Captain Cooke agreed to return in the spring and
renew the search for the colonists. It is well known that
this was not done, for the voyage to the West Indies was
unfortunate, the plans of the adventurers went awry, and
they were compelled to return to England without going by
way of Croatan. Thus was lost the last chance of learning
definitely the fate of the "Lost Colonv. "'

5 A discussion of the fate of the "Lost Colony" would be foreign
to the purpose of this book. Those who wish to pursue this phase of
the subject will find exhaustive treatments of it in "Sir Walter Ra-
leigh's Lost Colony," by Hamilton McMillan, A. M., Advanee Presses,
Wilson. X. C. 1888; in "The Lost Colony of Roanoke," by Stephen
B. Weeks. Ph. D.. The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1891 ; and in
"Virginia Dare." by S. A. Ashe, in the "Biographical History of
North Carolina." Vol. IV. pp. 8-18, Charles L. Van Noppen. Pub-
lisher. Greensboro, N. ('.. 1906.

The theory advanced in these interesting discussions is that the
colonists despairing of the return of White, moved to Croatan, inter-
married with the Croatan Indians, and became the ancestors of the
present tribe of Croatans in North Carolina. In support of this
theory, appeal is made to White's narrative, above quoted; to John
Smith "s narrative; to a pamphlet entitled "A True and Sincere Dis-
course of the Purpose and Ende of the Plantation begun in Virginia,''
published in 1610; to Strachey's "History of Travaile in Virginia
Britannia," written sometime between 1612 and 1616, but not pub~
lished until 1849; to John Lawson's "History of Carolina." pub-
lished in 1709; and finally to the traditions, character, disposition,
language and family names of the North Carolina Croatans of the
present day.

Doctor Weeks thus summarizes the arguments in support of this
theory: "Smith and Strachev heard that the colonists of 1587 were
still alive about 1607. They were then living on the peninsula of Dasa-
monguepeuk, whence they travelled toward the region of the Chowan
and Roanoke rivers. From this point they travelled toward the south-
west, and settled on the upper waters of the Neuse. John Lederer

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 19

The departure of White did not end the search for the
colonists. Other expeditions were sent out without success. As
late as 1602 such an expedition sailed under the command
of Samuel Mace. By the time Mace returned with his repe-
tition of the sad story of failure, Raleigh had been attainted
and his proprietorship to " Virginia" had escheated to the
Crown. His efforts had cost him a large fortune amounting,
it is estimated, to not less than a million dollars of our
money. But, though his financial resources were exhausted,
his spirit was as determined as ever, and he never despaired
of seeing an English colony planted in "Virginia." "I shall
yet live to see it an English nation, ' ' he wrote just before his
fall. To the realization of this prophecy no man contributed
more than he. Among those who subscribed funds for the
founding of the Jamestown colony were ten of those who con-
stituted the incorporators of the "Citie of Raleigh in Vir-
ginia" in 1587. In these men we have the connecting link
between the Roanoke settlements and Jamestown. Therefore,
although he himself never set foot on "Virginia soil," Raleigh
will always be esteemed the true parent of North American
colonization. An idea like his has life in it, though the plant
may not spring up at once. When it rises above the surface
the sower can claim it. Had the particular region of the New
World not eventually become a permanent English settle-
ment, he would still have earned the merit of authorship of
the English colonizing movement. As Humbolt has said, "with-
out him, and without Cabot, North America might never
have grown into a home of the English tongue."6 This Avas

heard of them in this direction in 1670 and remarked on their beards,
which were never worn by full-blooded Indians. Rev. John Blair
heard of them in 1704. John Lawson met some of the Croatan In-
dians about 1709, and was told that their ancestors were white men.
White settlers came into the middle section of North Carolina as early
as 1715, and found the ancestors of the present tribe of Croatan
Indians tilling the soil, holding slaves, and speaking English. The
Croatans of today claim descent from the Lost Colony. Their habits,
disposition, and mental characteristics show traces both of savage and
civilized ancestry. Their language is the English of three hundred
years ago, and their names are in many cases the same as those borne
by the original colonists. No other theory of their origin has been
advanced, and it is confidently believed that the one here proposed
is logically and historically the best, supported as it is, both by ex-
ternal and internal evidence. Tf this theory is rejected, then the
critic must explain in some other way the origin of a people which,
after the lapse of three hundred years, show the characteristics,
speak the language, and possess the family names of the second Eng-
lish colony planted in the western world." — "The Lost Colony of
Roanoke,''' pp. 38-39.

6 Stebbing : Sir Walter Ralegh, p. 48.

20 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Raleigh's greatest service to England and to the world.
"Baffled in his efforts to plant the English race upon this con-
tinent, he yet called into existence a spirit of enterprise
which first gave Virginia, and then North America, to that
race, and which led Great Britain, from this beginning, to
dot the map of the world with her colonies." Such are the
results that have sprung from the efforts of Raleigh, Lane,
and White to plant an English colony on the shores of North
Carolina. That judgment, therefore, is correct which declares
that, looking back upon the events of the last three centuries,
"We can hail the Roanoke settlement as the beginning of
English colonization in America."7

7 Henry: "Sir Walter Raleigh," in Winsor's Narrative and
Critical History of America, Vol. Ill, p. 105.

CHAPTER II
EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENT

Raleigh's efforts to plant a colony on Roanoke Island had
failed, but they were not in vain. His work had stimulated
the interest of the people of England in America, while his
idea of another England beyond the Atlantic aroused in them
that spirit of conquest and colonization to which the English
race in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in Australia, in the islands
of the sea, and in America owes the world-wide predominance
which it today enjoys among the races of mankind. In spite
of their losses and disappointments, neither Raleigh nor
those associated with him thought for a moment of abandon-
ing their great purpose. They were quick, however, to take
advantage of the lessons which their experience had taught
them. Their failure had made it clear that the work of colon-
ization was too costly to be successfully borne by any private
individual ; only the purse of the sovereign, or the combined
purses of private persons associated in joint-stock companies
were long enough to bear the enormous expenses incident to
the settlement of the American wilderness. Out of Raleigh's
bitter experience at Roanoke, therefore, came the organization
of the great joint-stock company, known as the London Com-
pany, which at Jamestown in Virginia planted the first per-
manent English settlement in America. There is a vital
connection between Roanoke and Jamestown. Among the
subscribers to the stock of the London Company were ten of
the men who had been associated with Raleigh in his efforts to
plant a colony at Roanoke ; while from the colony into which
Jamestown subsequently developed came the first permanent
settlers in the region which had been the scene of Raleigh's
work.

A glance at the map will show why North Carolina re-
ceived its first permanent settlers from Virginia. The dan-
gerous character of the Carolina coast and the absence of
good harborage made the approach too difficult and uncertain
to admit of colonization directly from Europe. This became

21

22 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

apparent from the experience of Raleigh's first colony, and
Raleigh himself, as we have seen, directed John White, in
1587, to seek a site on Chesapeake Bay. His commands,
through no fault of White, were not obeyed and the result,
as White later found to his sorrow, was disastrous. Twenty-
two years later, the London Company, guided by Raleigh's
experience, directed the Jamestown colony toward the Chesa-
peake. The first settlers, for obvious reasons, sought lands
lying along navigable streams ; consequently the water
courses, to a large extent, determined the direction of the
colony's growth. Many of the streams of southeastern Vir-
ginia flow toward Currituck and Albemarle sounds in North
Carolina, and the sources of the Roanoke, the Chowan, and
other important rivers of northeastern North Carolina are
in Virginia. Moreover, the soil, the climate, the vegetation,
and the animal life of southeastern Virginia are similar to
those of the Albemarle region. It should be remembered, too,
that until 1663 this region was an organic part of Virginia.
Nothing, therefore, was more natural than that the planters
e-f Virginia, searching for good bottom lands, should gradually
extend their plantations southward along the shores of Albe-
marle Sound and the rivers that flow into it.

The Virginians early manifested a lively interest in the
country along the Albemarle Sound. Nansemond County in
Virginia, which adjoins the Albemarle region on the north,
was settled as early as 1609, and during the next few years
many an adventurous explorer, hunter, and trader made him-
self familiar with the streams that pour into Albemarle and
Currituck sounds. No records remain — perhaps no records
were ever made — of the earliest of these expeditions. The
first report on record of a journey into that region was made
by John Pory, secretary of Virginia, who in 1622 explored
the lands along Chowan River. It is probable that he was
only one of several such explorers, for seven years later
enough was known about that region to induce Sir Robert
Heath, the king's attorney-general, to seek a patent to it
which Charles I readily gave him. Later Heath assigned his
patent to Henry, Lord Maltravers who, about the year 1639,
seems to have made an unsuccessful attempt to plant a set-
1 lenient within his grant. During the following decade, Sir
William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, sent several expe-
ditions against the Indians along the Albemarle Sound, and
these expeditions resulted in further explorations. One of
these explorers entered Currituck Sound and explored the
country along Albemarle Sound and for some distance up

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 23

Chowan River. Four years later, 1650, Edward Bland, a
Virginia merchant, led an exploring and trading expedition
among the Nottaway, Meherrin, and Tuscarora Indians who
dwelt along the Chowan, Meherrin, and Roanoke rivers. Dur*
ing the next two or three years, Roger Green, a clergyman of
Nansemond County, also took an active part in exploring and
exploiting the region south of Chowan River. In 1654, Fran-
cis Yeardley, a son of Governor Yeardley of Virginia, sent
an expedition to Roanoke Island which led to other important
explorations in what is now Eastern North Carolina; and
two years later the Virginia Assembly commissioned Thomas
Dew and Thomas Francis to explore the coast between Cape
Hatteras and Cape Fear.

Upon their return to Virginia these explorers and traders
spread exaggerated accounts of the glories and riches of the
regions they had visited. John Pory reported that he found
the Albemarle region "a very fruitful and pleasant country,
yielding two harvests in a year." Edward Bland declared
that it was "a place so easie to be settled in that all inconven-
ience could be avoyded which commonly attend New Planta-
tions. * Tobacco will grow larger and more in quantity
than in Virginia. Sugar Canes are supposed naturally to be
there, or at least if implanted will undoubtedly flourish : For
we brought with us thence extraordinary Canes of twenty-
five foot long and six inches round ; there is also great store of
fish, and the Inhabitants relate that there is a plenty of Salt
made to the sunne without art; Tobacco Pipes have beene
seene among these Indians tipt with Silver, and they weare
Copper Plates about their necks : They have two Crops of
Indian Corne yearely, whereas Virginia hath but one." He
concludes his description of "that happy Country of New
Brittaine" witla the positive assurance, that "What I write,
is what I have proved." Francis Yeardley, too, who boasted
of the " ample discovery of South Virginia or Carolina" by
"two Virginians born" did not scruple to magnify their
achievement by magnifying the virtues of the country they
had explored. It possessed, he declared, "a most fertile, gal-
lant, rich soil, flourishing in all abundance of nature, especially
in rich mulberry and vine, a serene air, and temperate clime,
and experimentally rich in precious minerals; and lastly, I
may say, parallel with any place for rich land, and stately
timber of all sorts ; a place indeed unacquainted with our Vir:
ginia's nipping frost, no winter, or very little cold to be found
there."

These explorations and favorable reports were naturally

24 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

followed by a southward movement of settlers. Just when
this movement began cannot be stated with certainty because,
as Ashe has well said, "it was a movement so natural that the
particulars are not recorded in the local annals of the time." 1
Enough, however, is known to show that, beginning with
Pory's expedition in 1622, the efforts of interested persons to
plant settlements within that region, though at times spasmod-
ic, were never entirely abandoned. In 1629 came Heath's grant
and his design for establishing a proprietary colony. Ten years
later, after Heath had assigned his patent, the king com-
manded the Virginia authorities to assist Lord Maltravers
"in seating Carolina"; and about that time William Hawley
appeared in Virginia as "governor of Carolina" and obtained
permission from the Virginia Assembly to take into his prov-
ince a colony of one hundred "freemen, being single ami dis-
engaged of debt." His efforts, however, ended in failure.
In 1648, Henry Plumpton of Nansemond County, Thomas
Tuke of Isle of Wight County, and others who had accom-
panied the expeditions sent by Governor Berkeley against the
Carolina Indians, purchased from the Indians large tracts
of land along Chowan Eiver. Two years later, upon his return
from "New Brittaine," Edward Bland, for himself and his
associates, petitioned the Virginia Assembly for permission
to plant a settlement there, and the petition was granted on
condition that the promoters "secure themselves in effecting
the sayd Designe with a hundred able men sufficiently fur-
nished with Armes and Munition." It is probable that this
scheme exhausted itself in the preparation and publication
of a pamphlet exploiting the advantages of the country. In
1653, Roger Green, on behalf of himself and other inhabitants
of Nansemond County, obtained from the Virginia Assem-
bly a grant of ten thousand acres of land for the first one
hundred persons who should settle on Roanoke River south
of Chowan and one thousand acres for himself. "In reward
of his charge, hazard and trouble of first discoverie, and
encouragement of others for seating those southern parts of
Virginia," he was permitted as a special favor to lay off his
tract "next to those persons who have had a former grant."
It is not probable that any settlement resulted from this
grant, but the grant itself is historically important because its
language leads irresistibly to the conclusion that when it was
issued there were already settlers along the waters of Chowan
River.

1 History of North Carolina, Vol. I, p. 59.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 25

From that time forward there was no cessation in the slow
but steady flow of settlers into the Albemarle region. The
early historians of North Carolina saw in these settlers relig-
ious refugees fleeing from ecclesiastical oppression in Vir-
ginia and New England. We now know that they were
inspired by no such lofty motives, but that the inducements
for their migration were purely economic. North Carolina
was founded by men in search of good bottom land. The
explorers, hunters, and traders who first penetrated the Albe-
marle wilderness carried back to Virginia, as we have seen,
glowing reports of the mildness of its climate, the fertility
of its soil, and the great variety of its products, while they
pointed out that its broad streams and wide sounds offered
easy means of communication and transportation. The
opportunities for selecting at will large tracts of fertile lands
were already becoming limited in Virginia, and many a small
planter, recent immigrant, and ambitious servant who had
completed the term of his indenture, heard with keen
interest of the virgin wilderness to the southward where such
land could be had almost for the asking. That they might
acquire land on easier terms than could be had in Virginia,
attain to the dignity of planters, raise and export tobacco,
and find larger and better ranges for their stock, were the
inducements which led them to abandon Virginia for Albe-
marle. All this was well understood by the promoters of the
settlement. Thomas Woodward, surveyor-general of Albe-
marle, writing in 1665 to Sir John Colleton, one of the Lords
Proprietors, warned him that the terms offered by the Lords
Proprietors were not well received by the people, and advised
that they be made more liberal for, he declared, it was land
only that settlers came for. The Lords Proprietors, in recog-
nition of the soundness of this advice, made their terms more
liberal. It was not, then, religious enthusiasm but the Anglo-
Saxon's keen insatiable passion for land that inspired the
founders of North Carolina.

An occasional record preserves for us the names of some
of those early pioneers. Thus Robert Lawrence in a deposi-
tion about another matter, made in 1707, declared that in
1661, he ''seated a plantation on the southwest side of Chowan
River about three or four miles above the mouth of Marat-
tock where he lived about seven years." Others whose names
are similarly preserved are Thomas Relfe, Samuel Pricklove,
Caleb Calloway, George Catchmaid, John Jenkins, John Har-
vey, Thomas Jarvis, and George Durant. Unfortunately
we know but little about these founders of the Commonwealth.

26 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Lawson tells us that they were "substantial planters" and
the meager records of the time attest the accuracy of his
statement. Many of them brought into the new settlement
retinues of servants and other dependents that would not
then have been thought inconsiderable even in the older colo-
nies. As each planter was entitled to fifty acres of land for
each person whom he brought into the colony, the number of
such persons in his retinue becomes an indication of the
planter's wealth and standing in the community. Thus, Rob-
ert Peele, who brought seven persons, received a grant for
350 acres of land ; John Jenkins, who brought fourteen per-
sons, received 700 acres ; John Harvey, who brought seventeen
persons, received 850 acres; while Thomas Relfe and George
Catchmaid, each of whom was accompanied by thirty per-
sons, received grants of 1,500 acres each.

Their subsequent careers show that they were men of
ability and force of character. They quickly became the
leaders in the affairs of the colony. Thomas Relfe became
provost marshal of the General Court and one of the first
vestrymen of the parish of Pasquotank. Samuel Pricklove
became a member of the General Assembly. Caleb Calloway
served as a representative in the General Assembly, as
speaker, and as a justice of the General Court. George Catch-
maid was speaker of the General Assembly and exercised
great influence over the early legislation of the colony. John
Jenkins became the deputy of Lord Craven, one of the Lords
Proprietors, and like John Harvey and Thomas Jarvis, sub-
sequently rose to the dignity of chief executive of the prov-
ince.

Of all the men who assisted in laying the foundations of
North Carolina, none was so worthy to stand in the forefront
of a people's history as George Durant. In the contracted
sphere in which he moved and played his part he displayed
qualities of mind and character which would have won for
him on a larger and more conspicuous stage a high place
among the early patriot leaders of America. He had a faith
in democracy far in advance of the age in which he lived,
and in many critical events in our early history he showed
111 at he had the courage of his convictions. Enlightened in
his views, he was bold in asserting them, resolute in carrying
them into execution, and fearless of consequences. Believing
the navigation acts unwise, oppressive, and detrimental to the
interests of the colony, he led a determined and temporarily
successful opposition to their enforcement in Albemarle. In
the very presence of the assembled Lords Proprietors, he

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 27

denounced the man whom they had selected for governor as
unfit for the position and threatened resistance to his au-
thority. When an acting governor, exercising authority with-
out legal warrant, sought to secure an Assembly amenable
to his will by imposing new and illegal restrictions upon the
election of representatives, Durant organized opposition,
removed him from office, and set up a government based on
popular support. Hating misgovernment and tyranny, he
led a popular revolt even against one of the Lords Pro-
prietors who had used his position to plunder and oppress
the people, arrested, tried, and condemned him, and drove
him out of the province. If in these various crises George
Durant seemed to show a greater love for liberty than for
order, he at least could plead in justification that it was lib-
erty rather than order that was threatened with destruction ;
and this plea must be accepted in vindication of his conduct
just as a similar plea is accepted in vindication of a subsequent
generation of Americans who a century later made a similar
choice of alternatives.

The oldest grant for land in North Carolina now extant
is the grant to George Durant by Kilcocanen, chief of the
Yeopim Indians, dated March 1, 1661 [1662] for a tract
lying along Perquimans River and Albemarle Sound which
still bears the name of Durant 's Neck. There were, how-
ever, grants prior to Durant 's, for his grant recites a pre-
vious one by Kilcocanen to Samuel Pricklove. Indeed, by 1662
such Indian grants had become so common that the Crown
ordered them to be disregarded and required the holders to
take out new patents under the laws of Virginia. Three
years later the surveyor of Albemarle declared that a county
''forty miles square will not comprehend the inhabitants there
already seated.' These settlers, for the most part, came
from Virginia, but others came also, and by the close of the
first decade of its history the Albemarle colony extended
from Chowan River to Currituck Sound.

By 1663, the settlements on the Albemarle had become
of sufficient importance to attract attention in England. In
them a powerful group of English courtiers saw an opportu-
nity to undertake on a vast scale a colonizing enterprise which
promised large returns of wealth and power. Accordingly
they sought from the king a grant of all the territory claimed
by England south of Virginia, including the Albemarle set-
tlements. In compliance with their request, Charles' II issued
his famous charter of 1663, by which he erected into a sepa-
rate and distinct province all the region lying between the

28 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

thirty-first and thirty-sixth degrees, north latitude, and ex-
tending westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the " South
Seas." Afterwards it was ascertained that these boundaries
did not include the settlements already planted on the Albe-
marle ; a second charter was therefore issued, June 30, 1665,
which extended the grant thirty minutes northward and two
degrees southward. Since Charles I, in his grant to Sir
Robert Heath in 1629, had called this region "Carolana" or
"Carolina," Charles II determined to retain the name. He
accordingly erected it into the "Province of Carolina" and
granted it to eight of his loyal friends and supporters whom
he constituted "the true and absolute Lords Proprietors."

The grant to the Lords Proprietors attracted consider-
able attention and its publication was speedily followed by
inquiries for the terms on which settlements within the new
province could be made. One of these inquiries purported
to come from a group of New England men who were inter-
ested in the Cape Fear region. Another proceeded from cer-
tain English adventurers who expressed a willingness /to
embark upon a colonizing enterprise. A third came from
"several gentlemen and persons of good quality" in the
island of Barbados. Eager to take advantage of all this
interest, the Lords Proprietors were preparing replies to
these inquiries when an unexpected obstacle arose which
threatened to bring all their plans to naught. Claimants
under the old Heath charter of 1629 appeared who protested
the validity of the title of the new Lords Proprietors to the
territory embraced within the province of Carolina ; and the
Lords Proprietors learned much to their annoyance that
many persons who were eager to settle within their grant
were deterred from doing so by these conflicting claims. In
this dilemma they fell back upon their influence at court and
induced the Privy Council, of which two of their number,
Clarendon and Albemarle, were members, to declare the
Heath patent forfeited on the ground that no settlement had
been made within his grant. With the way thus cleared, the
Lords Proprietors on August 25, 1663, issued a general 'Sloe-
la ration and proposals to all who will plant in Carolina,"
setting forth a plan of government and stating the terms on
which land would be granted. These proposals, however,
were for Cape Fear only ; for Albemarle, the Lords Proprie-
tors had other plans.

Warned by the fate of the Heath grant, the Lords Pro-
prietors hastened to institute a government in Albemarle in
order, as they said, "that the Kinge may see that wee sleepe

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 29

not with his grant." The jurisdiction of the first govern-
ment, established in 1663, was confined to Albemarle County
which embraced a region forty miles square in extent lying to
the northeast of Chowan River. Over this region, in 1664,
William Drummond was commissioned governor. Historians,
unwilling it seems to find any failings in one who after-
wards became the victim of the wrath of the detested Berke-
ley, have agreed in assigning to Drummond a good character
and fair abilities. Their guess at least has the merit that it
cannot be disproved for, in fact, we know nothing about the
man and but little about his administration in Albemarle.
His appointment put into operation the executive branch of
the government; a little later, probably in the early part ot
1665, the legislative branch was organized with the freemen
attending in person rather than through their representa-
tives.

Immediately upon its organization, the General Assembly
turned its attention to the consideration of the terms of land-
holding offered by the Lords Proprietors. These terms were
fifty acres to each settler for himself and a like amount for
every person whom he imported into the colony, for which he
was to pay in specie an annual quit rent of a half-penny per
acre. They were less favorable than the terms which pre-
vailed in Virginia where settlers received larger grants and
were charged an annual quit rent of only a farthing per acre
payable in produce. Accordingly, the first recorded act of
the Albemarle Assembly was a petition to the Lords Pro-
prietors "praying that the inhabitants of the said County
may hold their lands upon the same terms and conditions that
the inhabitants of Virginia hold theirs." This petition was
supported by the Proprietors' surveyor-general, Thomas
Woodward, who pointed out to them that in this matter their
interests were the same as those of the settlers. "The Pro-
portione of Land you have allotted with the Rent, and condi-
tions are by most People not well resented [received]," he
wrote, "and the very Rumor of them discourages many who
had intentions to have removed from Virginia hether.
* * * To thenke that any man will remove from Virginia
upon harder Conditione than they can live there will prove
(I feare) a vaine Imagination, It bein Land only they come
for." Convinced by this reasoning, the Lords Proprietors,
on May 1, 1668, signed and dispatched to Samuel Stephens,
who had recently (1667) succeeded Drummond as governor,
the document which has become famous in our historv as the

30 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Great Deed of Grant, in which they granted the Assembly's
prayer. -

This obstacle to the growth of Albemarle having been thus
removed, the Assembly in 1669 adopted a well considered
program for the encouragement of immigration. Three acts
were passed to prev< nt speculation in land to the detriment
of bona fide settlers. The first forbade any person to sell his
land rights unless he had resided in the colony for at least
two full years; the second threw open to re-entry any par-
tially improved tract that had been abandoned by its owner
for as much as six months; and the third forbade any per-
son, except by special permission from the Lords Proprie-
tors, to take up more than 660 acres in any one tract. Another
statute passed at the same session protected new settlers for
a period of five years after their arrival from suit on any
debt contracted, or other cause of action that had arisen out-
side of the colony. New settlers were also to be exempt from
taxation for a period of one year. "Strangers from other
parts" were shut out from the lucrative Indian trade under
heavy penalties unless they became residents of Albemarle.
Finally, as there were no clergymen in the province, it was
enacted that a declaration of mutual consent, before the gov-
ernor or any member of his Council, and in the presence of
witnesses, should be deemed a lawful marriage as if the par-
ties "had binn marryed by a minister according to the rites
an 1 Customs of England"; that is to say, marriage was rec-
ognized as a civil contract.

Some of these measures, especially the stay law and the
marriage act, aroused bitter criticism of Albemarle among
her neighbors. The Virginians, who doubtless suffered much
from the stay law, calmly ignoring the fact that the Albemarle

2 The Great Deed of Grant afterwards became the subject of
sharp controversies between the colonial authorities and the represen-
tatives of the people. The former regretting the generosity of the
Lords Proprietors, sought to break the force of the Great Deed by
holding that it was a revokable grant, and that in fact it had been
revoked and annulled at various times. The people, who regarded the
Great Deed as second in importance only to the charter, vigorously
controverted this view. Although it had been officially recorded in
Albemarle, the original was preserved with scrupulous care and,
sixty-three vears after its date, during a controversy about it with
Governor Gabriel Johnston, the Assembly ordered that its text be
spread upon its journal and the original plaeed in the personal cus-
tody of the speaker. As late as 1856, the Supreme Court of North
Carolina in Archibald v. Davis (4 Jones. 133) invoked the Great Deed
to sustain the validity of a errant issued in accordance with its provi-
sions by the governor and Council in September. 1716.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 31

act was an exact copy of an act that had been on the statute
books of Virginia since 1642, vented their indignation by
bestowing upon Albemarle the epithet of "Rogues Harbour."
How far this epithet was deserved will be the subject of future
inquiry. In the meantime, in spite of her liberal laws, Albe-
marle grew but slowly, and at the close of the first decade of
her history could count a population of scarcely fifteen hun-
dred souls.

CHAPTER III
THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT

The Albemarle settlements were originally within the
jurisdiction of Virginia; indeed, there was no design on the
part of the settlers to organize another government. This
came later after Charles II had erected the region into the
province of Carolina. In the list of the Lords Proprietors of
Carolina appear some of the greatest names in English his-
tory. They were : Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Lord High
Chancellor of England; George Monk, Duke of Albemarle,
Master of the King's Horse and Captain-General of all his
forces; William Lord Craven; John Lord Berkeley; Anthony
Cooper, Lord Ashley, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Sir
George Carteret, Vice-Chamberlain of the King's Household;
Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia; and Sir John
Colleton. To each of these men Charles was under great per-
sonal obligations. Clarendon, his constant companion and
counsellor during his exile, had been among the foremost in
effecting his restoration. His natural abilities had raised him
to a position as the greatest of British subjects not of the blood
royal; indeed, he was soon to become allied even by blood
with the royal family by the marriage to the Duke of York,
afterwards James II, of his daughter Anne, through whom
Clarendon became the grandfather of two of England's sov-
ereigns, Queen Mary and Queen Anne. To George Monk,
more largely than to any other man, Charles owed his crown,
for Monk had brought to him the support of the army with-
out which his return to England could not have been effected.
Craven had freely spent a considerable fortune in the royal
cause. In Lord Berkeley and his brother, Sir William,
Charles had two subjects who had adhered loyally to him in
good and in ill fortune. The former had followed him into
exile ; the latter, as governor of Virginia, had kept that colony
so loyal to the Crown that it became a land of refuge for
unfortunate Loyalists fleeing from the wrath of Cromwell.
Anthony Ashley Cooper, afterwards earl of Shaftesbury, a

32

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 33

man of winning manners and commanding intellect, had been
one of the twelve Parliamentary commissioners who went
to Holland to invite Charles to return to England to ascend
the throne of his ancestors. Sir George Carteret, while gov-
ernor of the island of Jersey, had defended his post against
the Parliamentary forces in a most gallant manner and had
surrendered at last only at the command of Charles himself.
The last in the list, Sir John Colleton, had been a valiant sol-
dier for the king in whose service he expended a large fortune.
Upon the downfall of the royal cause, he emigrated to Barba-
dos and for a time kept that colony loyal to the Stuarts.

If a monarch was ever justified in using crown lands to
reward the services of his friends, Charles II was surely jus-
tified in rewarding these men. Not to have done so would
have entitled him to first rank among the world's ingrates.
To them he owed everything — the assurance of his personal
safety, the restoration of his House to its ancient dignity,
and the recovery of his throne. If subjects were ever justi-
fied in accepting gifts from their sovereign, the Lords Proprie-
tors of Carolina were surely justified in accepting them from
Charles Stuart. At great risk to their lives, their fortunes,
and their honor, they had rendered him inestimable services.
He was an exile, and they restored him to his country ; he was
a beggar, and they made him a king. What they had done
for him was an incomparably greater personal service than
any similar service Sir Walter Ealeigh ever rendered Queen
Elizabeth. Yet among the historians of North Carolina
there are those who acclaim Elizabeth's gift of this same re-
gion to her ambitious subject, and his acceptance of it, as
acts of profound statesmanship and genuine patriotism but
who condemn utterly the " careless generosity" of Charles
and the "rapacity" of his "parasites." * To such an extent
do our prejudices often confound our judgment!

The names of the Lords Proprietors, and of the king,
are all found today on the map of the Carolinas. In
North Carolina are Albemarle Sound and Craven and
Carteret counties; in South Carolina, Clarendon and
Colleton counties, Berkeley Parish, and the Ashley and
Cooper rivers. The name of the two states commemorates
the royal grantor. The assertion is often made, it is true,
that their name originated in honor of Charles IX of France,
but the facts do not sustain this contention. In 1562, Ribaut

1 Hawks : History of North Carolina, Vol. I, pp. 28, 234 ; Vol.
II, p. 74.

Vol. I-v3 •

34 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

founded a Huguenot colony near the present site of Port
Royal, South Carolina, which he called Charles-fort. A year
later the settlement was abandoned. In 1564, Laudonniere
founded another Huguenot colony on St. John's River in
Florida and called it Fort Caroline. This colony was de-
stroyed by the Spaniards. Both Charles-fort and Fort Caro-
line were named in honor of Charles IX, but these names
were applied to the forts only; for the region immediately
around Fort Caroline, the French used the Spanish name,
Florida, while the entire region from the southern extremit
of Florida to the fiftieth degree, north latitude, they called
"Now France." The name "Carolina" is not found on any
of the early French maps. This name was first applied to the
whole region in the charter of 1629 to Sir Robert Heath in
honor of Charles I, and was retained in the charter of 1663 in
honor of Charles II. Writing in 1666, the Lords Proprietors
state that "Carolina is a fair and spacious province on the
continent of North America, so called in honor of his sacred
majesty that now is, Charles the Second, whom God preserve."
In adopting the proprietary form of government for the
new colony, Charles followed the precedents set by Elizabeth
in her charter to Raleigh and by Charles I in his charter to
Heath. The model was the County Palatine of Durham. This
interesting experiment dated back to the reign of "William
the Conqueror. For the better security of his kingdom
against his hostile neighbors on the north, William erected
along the Scottish border the great County Palatine of Dur-
ham over which he placed an executive upon whom he con-
ferred many of the powers and attributes of sovereignty.
The palatine exercised the feudal privileges of escheats, for-
feitures, and wardship, and had possession of mines, forests,
mikI chases. Within his palatinate, he was supreme in both
civil and military affairs. He erected courts and appointed all
justices and judges. Writs and indictments ran in his name
just as in other comities they ran in the king's name, and
offenses were said to be committed against his peace and dig-
nity just as elsewhere they were against the peace and dig-
nity of the king, lie exercised admiralty jurisdiction over
his coasts and rivers. He could pardon murders, treason,
and other felonies. He had his own mint and coined his own
money. He raised, equipped, and directed his military
forces. He could incorporate towns and cities. Although
tin* amount of revenue to be paid by the palatinate to the
Crown was fixed by Parliament, the palatine and his officers
determined how it should be raised and collected. Thus while

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 35

the Durham Palatinate was a constituent part of the king-
dom, in actual administration it had a distinct machinery of
its own. In order that no great feudal family might be
founded to inherit these viceregal powers, William wisely
conferred them upon the Bishop of Durham.

Such was the model to which Charles II turned when he
came to erect the province of Carolina. In his charter, he
declared that the Lords Proprietors should have, exercise,
and enjoy all their "rights, jurisdictions, privileges, prerog-
atives, royalties, liberties, immunities, and franchises," "as
amply, fully, and in as ample manner as any Bishop of Dur-
ham, in our Kingdom of England." The object of the Lords
Proprietors was to plant colonies within their grant from
which of course they anticipated large financial returns;
their motives were declared to be "a laudable and pious zeal
for the propagation of the Christian faith" and the enlarge-
ment of the king's empire. To enable them to carry out
these objects effectively, "full power and authority" was
given them to create and fill offices; to erect counties and
other political divisions for administrative purposes; to in-
corporate ports of entry, towns and cities ; to establish courts
of justice for the punishment of offenses even to the extent
of "member and life"; to commute punishment and pardon
offenses ; to collect customs, fees and taxes levied by the Gen-
eral Assembly ; to have the advowsons of churches ; to grant
titles of honor provided they were not the same as those in
use in England ; to raise and maintain a militia, and to com-
mission officers, build forts, put down and punish rebellion,
declare martial law, and wage war against the Indians or
other enemies by land or by sea. While these extensive pow-
ers were granted to the Lords Proprietors, great care was
exercised to preserve the rights and privileges of the people.
Laws were to be enacted "by and with the advice, assent an 1

*/ 7

approbation of the freemen, * or of their delegates

or deputies" who were to be assembled from time to time for
that purpose. All laws were to be "consonant to reason" and
as near as possible in harmony with the laws of England.
The colonists were to be liege subjects of the English Crown
and were to enjoy all "liberties, franchises, and privileges"
of the king's subjects resident within his realm of England.
They were to have the right to carry on trade and commerce,
and no customs were to be laid upon their goods except such
as were "reasonably assessed by and with the con-

sent of the free people, or the greater part of them." They
could not be compelled to answer to any suit, or tried for any

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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 37

crime in any place beyond the bounds of the province, but
they were allowed an appeal to the Crown. Liberty of con-
science was guaranteed.

Though the Lords Proprietors deriv'ed from their charter
ample powers of government, the uncertainty with which they
exercised them resulted in weakness and confusion. Plan
after plan was promulgated, ordered to be put into execu-
tion, and then abandoned for some new scheme. In 1663 they
sent to Sir William Berkeley instructions for the establish-
ment of a government in Albemarle, but two years later this
plan gave way to a more elaborate scheme called the Conces-
sions of 1665. The Concessions in their turn were supplanted
in 1669 by the Fundamental Constitutions drawn by John
Locke under the directions of Shaftesbury, but along with
the order to put them into effect came instructions modify-
ing their provisions. Adopted and signed by the Lords Pro-
prietors July 21, 1669, and declared to be unalterable and
perpetual, the Fundamental Constitutions speedily ran
through four revisions and were finally abandoned alto-
gether. The Lords Proprietors continued this sort of tinker-
ing with their government for some years, with the result
that "for the first fifty years of the life of the colony," as
Doctor Bassett justly remarks, "the inhabitants could not be
sure that their government was stable."2

The government of Carolina during the proprietary peri-
od presents a theoretical as well as a practical side. The
former found expression in the Fundamental Constitutions
in which the Lords Proprietors embodied their ideal of a
colonial government.3 Their purposes were to secure a
stronger government, to establish their own interests with
equality and without confusion, to set up a government in
harmony with monarchy, and to "avoid erecting a numer-
ous democracy." For the accomplishment of these aims they
devised with endless details an elaborate and complicated
scheme of government semi-feudal in character, and an arti-

2 Bassett, John Spencer: The Constitutional Beginning's of North
Carolina, p. 35 {Johns; Hopkins University Studies, 12th Series,
No. III).

3 The Fundamental Constitutions have been so often and so fully
analysed and discussed that I do not feel it necessary to present such
an analysis here. The reader who wishes fuller information is re-
ferred to the following-: Bassett. J. S. : The Constitutional Begin-
nings of North Carolina (J. H. V. Studies. 12th Series. No. Ill) ;
Ashe, S. A. : Historv of North Carolina. Vol. I, Ch. IX; Davis, Junius:
Locke's Fundamental Constitutions (N. C. Booklet, Vol. VII, No. 1).

38 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ficial arrangement of society based upon an equally artificial
division of land. No pains were taken to fit the constitution
to the needs or the interests of the people. To say this,
however, is not to condemn the Fundamental Constitutions
unreservedly for they contain many liberal and enlightened
provisions. Among them are the requirements for the regis-
tration of births, marriages, and deaths ; the registration of
land titles; a biennial parliament; the right of trial by jury;
and perfect toleration of all forms of Christian worship. In-
deed, to quote Doctor Bassett, " Their reactionary features
were hardly worse than their generation, and their liberal fea-
tures were much better than their time." The Lords Proprie-
tors were fully conscious of the impracticability of putting
them into full operation at once and contented themselves,
therefore, with instructing Governor Carteret "to come as
nigh it" as possible.

The practical side of the constitution is found in the gov-
ernment as it really developed. This of course grew out of the
actual needs and experience of the people. The first adminis-
tration was organized in accordance with the plan set forth
in the, instructions to Governor Berkeley of 1663. "Full pow-
er and ample authority" were conferred upon him to appoint
a governor and six "fitting persons" as councillors. The gov-
ernor and his councillors were authorized to appoint all other
officials both civil and military, except the secretary and the
surveyor whom the Lords Proprietors themselves were to
select ; and together with the freeholders, or their representa-
tives, were to form the General Assembly with power to make
"good and wholesome laws" for the colony. The instructions
also contained specific directions concerning the granting of
land.

Two years later the instructions of 1663 were superseded
by the Concessions of 1665. In this plan the Lords Propri-
etors reserved to themselves the selection of the governor, the
register, the secretary, and the surveyor-general. With the
governor was to be associated a Council composed of any even
number from six to twelve to be selected by the governor. The
legislative branch of the government, the powers of which
were limited only by the veto of the Lords Proprietors, was
to be composed of the governor and Council and twelve repre-
sentatives chosen by the freemen; all were to sit together as
a single body. Such courts as were necessary were to be pro-
vided by the General Assembly but all judicial officials were
to be appointed by the governor. Land was to be granted
upon terms which, to say the least, were not illiberal. Per-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 39

sonal and property rights were secured by ample guarantees ;
and special provision was made for securing to the people the
right of petition to the Lords Proprietors touching any griev-
ance they might have against any colonial official.

Under this plan, the Lords Proprietors contemplated
organizing within their grant several separate and distinct
governments, or counties. Each was to have its own adminis-
tration, but all were to be organized on the same basis. Three
only of these counties were actually organized. They were :
(1) Albemarle, which embraced the territory lying north of
Albemarle Sound; (2) Clarendon, which embraced the region
about the mouth of Cape Fear River; and (3) Craven, which
embraced the territory south of Cape Romaine. Of these coun-
ties, Clarendon was soon abandoned and Craven lay wholly

Seal of the Government of Albemarle

without the region that subsequently became North Carolina;
it developed into the province of South Carolina. Albemarle
was the parent settlement of North Carolina and alone of the
three concerns us.

As the county of Albemarle expanded into the province
of North Carolina, so the constitution of North Carolina as
a proprietary was an evolution from the plan of government
actually established in Albemarle. At its head were the Lords
Proprietors each of whom held one of the eight great offices
created by the Fundamental Constitutions, viz : palatine, ad-
miral, chamberlain, chancellor, high constable, chief justice,
high steward, and treasurer. Corresponding to each of these
offices was to be a court, presided over by the official whose
name it bore, with supreme jurisdiction of such matters as fell
within the sphere of that official's duties. As the Lords Pro-
prietors remained in England, each was represented in Caro-
lina by a deputy. Their first organization under this plan was
effected in October, 1669, when the Duke of Albemarle became

40 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the first palatine. Although the other great offices were also
filled and a show was made of keeping them up, they never
exercised their functions and were nothing more than names.
The palatine, however, who was always the eldest of the Lords
Proprietors, really became an active factor in the government.
He presided over the meetings of the Lords Proprietors and
with three others constituted a quorum ; his court, consisting
of himself and the other Lords Proprietors, was the only one
of the eight great courts ever organized and exercised many
important functions; while his deputy, sometimes called the
vice-palatine, was governor of the province.

The governor and his Council were the executive authority
within the colony. It is important to remember that through-
out the colonial period, the governor was never the represen-
tative of the people, but during the proprietary period he rep-
resented the Lords Proprietors, during the royal period, the
king. In all important matters his conduct was determined by
instructions from his superiors, and in any conflict between
them and the people it was his duty to promote the interests
of the former rather than of the latter. He was the medium
through which the Lords Proprietors communicated their
wishes and commands, and he was required to keep them fully
informed about colonial affairs. In most of his important
functions he could act only by and with the advice and consent
of his Council, but as the councillors were generally his crea-
tures this limitation on his power was more apparent than
real. He called and presided over the meetings of the Council.
AVith the advice and consent of the Council, he issued writs for
the election of delegates to the General Assembly, and he con-
vened, prorogued, or dissolved the Assembly at will. No law
could be passed without his concurrence. He could reprieve
persons convicted of crime pending an appeal to the Lords
Proprietors. Acting with the Council, he appointed subordi-
nate .judicial and administrative officials; administered to the
higher officials the proper oaths of office and allegiance ; issued
and revoked military commissions; and suspended, or other-
wise punished public officials, civil, military, or religious, who
violated their trust. LFpon order of the Council, he issued war-
rants for land grants. All business between his government
and other colonics was conducted through him. He was com-
mander-in-chief of the militia and was charged with the duty
of enforcing the laws, preserving order, and protecting the
colony from domestic and foreign enemies. From time to
time, he exercised numerous minor functions such as receiv-
ing the probate of wills, granting letters of administration,

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 41

taking the census, and the like. The tenure of office, except in
the case of William Drummond who was appointed for, three
years, was during the pleasure of the Lords Proprietors. Be-
sides certain fees the* governor received a salary paid by the
Lords Proprietors out of funds arising from quit-rents and
the sale of land. During a vacancy in the office, the govern-
ment was administered by the president of the Council.

The course of the development of the province may be
traced in the wording of the commissions of the Lords Pro-
prietors to their governors. In 1664 Sir John Yeamans was
commissioned "Governor of our county of Clarendon" and
William Drummond was appointed to the "Government of the
County of Albemarle." Both of these counties, or govern-
ments, were within the territorial limits of what is now North
Carolina. Although the settlement within Clarendon County
was soon abandoned, the Lords Proprietors adhered for sev-
eral years to their original plan of erecting a number of sepa-
rate and distinct governments within their province. With
the exception of Thomas Eastchurch, the first five successors
of Drummond were governors of Albemarle only. The case
of Eastchurch is particularly interesting on this point. Two
commissions bearing the same date were issued to him, one
as "governor and Commander in Cheife of that part of our
Province called Albemarle," the other as "Governor and
Commander in Cheife of all such settlements as shall be made
upon the Elvers of Pamleco and Newse. ' ' At that time, 1676,
it was the purpose of the Lords Proprietors to erect the re-
gion between Albemarle Sound and Cape Fear River into a
government separate and distinct from Albemarle. The last
"Governor of our County of Albemarle" was Seth Sothel
whose commission was issued in 1679. Two years later ap-
pears the first indication of a change in the policy of the Lords
Proprietors. In 1681 Henry Wilkinson was appointed "Gov-
ernor of that part of the Province of Carolina that lyes 5
miles south of the River of Pamlico and from thence to Vir-
ginia." But Wilkinson never came to North Carolina and
the government was administered by Sothel until 1689.4

In the meantime it had become customary to refer to that
part of the "Province of Carolina" north of Cape Fear River
as North Carolina, that to the south, as South Carolina. The
effect of this natural division on the policy of the Lords Pro-
prietors is seen in the commission of Phillip Ludwell, 1689,
who was "appointed to be Governor of that part of Carolina

4 Andrews. Charles MaeLean : "Captain Henry Wilkinson"
(South Atlantic Quartrrhj, XV-3).

42 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

that iWes North and East of Cape Feare." Two years later
the Lords Proprietors, again changing their policy, deter-
mine^ to have but one administration which should embrace
the whole of Carolina. Accordingly in 1691 they commis-
sioned Ludwcll "Governor and Commander in Cheif of Caro-
lina," but fearing that this arrangement might prove imprac-
ticable, they authorized him to appoint a "Deputy Governor
of North Carolina." Ludwell's successor, John Archdale,
was commissioned in 1694 "Governor of our whole Province
of Carolina," with authority "to constitute a Deputy or Dep-
uty Governors both in South & North Carolina.'1 The Lords
Proprietors adhered to this policy until 1712, conferring like
authority upon each of their governors during those years.
As the governors resided at Charleston, they chose to admin-
ister the affairs of South Carolina in person, and those of
North Carolina through deputies. This fact had import-
ant results in the history of North Carolina. It tended to
diminish the dignity and influence of the executive branch of
the proprietary government and correspondingly to increase
the influence and authority of the legislative branch. The re-
sult was detrimental to the interests of the Lords Proprietors
and favorable to the development of democratic ideals. Ac-
cordingly, in 1710, the Lords Proprietors resolved to abandon
the experiment and to appoint a governor of North Carolina
"independent of the governor of South Carolina" who should
be their immediate representative and responsible immedi-
ately to them. This decision was carried into effect in 1712
when Edward Hyde was commissioned "to be Govr Cap* Gen11
Adm11 Command1 in Cheife of that part of ye province of Car-
olina that lyes N° & El of Cape ffeare Called N° Carolina."
Hyde's appointment marks the final separation in the gov-
ernment of the two provinces, and thenceforward the gover-
nors of North Carolina were again selected by the Lords Pro-
prietors and held office at their pleasure.

The .governor was assisted in the administration by a Coun-
cil. The organization of the Council, and the method of se-
lecting its members, varied with the varying moods of the
Lords Proprietors. In 1663 they directed Governor Berkeley
to select a Council of six. Two years later they fixed its mem-
bership at any even number from six to twelve, inclusive, to
be determined by the governor. In 1670, probably with the
idea of making the Council more representative of the varied
colonial interests, they changed the number to ten, five of
whom were to be their own deputies selected by themselves

;

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA m

and five to be selected by the General Assembly. This plan
was continued until 1691 when, the Council having become an
upper house of the General Assembly, the Lords Proprietors
instructed the governor to consider the deputies alone as
members. At the same time it was determined that each of the
Lords Proprietors should be represented in the province by
a deputy. Finally in 1724 the deputies were abolished and
the Council was organized with twelve members selected by
the Lords Proprietors. The functions of the Council were
two-fold, executive and legislative. Together with the gov-
ernor it composed the executive branch of the government
and was charged with many important duties ; independently
of the governor its executive functions were inconsiderable.
Upon the death or absence of the governor, the Council chose
a president who administered the government until the va-
cancy was filled.

The Council also formed part of the legislative branch of
the government. Prior to 1691, the legislature, usually called
the General Assembly but sometimes referred to as the Grand
Assembly, was composed of the governor, the councillors, and
the delegates of the people sitting together as one body. After
that date the Council became an upper house, and the delegates
a lower house called the House of Commons. This develop-
ment was the result not of design but of custom, and came
about in a thoroughly characteristic English way. As acts of
the Assembly were not valid until signed by the governor and
three deputies, it became the custom of the governor and
deputies to meet independently of the Assembly to consider
such measures as the Assembly presented for their signa-
tures. Thus the deputies, probably feeling that it was un-
necessary for them to pass twice on the same matters, gradu-
ally dropped out of the larger body and after a while came to
be thought of as a separate and distinct legislative chamber.
The Lords Proprietors formally recognized them as such in
1691. At the same time the five councillors elected by the As-
sembly were dropped from the Council leaving that body com-
posed of the deputies only.

Though not so intended these changes were favorable to
the development of democratic institutions. In the first place
they removed from the midst of the people's representatives
the restraining influence of a body of legislators entirely ir-
responsible to the people and representing interests distinct
from the people's interests and not infrequently hostile to
them. But it also brought about a change of even greater
importance. The Lords Proprietors had lodged with the gov-

44 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ernor and Council the power of making laws "by and with the
advice and consent" of the people, or their representatives.
Thus the representatives of the proprietary interests, not the
representatives of the people, enjoyed the right of initiating
legislation, and the latter could consider no measures except
such as were presented to them by the former. The popular
party naturally grew restive under this restriction and early
began to demand the " power of proposeing in the parlia-
m[en]t without passing the Grand Councell first." After the
withdrawal of the governor and deputies, and the organiza-
tion of the representatives of the people into a separate and
distinct house, it was not possible to deny to the latter one
of the most important rights appertaining to a legislative
body. Thus the House of Commons became in a real sense a
representative democratic institution.

In 1663, the Lords Proprietors instructed Governor Berke-
ley to organize a government in their province and to give
to the "Governor or Governors and Councill or Councillors
power by and with the advice and consent of the freeholders
or freemen or the Major parte of them there deputyes or del-
egates to make good and wholesome laws" for the colony.
This was the authority under which met the first law-making
body in the history of North Carolina. It seems to have been
an example of pure democracy; to it came not the represen-
tatives of the people, but the people themselves. Represent a-
tive government was introduced by the Concessions of 1665 in
which the people were instructed to elect representatives to the
General Assembly. The number of delegates, who were to be
chosen on the first day of January of each year, was fixed at
twelve. In 1670, Albemarle County was divided into four pre-
cincts— Chowan, Pasquotank, Perquimans, and Currituck —
each to be represented in the General Assembly by five dele-
gates. Later as other precincts were erected and given the
right to send to the Assembly two delegates each, the number
increased until it reached twenty-eight — the highest number
reached under the proprietary government. Regular sessions
were held biennially, but the governor and Council could con-
vene, prorogue, or dissolve sessions at will. As long as the
Assembly sat as a single chamber, the governor, or his deputy,
had the right to preside; after the separation into two houses,
each house elected its own officers. The speaker of the House
of Commons was the highest official in the province in whose
selection the people had any voice either directly or indirectly.
Usually, therefore, the place was filled by the leader of the
popular party. The House of Commons had the right to de-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 45

cide contests involving the election of its members, to expel
members, to compel attendance upon its sessions, and to initi-
ate all measures levying a tax or carrying an appropriation.
It was fully conscious of its responsibilities and obligations as
the popular branch of the colonial government, keenly jealous
of its rights and privileges, and quick to resent any encroach-
ment by any other branch of the government. Through a proc-
ess of evolution the General Assembly, from a position of
weakness and subservience to the executive, came to be the
chief factor in the government, while the House of Commons,
as the only branch of the colonial government in which the
people were represented, acquired such an ascendency as to
become practically the Assembly.

The judicial system under the proprietary government
embraced a general court, precinct courts, a court of chan-
cery, an admiralty court, and in some instances the Council.
For several years after the settlement of the colony, the only
court was composed of the governor and Council. With the
erection of precincts and the creation of precinct courts for
local business, the older tribunal became known as the General
Court. In addition to its other business it was the appellate
court of the colony. In 1685 the Lords Proprietors deter-
mined to take the business of this tribunal out of the hands
of the governor and Council. They accordingly instructed the
governor to appoint "four able, discreet men" as justices
who, together with a sheriff, should hold this court. Several
years passed, however, before this order was carried into
effect; the governor and Council were holding the General
Court as late as 1695, but sometime between that date and 1702
the court was organized as the Proprietors had directed. In
1712 another forward step in its organization was taken when
a chief justice was appointed who held his commission directly
from the Lords Proprietors. He presided over the court
which was thereafter composed of a variable number of as-
sociates. A curious custom which prevailed during the early
years of the court permitted justices temporarily to discard
their judicial character and to come down from the bench to
represent clients before the court. Subsequently this practice
was forbidden by law. The court met three times a year and
sat at different times as a court of king's bench, common
pleas, and exchequer and as a court of oyer and terminer,
and general gaol delivery. Indictments were brought "in
the name of our Sovereign Lord the King" who was repre-
sented by an attorney-general. The court also exercised cer-
tain non-judicial functions such as directing the repair of

46 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

roads, the appointment of ferrymen, the regulation of fares
at ferries, and, by direction of the General Assembly, the
apportionment of taxes and the ordering of the payment of
the public indebtedness. Its chief executive officer was the
sheriff or provost marshal. Precinct courts were held by
justices of the peace who were appointed by the governor
and Council. Their jurisdiction extended to civil suits involv-
ing less than fifty pounds. They also exercised such non-
judicial duties as caring for the public highways, creating road
districts, appointing constables, granting franchises for mill
sites, and other similar local matters. With their clerks were
recorded, usually in open court, the marks by which settlers
distinguished their cattle, horses, and hogs. The governor
and Council held the chancery court; they also probated wills,
received and examined accounts of administrators and execu-
tors, tried public officials for misconduct in office, and heard ap-
peals from the General Court. The Admiralty Court was com-
posed of a judge and subordinate officials who were appointed
by the Admiralty Court in England to whom they were obliged
to report.

CHAPTER IV
WARS AND REBELLIONS

Tlie history of Albemarle as a distinct colony was marked
by discontent, tumult, and rebellion. Grievances were real
and numerous. The uncertainty as to the terms on which the
settlers held their lands ; the studied indifference and neglect
of the Lords Proprietors ; the persistent rumor that Albe-
marle was to be given over to Sir*William Berkeley as sole
proprietor; the instability of the proprietary government;
the depredations of hostile Indians; the attempts to enforce
the navigation acts and to collect the king's customs,— all
these things combined to produce dissatisfaction and strife.

Perhaps nothing gave the people more concern than the
land question. Ambition to become landowners, as has been
stated, was the inducement that had brought most of them to
Albemarle. Land was their chief form of wealth and what-
ever tended to render their holdings insecure produced alarm
and unrest. The terms on which they were to hold their lands,
the people thought had been determined by the Great Deed
of Grant, a document which they held to be "as firm a Grant
as the Proprietors own Charter from the Crown." Such was
the importance attached to it that the Assembly ordered it to
be recorded not only in the office of the secretary of the col-
ony, but also in every precinct in Albemarle, and appointed a
special custodian into whose keeping the original itself was
committed. This view, however, was not shared by the Lords
Proprietors ; they held the Great Deed to be a revokable grant
which they could annul at will, and from time to time they
issued instructions to their governors inconsistent with its
provisions. Although the Great Deed fixed quit rents at a
farthing per acre, in 1670 the' Lords Proprietors instructed
Governor Carteret to collect quit rents at the rate of "one
halfe penny of lawful English money" per acre; and in 1679,
they directed Governor Harvey to fix the amount at a penny.
Moreover, the Fundamental Constitutions provided that quit

47

48 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

rents for each acre in Carolina should be "as much fine silver"
as was in one English penny. It was these frequent changes,
doubtless, that gave rise to a rumor, which created wide-
spread apprehension in Albemarle, that the Lords Propri-
etors "intended to raise the Quitrents to two pence and from
two pence to six pence per acre." The people too began to
ask whether the Fundamental Constitutions repealed the
Great Deed. Apprehension that they might be so interpreted
aroused opposition to the Fundamental Constitutions, and
some of those who subscribed that document felt it necessary
to protest that in so doing they should "not be disanulled"
of the rights they enjoyed under the Great Deed. The Lords
Proprietors, who could find no record of the Great Deed in
their London office, were disposed to deny its existence alto-
gether ; but the Albemarle Assembly promptly ordered a cer-
tified copy of the original to be sent to them "which convinced
the Prop1"5 that it was a firm Grant and they let the dispute
drop.'1 To make matters worse, by still further increasing
the feeling of insecurity, as late as 1678 the Albemarle plant-
ers had never received from the Lords Proprietors any pat-
ents for their holdings. Timothy Biggs writing to them de-
clared that the fact that the "the people have no assurance of
their Lands (for that yet never any Patents have been granted
under your Lordships to the Inhabitants) is matter of great
discouragement for men of Estate to come amongst us be-
cause those alreadv seated there have no assurance of their
enjoyment."

This strange oversight probably arose from the indiffer-
ence which the Lords Proprietors felt toward Albemarle.
They had been keenly disappointed at the slow growth of the
colony. That the settlers had not quickly pushed across Al-
bemarle Sound, cleared plantations on the Pamlico and the
Neuse, and opened communications by land with the Ashley
River colony, appeared to them to be evidence of a slothful-
ness of disposition and disregard of their interests that
augured ill for the success of the colony, or for its value to
them. This, they frankly declared to the Albemarle Assem-
bly, "has bine the Cause that hitherto we have had noe more
Reguard for you as lookinge upon you as a people that
neither understood your own nor regarded our Interests."
Having spent no money on Albemarle, they considered that
they lost nothing by leaving that colony to shift for itself
while they devoted their attention and resources to the de-
velopment of the more promising settlement on Ashley River.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 49

To Albemarle, struggling bravely against the forces of nature
and the savages of the wilderness, this studied neglect was
in itself a grievance, and prominent colonial leaders pro-
tested against the injustice of it. Thomas Eastchurch, speak-
er of the Assembly, informed the Lords Proprietors that en-
terprising settlers had made several attempts to carry out
their wishes, but each time had been frustrated by the Pro-
prietors' own agents who did not want their trade with the
Indians disturbed by further settlements among them; and
Timothy Biggs, deputy-collector, made bold to tell them that
"notwithstanding you have not bene out as yet any thing upon
that County in ye Province called Albemarle yet ye Inhabi-
tants have lived and gott Estates under ve Lord1* there bv
their owne Industry and brought it to the capacity of a hope-
full Settlement and ere these had it had your Lord1* smiles
and assistance but a tenth part of what your Southern parts
have had It would have beene a Flourishing Settlement. ' ' The
Lords Proprietors were convinced of their error and in a
frank and generous letter to the Assembly unreservedly con-
fessed the injustice they had done the colony.

At the same time, the Lords Proprietors laid to rest the
rumor that they were planning to turn Albemarle over to Sir
William Berkeley. Color had evidently been given to this
report by their neglect of Albemarle coupled with their great
industry in promoting their Ashley River colony. The peo-
ple of Albemarle would probably have objected to being sub-
jected to any single proprietor; when that proprietor was to
be Sir William Berkeley, who was at that very time giving
an indication of his true character by his dealings with Ba-
con's Rebellion, their objection would unquestionably have
taken the form of forcible opposition had it become neces-
sary. That they were greatly disturbed by the rumor is cer-
tain; the Assembly adopted a remonstrance against the pro-
ject and dispatched it to England by a special messenger. In
this matter, if in no other, the Lords Proprietors were able to
give their people complete satisfaction. In the first place,
they said, it was their purpose to maintain and preserve the
people of their colony in all their ' ' English Rights and Liber-
ties"; in the second place, Albemarle was valuable to them
in the development of the rest of their province; for these
reasons, they assured the Assembly, "wee neither have nor
ever will parte with the County of Albemarle to any person
whatsoever But will alwayse maintaine our province of Caro-
lina entire as itt is."

Vol. 1—4

50 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Much of the trouble in Albemarle would never have arisen
had the Lords Proprietors been able to establish and main-
tain a strong, stable government, and to place properly quali-
fied men in charge of it, Their failure to establish such a
government has already been discussed. As it was, many of
the defects in the system could have been greatly minimized
had it been administered by men of prudence, ability, and
character. But such men were rare. The Lords Proprietors
themselves complained that it was ua very difficult matter to
gitt a man of worth and trust" to accept the office of gov-
ernor, and they were generally unfortunate in the men who
represented them in that capacity. Some were weak, others
ambitious, covetous, and unscrupulous. Constant strife and
tumult marked the administrations of Carteret, Jenkins, Mil-
ler, Eastchurch, and Sothel. Carteret growing tired of his
thankless task abandoned the colony leaving "ye Governm'
there in ill order & worse hands. ': Jenkins was deposed from
office by a dominant faction in the General Assembly. Miller
after a brief career of misgovernment and crime was over-
thrown by armed rebels and forced to flee the country. The
same rebels met Eastchurch at the Virginia boundary and
although he bore a commission from the Lords Proprietors,
forbade his entering Albemarle to assume his office. And
Sothel, whose career of crime and tyranny was rivaled only
by that of Miller, was like Miller driven from power and
banished the province. Some of these uprisings were in-
spired by the righteous indignation of the people against
tyranny and oppression; others had no higher origin than
personal animosities and factional rivalries. But whatever
their inspiration they were all the results of a political sys-
tem that was too weak and unstable to command either re-
spect or fear.

From such a government the settlers could expect no pro-
tection against hostile Indians. Fortunatelv there was no
powerful tribe to contest the possession of the Albemarle re-
gion with the whites. There were, however, small tribes who
committed many depredations on the settlements and twice
in the history of Albemarle made war on them. In 1666 an
outbreak of hostilities imperilled the life of the infant settle-
ment, but peace was restored before any great losses were
sustained. Nine years later a more serious war broke out
with the Chowanoc Indians. When first known to the whites,
in 1584-85, these Indians, then the leading tribe in that re-
gion, occupied the territorv on both sides of the Meherrin

HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA 51

and Nottoway rivers about where they come together to form
the Chowan. Although their number had greatly dwindled
during the century that followed, they were still formidable
when white men first began to erect their cabins along the
Chowan. At first they offered no opposition to the coming of
the whites, and after the creation of the proprietary entered
into a treaty by which they "submitted themselves to the
Crown of England under the dominion of the Lords Propri-
etors.': This treaty they faithfully observed until 1675. In
the summer of that year the hostile tribes in Virginia, who
were endeavoring to stir up a general Indian war against
the whites, sent emissaries to induce the Chowanocs to go on
the warpath. The Chowanocs were easily persuaded and
without warning struck swiftly and effectively in the usual
Indian fashion. William Edmundson, the Quaker preacher,
writing of his visit to North Carolina in 1676, referring to
the beginning of this Indian outbreak, says: "I was moved of
the Lord to go to Carolina, and it was perillous travelling,
for the Indians were not yet subdued, but did mischief and
murdered several. They haunted much in the wilderness be-
tween Virginia and Carolina, so that scarce any durst travel
that way unarmed. Friends endeavored to dissuade me from
going, telling of several who were murdered."

The settlers flew to arms, and for more than a year waged
"open war" upon their enemies. Both sides suffered heavy
losses. In the midst of the struggle the whites received timely
aid from Captain Zachariah Gillam, a well-known New Eng-
land trader, who arrived in Albemarle from London in his
armed vessel, the Carolina, with a supply of arms and am-
munition. Thus strengthened they pushed the war more vigor-
ously than ever and finally, as the Council said, "by Gods as-
sistance though not without the loss of many men," they
"wholly subdued" their formidable foes and drove them from
their lands on the Meherrin which were thereupon "resigned
into the immediate possession of the Lords Proprietors of
Carolina as of their province of Carolina."

Returning from the war against the Indians, the people
under the leadership of George Durant, took advantage of
their being organized and under arms to demand from the
colonial authorities redress of certain grievances growing out
of the enforcement of the navigation acts. This was the be-
ginning of that popular uprising which historians have incor-

52 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

rectly called Culpepper's Bebellion. It was occasioned by
England's commercial policy. Other causes doubtless ac-
centuated the trouble, but the primary cause was the Naviga-
tion Act — "that mischievous statute with which the mother
country was busily weaning from itself the affections of its
colonies all along the American seaboard." ' The purpose of
the Navigation Act "was to foster the development of na-
tional strength by an increase of sea power and commerce."
As it affected the colonies, it restricted their carrying trade
to vessels of English, Irish, and colonial ownership and for-
bade the shipment of certain articles, including tobacco, else-
where than to England, Ireland, or some English colony. Ex-
perience soon showed, from the British merchant's point of
view, that the statute contained one serious defect. It per-
mitted tobacco, which was subject to a heavy duty when im-
ported into England, to be shipped from one colony to an-
other free of duty. Thus the colonial consumer enjoyed a
decided advantage over the British consumer. Moreover —
and this is where the rub came — when the colonial merchant,
evading the Navigation Act, re-shipped to foreign countries
tobacco on which he had paid no duty, he was able to under-
sell his British competitor who was compelled to add to the
price which he charged the foreigner the import tax which
he himself had paid to the Crown. The Navigation Act was
so imperfectly enforced in the colonies, that this competition
became a matter of serious concern to British merchants who
finally complained to Parliament about it. In 1673, therefore,
Parliament came to their relief by passing an act which levied
export duties on certain articles when shipped from one col-
ony to another. On tobacco this duty was fixed at a penny
a pound which was to be collected by officials of the Crown.

The passage of this act, which was approved by the Lords
Proprietors, alarmed the Albemarle planters. Tobacco was
their chief article of export; New England was their princi-
pal market. Of their yearly crop, amounting to more than a
million pounds, but little found its way, or could find its way
directly to England. Poor harbors and shifting sands made
the navigation of the Carolina waters too difficult and danger-
ous for large vessels engaged in trans-Atlantic trade, but the
lighter draft coastwise ships of the New England traders were
not seriously hindered by these obstacles. The trade of Al-
bemarle accordingly was largely controlled by a few enter-
prising and not overly scrupulous New England skippers. That

1Fiske: Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, Vol. II, p. 280.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 53

this was economically bad for Albemarle, the Lords Propri-
etors understood better than the planters, "itt beinge," they
said, "a certaine Beggery to our people of Albemarle if they
shall buy goods at 2d hand and soe much dearer than they
may bee supply 'cl from England and with all sell there Tobac-
co and other Commodities at a lower rate then they could do
in England." What the Lords Proprietors did not under-
stand was that Nature, not man, had determined the course
of the trade of Albemarle. For instance, in 1676, they di-
rected the governor, "in order to the Incourageinge a Trade
with England," to send them an exact account of the depth
of water in the several inlets and at places where ships could
load and unload "for this has bine soe concealed and uncer-
tainely reported here as if some persons amongst you had
joyn'd with some of New England to engross that poore trade
you have and Keepe you still under hatches." It was, then,
with the expectation that the Navigation Act would destroy
this New England monopoly of the Albemarle trade and build
up a direct trade between Albemarle and the mother country,
that the Lords Proprietors gave it such hearty support. Our
historians generally have condemned their policy because they
have misunderstood the purpose of the Navigation Act. Had
its purpose, and its only result, been "to secure more funds
for the deplenished purse of a needy sovereign,"2 it would
have received scant sympathy from the Lords Proprietors ; it
was not to their interest to impoverish their colony for the
benefit of the Crown. But the real purpose of the act was
not to produce a revenue; it was to establish direct trade rela-
tions between the colonies and the mother country, and the
Lords Proprietors understood clearly enough the advantages
their colony would derive from such relations. It was the
hope of securing these advantages for their colony, and not
the desire of collecting a revenue for the Crown, that inspired
them to take so much interest in enforcing the act of 1673, as,
on the other hand, it was the fear of this result that moved the
New England traders, and those Albemarle planters who were
associated with them, to offer such a vigorous opposition.

In following the course of this opposition, which finally
broke out in open rebellion, we are led into the obscure mazes
of colonial politics from which it is difficult at times to extri-
cate ourselves with certainty. To a large extent the revolt
against the enforcement of the Navigation Act was but the

2 Ashe: History of North Carolina, Vol. I, p. 113.

54 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

continuation of a factional strife that had long been waging
in Albemarle. In 1673, two parties were contending for su-
premacy. One led by Thomas Eastchurch controlled the lower
house of the General Assembly of which Eastchurch was
speaker. Closely allied with him were Timothy Biggs, dep-
uty of the Earl of Craven, and Thomas Miller whose tyranny
was the occasion for the outbreak. Of the other party, though
John Jenkins, acting governor, was nominally the leader, the
real head and front was George Durant who completely dom-
inated the governor. ''Of all the factious persons in the
Country," declared his opponents, "he was the most active
and uncontrollable." Prominent among those who acknowl-
edged his leadership, besides Jenkins, were Valentine Byrd
who, it was said, "drew the first sword" in the revolt, and
John Culpepper, who, declared his enemies (and he had many
of them), was "never in his element but whilst fishing in
troubled waters," and who gave his name to the rebellion of
1677. The contest between these two factions had already
reached a point of great bitterness when it became intensified
by the issues arising out of the efforts to enforce the act of
1673.

In 1675, commissions naming a surveyor and a collector
of customs were sent to Governor Jenkins, accompanied by
instructions that if the men named were not in the colony he
should appoint others in their stead. In these orders the
New England skippers trading in Albemarle read the ruin of
their business and promptly set on foot a report that, if the
duties were collected, they would be compelled to double the
price of their wares; "Upon wch the people were very muti-
nous and reviled & threatened ye Members of the Councell that
were for setleing ye sd duty. ' ; George Durant and his follow-
ers, whose interests lay in maintaining commercial relations
with the New England men, supported their cause. As neither
the surveyor nor the collector named in the commissions of
1675 was in the province, it became the duty of Governor Jen-
kins to fill the vacancies. Accordingly he appointed Timothy
Biggs surveyor and Valentine Byrd collector. The selection
of Biggs was a blind, the selection of Byrd a fraud. The sur-
veyor had nothing to do with the enforcement of the customs
act. Control of that office, therefore, was of less importance
than control of the collectorship, and the Durant party will-
ingly relinquished it to Biggs, a partisan of the Eastchurch
faction, whose selection gave an appearance of good faith
to the whole transaction. The selection of Bvrd as collector,

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 55

on the other hand, placed the enforcement of the act in the
hands of the party that was interested in nullifying it. Byrd
fully met the expectation of his friends ; he reduced the whole
thing to a farce by deliberately closing his eyes to violations
of the law, permitting many hogsheads of tobacco to leave the
wharves of Albemarle planters marked as "bait for the New
England fishermen. ' '

In the meantime the affairs of Albemarle were going from
bad to worse. Factional feuds grew more and more bitter,
and each party when in power carried things with a high hand.
Conspiring with John Culpepper, Jenkins attempted to use
his official power to destroy their personal enemy, Thomas
Miller, whom he had arrested and thrown into prison ; while
John Willoughby, a justice of the General Court and an ad-
herent of the Durant faction, arrogantly asserting that his
"court was the court of courts and the jury of juries," per-
emptorily denied to Thomas Eastchurch the right of appeal
from his decision to the Lords Proprietors. The Assembly
party in turn, under the leadership of Eastchurch, were quite
as arbitrary. Accusing Jenkins of "several misdemeanors, ';
they deposed him from office, without any pretence of legal
right, and threw him into prison. Hastening to justify their
action, they drew up a statement of their proceedings and
dispatched it, together with a petition for redress of griev-
ances, to the Lords Proprietors by Miller who, at the com-
mand of Sir William Berkeley, had been acquitted of the
charges against him and released. Miller arrived in England
in the summer of 1G76 where he met Eastchurch who had gone
thither to seek redress of his own grievances.

The Lords Proprietors, greatly perplexed over the situa-
tion in their colony, and sincerely desirous of promoting its
interests, conferred freely with Eastchurch and Miller. Both
impressed them favorably. Eastchurch seemed to be not only
"a gentleman of a very good family," but also "a very dis-
creet and worthy man," and much concerned for the "pros-
perity and wellfaire" of Albemarle. As he was speaker of
the Assembly, and Miller the bearer of important dispatches
from the Assembly, the Lords Proprietors naturally looked
upon them as representatives of the people and argued that
if anybody could straighten out the tangled affairs of Albe-
marle, Eastchurch and Miller were the men. Accordingly
they appointed Eastchurch governor and procured the ap-
pointment of Miller as collector feeling confident that both

56 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

appointments would be acceptable to the people of Albemarle
and taken as evidence of their solicitude for their colony.

Eastchurch and Miller sailed for Carolina in the summer
of 1677. Coming by way of the West Indies, their ship touched
at the island of Nevis where Eastchurch "lighting upon a
woman y* was a considerable fortune took hold of the opper-
tunity [and] marryed her," and sent Miller on to Albemarle
with a commission as president of the Council to "settle
affayres against his coming. ': Although Eastchurch exceeded
his authority in appointing Miller president of the Council,
nevertheless Miller was quietly received by the people who
submitted without question to his authority both as collector
and as acting-governor. As collector he discharged his duties
with zeal, demanding an accounting from Byrd, his predeces-
sor, appointing deputies, among them Timothy Biggs, and
making "a very considerable progress" in collecting the
king's customs. By his own statement, his collections
amounted to "the value of above £8,000 sterling." But as
governor, Miller showed himself totally unfit to exercise the
power and responsibility with which he had been entrusted.
His enemies, omitting "many hainous matters," charged him
with corruption, vindictiveness, and tyranny; and the Lords
Proprietors were compelled to admit that he "did many
extravagant things, making strange limitations for ye choyce
of ye Parliam1 gitting powr in his hands of laying fynes, wch
tis to be feared he neither did nor meant to use moderately
sending out strange warrants to bring some of ye most con-
siderable men of ye Country alive or dead before him, setting
a sume of money upon their heads." To support his tyranny,
he organized and armed a band of his partisans upon pre-
tense of their being for defence against the Indians ; and by
this "pipeing guard," as it was called, not only kept the peo-
ple in terror but also imposed a heavy debt on the already
bankrupt colony. Consequently, wrote the Lords Proprie-
tors, Miller soon "lost his reputation & interest amongst ye
people."

By the beginning of winter the people were in a rebellious
frame of mind, and only an overt act and a leader were needed
to produce an explosion. Both came soon enough. On
December 1, 1677, the Carolina, "a very pretty vessell of
some force," Captain Zachariah Gillam in command, arrived
from England and cast anchor in Pasquotank River. Gillam
had scarcely stepped ashore when Miller arrested him on a
charge of having violated the Navigation Act and held him to

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 57

bail in £1,000 sterling. Here was the overt act; and Gillam
shrewdly took advantage of it. He threatened to weigh
anchor and carry his cargo out of the country, but the people,
aroused to action by the prospect of losing such an oppor-
tunity for trade, beset him with entreaties to stay, pledging
their support against the governor. The leader too was at
hand, for' on board the Carolina, returning from London,
was George Durant. While in London, Durant had heard with
astonishment of the appointment of his enemy, Eastchurch,
as governor and had boldly "declared to some of ye Prop"
that Eastchurch should not be Governor & threatened to
revolt." News of his threat had probably preceded him to
Albemarle ; at any rate, in his presence Miller scented danger
and determined to forestall it. At midnight of the day of
Durant 's arrival, Miller forced his way into the cabin of the
Carolina, armed "with a brace of pistolls," and "present-
ing one of them cockt to Mr. Geo. Durants breast & wth his
other hand arrested him as a Tray tour. ' '

The assault on Durant was the signal for revolt. Byrd,
Culpepper, and other leaders hastened aboard the Carolina
where, in conference with Durant, they planned to overthrow
Miller and seize the government. About forty "Pasquotan-
kians," armed by Gillam from the Carolina, rallied to their
support and surrounding Miller's house, made him a pris-
oner, seized the tobacco he had collected on the king's account,
and took possession of the public records. They then
dispatched armed parties throughout the colony to arrest
other officials, among whom was Deputy-Collector Biggs, and
issued a "Remonsti'ance," or an appeal for support to "all
the Rest of the County of Albemarle." They had arrested
Miller and seized the public records, they declared, "that
thereby the Countrey may have a free parlem1 & that from
them their aggrievances may be sent home to the Lords";
and they urged the people to choose representatives to an
Assembly which should meet at once at Durant 's house. To
Durant 's plantation, therefore, the victorious rebels with
their prisoners proceeded by water, and as the little flotilla
which bore them to the place of rendezvous dropped down the
Pasquotank River, the Carolina, lying at anchor off Craw-
ford's wharf, exultantly flung her flags and pennons to the
breeze and fired a triumphant salvo from her great guns.

The appeal of the rebels to the people met with a ready
response, and from all parts of Albemarle armed men flocked
to Durant 's plantation. Among Miller's effects the rebels

58 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

had found the Great Seal of the province, the use of which
gave color of authority to their acts, and while Gillam kept
the crowd in a good humor by a free distribution of rum and
whiskey which he had brought from the Carolina, Durant
and other leaders proceeded to organize a government. First
of all, the Assembly consisting of eighteen delegates chosen by
the people, met and elected five of their members who,
together with Eichard Foster, who alone of the Lords Pro-
prietors' deputies had adhered to the rebels, were to form the
Council. Before this Council Miller and the other prisoners
were brought for trial. In all their proceedings, the rebels
scrupulously observed the usual legal forms. Culpepper was
appointed clerk, Durant attorney-general, a grand jury was
summoned, indictments were presented and true bills returned
with due formality. They were proceeding to impanel a petit
jury when a bomb was suddenly thrown into their camp. This
was nothing less than a message from Eastchurch who, with
his bride, had arrived in Virginia and learning of the situa-
tion in Albemarle, had sent his proclamation which, as Miller
feelingly said, came "at yevery nicke of tyme," commanding
the rebels to disperse and abandon their illegal proceedings.
This sudden turn of affairs presented a serious question to
the rebels. Whatever justification they may have had for
revolt against Miller, they could not charge Eastchurch with
tyranny and oppression, nor could they deny his legal title
and authority as governor, for he bore a commission from the
Lords Proprietors. Nevertheless, resolved to carry their
revolt through to a successful issue, they hastily "elapt Miller
in irons," declared that if Eastchurch attempted to come to
Albemarle "they would serve him ye same sauce," and sent
an armed force to the Virginia border to prevent his enter-
ing the province. Eastchurch appealed to the governor of
Virginia for military aid which was readily promised him,
but his sudden death before assistance could be given removed
all danger to the Albemarle rebels from that quarter.

Now that the rebels had a free hand, prudence character-
ized their conduct. They dropt the proceedings against Mil-
ler and the other deposed officials ; convened a free Assembly,
organized courts, and conducted the government "by their
owne authority & according to their owne modell." To secure
funds for the support of the government, the Assembly ap-
pointed Culpepper collector and instructed him to take pos-
session of the revenues which Miller had collected. The colony
had quieted down and everything was running smoothlv when

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 59

the escape of Timothy Biggs and his flight to England, brought
sharply to the attention of the rebels the necessity of having
their case properly presented to the Lords Proprietors. The
Assembly, therefore, commissioned Culpepper to go to Eng-
land to assure the Lords Proprietors of their allegiance, but
at the same time to "insist very highly for right against Mil-
ler." They denied the authority neither of the Proprietors
nor of the Crown, and did not regard their conduct as rebel-
lion. The Lords Proprietors, for reasons to be explained,
-were willing to accept this view, and Culpepper was on the
point of returning to Albemarle in triumph, when the situa-
tion took a sudden and more serious turn.

Miller having escaped from prison had hastened to Lon-
don and laid his case before the king in Council. Inasmuch
as Miller in his capacity as collector, was a crown official, his
arrest and removal from office, the appointment of Culpepper
in his stead, and the seizure of the customs, were offences
against the royal authority which the crown officials were not
willing to overlook. The Privy Council accordingly ordered
that Culpepper be held without bail in England pending a full
investigation of the affair: and directed the Lords Proprie-
tors to present a complete account of the rebellion in Albe-
marle together "with an authentick Copy of their Charter."
Apprehensive that this might mean a suit to void their char-
ter for failure to maintain an orderly government in their
colony, the Lords Proprietors were anxious to minimize the
rebellion as much as possible. Accordingly, though compelled
to admit the fact of rebellion, they enlarged upon the crimes
of Miller and his lack of authority to administer the govern-
ment. They could not, however, gloss over the resistance to
the king's collector, and the seizure of the king's revenues,
for Culpepper acknowledged the facts and threw himself
upon the mercy of the king. But the commissioners of cus-
toms urged "that no favor may be shewed him unless he
make or procure satisfaction for the Customs seized and
embeseled by him, ' ' and recommended that he be arrested and
brought to trial for embezzlement and treason. Thereupon
the Lords Proprietors came to his rescue on the first charge,
by agreeing "to procure by their authority and influence in
Carolina" a satisfactory settlement of the debt; and Shaftes-
bury, undoubtedly with the sanction of his associates, suc-
cessfully defended him against the charge of treason on the
plea that at the time of the rebellion there was no legal gov-
ernment in Albemarle.

60 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

On the whole, the Lords Proprietors met this crisis in their
affairs wisely. Amid the clamor of contending factions, they
found it impossible to discriminate between truth and false-
hood, to distinguish the innocent from the guilty, to pro-
nounce judgment with impartial justice; and as they were
much more eager to restore peace and the reign of law in their
province than they were to punish those who had disturbed
its repose, they declined to follow the advice of Biggs and
Miller who urged them to employ force in suppressing the
rebellion; and they found an excuse if not a justification for
the conduct of the rebels not only in the crimes and tyranny
of Miller, but also in the fact that he had attempted to act as
governor " without any legall authority." Considering the
disorders in Albemarle the result of factions, they were desir-
ous of finding a governor who was not a partisan of either
side, and who possessed the character and position to com-
mand the respect of both. Such a man they thought they had
in Seth Sothel who had recently became a Lord Proprietor by
the purchase of Clarendon's interest. His associates thought
him "a sober, moderate man," "no way concerned in the fac-
tions and animosityes"' of Albemarle, and possessed of the
ability to "settle all things well" in their turbulent colony;
and as he was willing to undertake the task, they appointed
him governor and at the same time procured his appointment
as collector. But on his way to Carolina, Sothel was captured
and held to ransom by Algerian pirates.

Pending Sothel 's release, the Lords Proprietors commis-
sioned John Harvey governor and the commissioners of the
customs appointed Eobert Holden collector. Both were satis-
factory to the people of Albemarle who "Quyetly and
cherefully obeyed,: them. After a brief official life, Har-
vey died in office, and the Council selected John Jen-
kins as his successor. In this selection the Lords Proprie-
tors acquiesced. It was a clear victory for the Durant
party, now completely in the ascendancy. "Although Jen-
kins had the title [of governor]" the other faction truth-
fully asserted, "yet in fact Durant governed and used Jen-
kins but as his property." It was fortunate for the colony
that this was so. The Durant party was the only group in
the colony strong enough to administer a government suc-
cessfully and to assure order, and George Durant, its leader,
possessed many of the qualities of statesmanship. Under his
leadership, order was restored, the laws were enforced, the
king's customs were collecte 1 "without anv disturbance

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 61

from the people," a tax was levied on the colony to refund
the revenues seized and used by the rebels "in the tynie of the
disorders"; and the Assembly passed an act of oblivion cov-
ering offenses committed during the rebellion. Miller, Biggs,
and their followers complained bitterly of the conduct of the
government and endeavored to stir up resistance to it, but
the people had had enough of strife, and the Lords Proprie-
tors were wearied with factious complaints. They stood
squarely behind the constituted authorities in their colony,
with the result that in November, 1680, they were able to
report that in Albemarle "all things are in quyet and his
Maj,yes Customes quyetly paid by the People."

Unhappily this state of affairs was destined to be of short
duration. In 1683, Seth Sothel, who had been released from
captivity, arrived in Albemarle bearing a commission as gov-
ernor. John Fiske is guilty of no exaggeration when he says
of Sothel: "In five years of misrule over. Albemarle he
proved himself one of the dirtiest knaves that ever held office
in America." 3 As a Lord Proprietor, he considered himself
above the law. He disregarded the instructions of the Lords
Proprietors; appointed deputies illegally and "refused to
suffer any to act as Deputy who had deputations under the
hand and seale of the Proprs"; and acted "contrary to all the
fundamental Constitutions." He had been in office but a
short time when he received a sharp reprimand from his asso-
ciates, who informed him that no man could "claime any
power in Carolina but by virtue of them [Fundamental Con-
stitutions] for no prop'01' single by virture of our patents
hath any right to the Governm1 or to exercise any Jurisdic-
tion there unless Impowered by the rest." Complaints soon
began to pour in upon them from the people charging Sothel
with corruption, robbery, and tyranny. He withheld from
subordinate officials and put into his own pocket the perquis-
ites of their offices. He accepted bribes from criminals. He
seized without ceremony and appropriated to his own use
whatever pleased his fancy, whether a plantation, a negro
slave, a cow, or a pewter dish; and if the owner had the ef-
frontery to object he locked him up. He arrested and impris-
oned two traders arriving in Albemarle on pretense of their
being pirates, although both produced proper clearance
papers showing them to be lawful traders, threw them into
prison, and seized their goods. One of them died in prison

3 Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, Vol. II. p. 286.

62 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

leaving a will naming Thomas Pollock as executor; but Sothel
refused to admit the will to probate, and when Pollock threat-
ened to appeal to the Lords Proprietors, he "Imprisoned him
without showing him any reason or permitting him to see a
copy of his mittimus. ' ' George Durant indignantly denounced
such unlawful proceedings, whereupon Sothel threw him into
prison and confiscated his whole estate "without any process
or collor of law and converted the same to yor [his] owne use."

The people of Albemarle endured Sothel 's tyranny until
1688. Then doubtless inspired by the Eevolution in England
they rose against the tyrant, deposed him from office, and
prepared to pack him off to England for trial. But Sothel,
who feared the wrath of his associates more than the ven-
geance of the colonists, begged that he might be tried by the
General Assembly of Albemarle. He felt sure that the As-
sembly, though it might remove him from office, would not
venture to impose a prison sentence, and in this he calculated
correctly. The Assembly found him guilty, banished him
from the province for one year, and declared him forever
incapable of holding office in Albemarle. The prudence of
the Assembly brought its reward. The Lords Proprietors,
worn out with the everlasting strife and disorders in their
colony, were at first inclined to censure the Assembly, and
veto its proceedings, which they declared to be "prejudicial
to the prerogative of the Crown and the honor and dignity
of us the proptors"; but afterwards, becoming convinced of
Sothel 's guilt, they removed him from office and wrote to the
people of their colony : ' ' Wee were extremely troubled when
wee heard of the sufferings of the Inhabitants of North Caro-
lina by the arbitrary proceedings of Mr. Seth Sothel which un-
just and Illegal actions wee abhor and have taken the best
care wee can to prevent such for the future And that all men
may have right done them who have suffered by him."

Seth Sothel was the last governor of Albemarle; his suc-
cessor, Philip Ludwell, was commissioned "Governor of that
part of our Province of Carolina that lyes north and east of
Cape feare. " In the letter to the Assembly, quoted above, the
attentive reader will have observed that the Lords Proprietors
referred to the people of that region as the "Inhabitants of
North Carolina." The phrase is significant. It indicates not
only the growth and expansion of Albemarle, but also points to
a change in the policy of the Lords Proprietors. They had
abandoned their original plan of erecting several separate and
distinct governments in their province; henceforth there were

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 63

to be but two, — one, of which the Ashley River settlement was
the nucleus, was to be the colony of South Carolina ; the other,
developing out of Albemarle, was to be North Carolina. With
the expulsion of Sothel, therefore, the history of Albemarle
ends and the history of North Carolina as such begins.

CHAPTER V
GROWTH AND EXPANSION

With the appointment of Philip Ludwell as governor,
North Carolina entered upon a brief period of order and
progress. Ludwell 's instructions reflected the purpose of the
Lords Proprietors "to take care of the quiet and safety of
the provinces under our [their] Governm1." The first task,
therefore, which they imposed upon him was to bring order
out of the chaos into which the colony had been plunged
by the misgovernment of Seth Sothel. He was to see that
their letter to Sothel removing him from office was "carefully
delivered to his own hands " ; to inquire into the causes of the
revolt against him; and to appoint a commission of "three of
the honestest and ablest men" in the province not concerned
in the revolt to hear and determine "according to Law" all
complaints "both Civill and Criminall" growing out of his
conduct. If Ludwell found anvthing in his instructions "de-
ficient or Inconvenient to ye Inhabitants," he was to report it
to the Lords Proprietors who promised to "take due care
therein." Their readiness to hear and redress the grievances
of their people had a good effect, the result of which was seen
at the very beginning of Ludwell 's administration in the fail-
ure of a Captain John Gibbs, a rival claimant to the governor-
ship, to arouse any popular sympathy with his cause.

Under other circumstances, Gibbs' bombastic pronuncia-
mento, now thought of only as a ludicrous and amusing inci-
dent, might easily have led to serious results. The grounds
upon which "Governor Gibbs" based his claims are not cer-
tain ; one plausible suggestion is that he had been elected by
the Council upon the expulsion of Sothel; another is that he
had been appointed by Sothel himself as his deputy. But
whatever his grounds, he was not backward in asserting his
claims which he set forth in a remarkable proclamation dated
"Albemarle, June y8 2d 1690." He asserted his right to the
office of governor, denounced Ludwell as a "Rascal, imposter,
& Usurp1," and commanded "all Persons to keep the Kings

64

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 65

peace, to consult ye ffundainentals, and to render me [him]
due obedience, & not presume to act or do by Virtue of any
Commission or Power whatsoever derived from ye above sd
Ludwell, as they will answer itt, att their utmost perill."
His claim, he declared, would "be justified in England and
if any of the boldest Heroe living in this or the next County
will undertake to Justine the said Ludwell 's illegal Irregular
proceeding, let him call upon me wa his sword, and I will single
out & goe with him into any part of the King's Dominions, &
there fight him in this Cause, as long as my Eyelids shall
wagg. ' '

The valiant captain was as good as his word. Four
days after issuing his challenge, he led a band of armed fol-
lowers into Currituck precinct, broke up the precinct court
then sitting, made two of the magistrates prisoners, and issued
an order forbidding any court ' ' to sitt or act by any Commis-
sion but his." But if he expected a popular uprising in his
behalf, such as had followed the "Remonstrance" of the
"Pasquotankians" against Miller in 1677, he was doomed to
disappointment. The people, conciliated by the attitude of the
Lords Proprietors in the Sothel affair, were in no mood for
further violence or rebellion ; indignant at the outrage perpe-
trated upon their court, they rallied to the support of lawful
government, sprang to arms, and chased "Governor Gibbs"
and his band out of the province. Gibbs took refuge in Vir-
ginia where Governor Nicholson, at Ludwell 's request, took a
hand in the affair and speedily brought him to terms. Both
Ludwell and his bellicose rival thereupon embarked for Eng-
land to lay their dispute before the Lords Proprietors who
promptly repudiated the latter.

Upon his return from England, in 1691, Ludwell brought
a new set of instructions based, as the Lords Proprietors pri-
vately informed him, not upon the Fundamental Constitu-
tions, but upon their charter from the Crown. This was an
important concession to the political sentiment of the people
who had never accepted the Fundamental Constitutions, and
its practical effect was to relegate that document to its place
among the many abortive schemes which well-meaning theor-
ists since the beginning of time have devised for the govern-
ment of mankind. One of the objects of the new instructions
was to strengthen the colonial government, a necessity plainly
demonstrated by recent events in both the Carolinas. Greater
dignity was to be given the executive authority by placing
both North Carolina and South Carolina under a single gov-
ernor whose hands were to be strengthened by eliminating

Vol. 1—5

Governor Philip Ludwell

From a portrait in possession of Bennehan Cameron

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 67

from the Council the five members chosen by the General
Assembly, thus leaving the Council to be composed exclusively
of the deputies of the Lords Proprietors. The legislative de-
partment was to undergo a similar consolidation. There was
to be but one General Assembly for the two colonies to which
each of the four counties of Albemarle, Colleton, Berkeley,
and Craven was to send five representatives. Such at least
was the plan on paper, but it was never carried into effect
because upon second thought the Lords Proprietors saw insu-
perable difficulties in the way. Additional instructions,
therefore, were issued providing that, if it was found "Im-
practicable for to have the Inhabitants of Albemarle County
to send Delegates to the General Assembly held at South
Carolina," each colony should continue to hold its own As-
sembly. At the same time the governor was authorized to
appoint a deputy-governor for North Carolina, a provision
later extended to South Carolina also. The two governments,
therefore, continued separate and independent of each other.
The development of North Carolina had been too slow
to keep pace with the plans and expectations of the Lords
Proprietors, who sharply reprimanded the Albemarle planters
for their failure to open up the wilderness between Albemarle
and Charleston. But the Lords Proprietors did not under-
stand the difficulties in the way. Wide sounds, broad rivers,
dense forests, almost impenetrable swamps made progress
difficult. Shallow inlets and shifting sands barred access to
the markets of the world, placed the trade of North Carolina
at the mercy of competing Virginia planters and shrewd New
England merchants, and retarded the development of agri-
culture and commerce. Hostile Indians roamed the wilder-
ness, committed many depredations and murders, and twice
during the decade from 1665 to 1675 openly went on the war-
path. There were, too, as we have seen, numerous causes for
discontent which discouraged immigration and deterred the
settlers already in Albemarle from undertaking new enter-
prises. Culpepper's Rebellion completely disorganized the
government and for more than two years kept the colony in
turmoil. The land question also checked immigration. Since
the terms on which land was granted in Albemarle were less
favorable than those which prevailed in Virginia, people were
naturally slow to abandon the older colony for the new one;
and even after the Great Deed partially removed this discrimi-
nation, the uncertainty of the titles by which the Albemarle
planters held their lands discouraged others from joining
them. Still another deterrent to new enterprises was the

68 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

minor that the other Lords Proprietors intended to sell their
interests in Albemarle to Sir William Berkeley. In spite of all
these difficulties, a few adventurers, hardier and bolder, or
more restless than their fellows, pushed across Albemarle
Sound and attempted to open the way for settlements to the
southward; but they were "with great violence and Injustice
deprived of any power to proceed any further * and

were commanded back to your [their] great prejudice and in-
convenience" by colonial officials "who had ingrosit ye Indian
trade to themselves & feared that it would be intercepted by
those who should plant farther amongst them."

A serious obstacle to the growth and prosperity of North
Carolina was the hostile conduct of Virginia throughout the
proprietary period. From her superior position as a crown
colony, Virginia looked down with unconcealed disdain upon
all the proprietary colonies around her, but North Carolina
was the special object of her aversion. The very existence of
that colony was an affront to Virginia. It had been carved
out of her ancient domain. It had been populated largely at
her expense. It offered keen competition in the staple upon
which her prosperity was founded. Its free and democratic
society was in sharp contrast to the more aristocratic sys-
tem that prevailed in the Old Dominion. Whatever checked
the growth and development of North Carolina, therefore,
Virginians regarded as indirectly promoting the interests of
Virginia. This end they sought to accomplish in various
ways. They spread abroad evil reports of the people of North
Carolina. They attempted to undermine her economic pros-
perity by hostile legislation forbidding the shipment of North
Carolina tobacco through Virginia ports. They encouraged
Indians to advance claims to lands which the latter had form-
ally ceded by treaty to the Lords Proprietors, and shielded
Indian thieves who preyed upon the horses, cattle and hogs of
North Carolina planters. They pretended ignorance of the
charter of 1665 and laying claim to the region which that char-
ter had added to the Carolina grant, undertook to close it to
North Carolina settlers.

Two laws passed by the Albemarle Assembly in 1669 de-
signed to encourage immigration, — i. e. the stay-law and the
law exempting new settlers from taxation for one year — were
especially resented by the Virginians, who declared that they
were nothing less than open invitations to rogues and vaga-
bonds. Yet the former was an exact copy of the Virginia
statute of 1642 which the Virginia Assembly carefully re-
enacted in 1663 because it had been inadvertentlv omitted

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 69

from a printed collection of the Virginia laws. The Albe-
marle Assembly even copied the Virginia preamble which set
forth as the reason for the statute that many people had
"through their engagements in England, forsaken their
native country and repaired hither, with resolution to abide
here, hoping in time to gain some competency of subsistence
by their labors, yet, nevertheless, their creditors, hearing of
their abode in the colony, have prosecuted them with their
actions to the ruin of said debtors." Unquestionably some
scoundrels took advantage of the Albemarle statute, just as
others had taken advantage of the Virginia law, but hardly
enough of them came to justify Virginia's taunts and re-
proaches. "Rogues Harbour" was a favorite Virginia epi-
thet for Albemarle. Advertent to the opportunities the stat-
ute offered to persons in an adjoining community to defraud
their creditors, and attentive to the complaints of their neigh-
bor, the North Carolina Assembly in 1707 exempted settlers
from Virginia from the protection of the statute ; nevertheless
this friendly act did not sooth the ruffled feelings of the Vir-
ginians, and the "substantial planters" and industrious serv-
ants whom they earnestly tried to keep in Virginia continued
to become immediately upon crossing the boundary line into
North Carolina "idle debtors," "theeves," "pyrates," and
' ' runaway servants. ' ' The people of North Carolina naturally
resented these misrepresentations, and finally Governor
Walker was goaded by Governor Nicholson's continued "inti-
mations concerning runaways" into sharply repelling the
"imputation of evil neighbourhood" which he had cast upon
the eolony.

Not content with fixing a bad name upon North Carolina,
the Virginians undertook to destroy the source of her eco-
nomic welfare. Tobacco was the staple of both colonies and
the Virginia planters early became alarmed at the competition
to which the increasing production of Albemarle subjected
them. In 1679, the commissioners of the customs wrote
that "the quantity of Tobacco that groweth in Carolina is
considerable & Increaseth every year but it will not appear
by the Customhouse bookes what customes have been received
in England for the same for that by reason of the Badness of
the Harbours in those parts most of the Tobaccos of the
growth of those Countreyes have been and are Carryed from
thence in Sloops and small fetches to Virginia & New Eng-
land & from thence shipped hither. So that the Entries here
[London] are as from Virgin1 & New England although the
Tobacco be of the growth of Carolina & Albemarle. ': The

70 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Virginia planters bad long sought a way to destroy this com-
petition, and finally in 1679 the Assembly came to their relief
by forbidding the importation of tobacco from Carolina into
Virginia, or its exportation through Virginia ports. This act
was re-enacted in 1705, and again in 1726. It was a hard blow
for North Carolina and did not tend to improve her relations
with her neighbor.

Another cause for indignation against Virginia was her
action in taking under her protection a band of straggling Me-
herrin Indians who, near the close of the seventeenth century,
had moved from "their ancient place of habitation" north
of the Meherrin River, and placing themselves at its mouth,
had "planted corne and built Cabbins" on the lands which the
Chowanocs, after the war of 1675-76, had ceded to the Lords
Proprietors of Carolina. Their presence there was a con-
stant menace to the peace of the province. They preyed upon
the planters, drove off their hogs and cattle, destroyed their
crops, and committed numerous murderous assaults upon
their persons, and the planters retaliated with usury. To
remove the danger, the North Carolina authorities negotiated
a treaty with the Indians which required them "to return to
the place of their former habitation," but the Virginia gov-
ernment intervened, assured the Meherrins of its support
and protection, and induced them to refuse to carry out
their agreement. Col. Thomas Pollock was then sent to remove
them by force. With a band of sixty men, he attacked their
town, took a large number of prisoners, and threatened "to
burn their Cabbins and destroy their Corne if they did not
remove from that place. '; Virginia promptly called upon
North Carolina to disavow Pollock's act and demanded his
punishment. That colony set up a claim to the lands on which
the Meherrins had settled, declared that "the said Indians
have their dependence upon and are under the protection of
this Government," and denounced the "Clandestine Treaty"
between them an ' the North Carolina government as deroga-
tory to the rights and dignity of Virginia. The Virginia
Council dismissed with contempt the statement of facts, as well
as the arguments, of the North Carolina government, although
as stated by the latter the question involved was "whether
near a hundred familys of her Majty's subjects of Carolina
should be disseased of their freehold to lett a few vagrant and
Insolent Indians rove where they please without any Eight
and Contrary to their Agreement." Encouraged by Vir-
ginia's attitude, the Meherrins continued over a period of
years to disregard their treaty, and growing more and more

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 71

insolent, committed repeated depredations upon the property
and assaults upon the persons of the Carolina planters, "sup-
posing," as Governor Hyde complained in a letter to the gov-
ernor of Virginia, "they can have protection from you."

Virginia's concern for these Indians was not inspired by
any philanthropic interest in their welfare, but by the fact
that in their fate was involved her claim to the region which
they had occupied. This claim North Carolina disputed. The
dispute arose from the fact that the exact location of the
dividing line between the two colonies had never been ascer-
tained and many of the settlers who entered lands along the
frontier, ignorant that they were within the Carolina grant,
had taken out patents from Virginia. Consequently when the
Carolina government, in 1680, claimed jurisdiction over them
and demanded payment of quit rents and taxes, Virginia en-
tered a vigorous protest, declaring that those settlers were
inhabitants of Virginia and must not "be in any sort molested
disturbed or Griev'd" by the North Carolina authorities. The
controversy thus precipitated was destined to strain the
friendly relations of the two colonies for more than half a
century. It grew in intensity as time passed and other ques-
tions arose to add fuel to the flames. The jurisdiction of the
courts became involved, and on one occasion at least, court
officials of the two provinces actually came into armed con-
flict.

The origin of the controversy may be traced to the change
which the second charter of the Lords Proprietors made in
the northern boundary of Carolina. The charter of 1663
fixed the boundary at the 36th parallel of northern latitude ;
the charter of 1665 fixed it in a line to be run from "the north
end of Currituck river or inlet, upon a strait westerly line
to Wyonoak creek, which lies within or about the degrees of
thirty-six and thirty minutes, northern latitude, and so west,
in a direct line, as far as the south seas." As early as 1681
the Lords Proprietors petitioned the Crown to have the line
run as thus described; but Virginia having privately ascer-
tained that such a line would defeat her claims, questioned
the existence of the "prtended lattr Grant to the Lords Pro-
pryet™ of Carolina. '; On this point, however, she was easily
beaten by an inspection of the record. The dispute was there-
upon shifted to the location of the natural objects along the
line as described in the charter. The chief point at issue
was the identity of Weyanoke Creek. AVeyanoke Creek was
doubtless a well known stream in 1665, but with the passage
of years it had lost that name which by 1680 had disappeared

72 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

from the map. Virginia maintained that it was identical with
Wicocon Creek, while North Carolina as stoutly insisted that
it was the same as Nottoway River, and both colonies easily
secured testimony from early settlers to sustain their con-
tentions. The difference was too considerable to be given
up without a contest, since it involved a strip of territory
fifteen miles in width.

The chief sufferers in these controversies were the inhabi-
tants of the disputed territory who were of course anxious
to have the line fixed. Accordingly in 1699 the Crown ordered
that it be run as called for by the charter of 1665. Governor
Harvey promptly sent Daniel Akehurst and Henderson
Walker to Virginia as commissioners to represent North
Carolina ; but the Virginia officials alleging that Harvey had
not been f ormally confirmed in his office by the king, refused
to recognize his commissioners and informed him that ''it is
not convenient with us to treat with any person or persons
by you appointed." After this experience, North Carolina,
suspecting that Virginia's purpose was to resist indefinitely
the settlement of the dispute and satisfied that her own
claims were well founded, proceeded as if her title to the
territory was beyond controversy. Virginia too began to sus-
pect that she could not make good her pretensions. In 1705
the Virginia Council ordered the official surveyor of that
province to ascertain "whether the line between this Govern-
ment and North Carolina if run according to the patent of
the Lords Proprietors may cut off any plantations held by
titles from this Government, ' ' at the same time directing him
"to keep secret the intentions of this Government * * *
that the people of North Carolina may have no other suspi-
cion than that those Surveyors are only going about laying
the Maherin Indians lands."

Nothing more was done until 1709 when both colonies re-
ceived orders from the queen to settle the dispute. North
Carolina accordingly appointed John Lawson and Edward
Moseley as her commissioners, while Virginia was repre-
sented by Philip Ludwell and Nathaniel Harrison. After sev-
eral failures to arrange a meeting, the commissioners finally
came together at Williamsburg, August 30, 1710. The attitude
of the Virginians doomed the enterprise to failure from the
first. No good thing could come out of Nazareth. In every act
of the Carolina commissioners, the Virginians detected some
ulterior, dishonest motive. They accused both Lawson and
Moseley of a secret purpose "to obstruct the Settling the
Boundary?," charging that they were privately interested in

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 73

•

the lands in dispute. The witnesses cited by the North
Carolina commissioners were all "very Ignorant persons, &
most of them of ill fame & Reputation," while those called by
Virginia were "Persons of good Credit." If Moseley raised
legal objections to the powers conferred upon the Virginia
commissioners, it was "with design to render their confer-
ences ineffectual"; if he questioned the accuracy of their in-
struments, it was merely one of his "many Shifts & Excuses
to disappoint all Conferences with the Commissioners of Vir-
ginia"; if his statement of a fact did not correspond with
what the Virginians understood it to be, it was set down to
his propensity to ' ' prevarication. ' ' Such at least the Virginia
commissioners, in their efforts to prejudice the Proprietors'
case, set down in the report they wrote for the Crown, a re-
port afterwards severely criticised in his "History of the
Dividing Line,'; by Col. William Byrd, one of the Vir-
ginia commissioners when the line was finally run in 1728.
Colonel Byrd thought that "it had been fairer play" to have
furnished Lawson and Moseley a copy of the report thus
giving them an opportunity to answer the charges against
them; confessed that Moseley "was not much in the wrong
to find fault with the Quadrant produced by the Surveyors
of Virginia" as it was afterwards shown "that there was
an Error of near 30 minutes, either in the instrument or in
those who made use of it"; and admitted after careful sur-
veys that the Nottoway River was probably the same as
Weyanoke Creek. The spirit with which the Virginia com-
missioners approached their task in 1710 and their uncom-
promising attitude made agreement impossible and served
only to intensify the ill-feeling between the two colonies.

For a long time the Lords Proprietors did not appreciate
the obstacles against which their colony was struggling. They
looked upon its inhabitants as a sluggish, unenterprising peo-
ple who neither understood their own nor regarded the Pro-
prietors' interests; upbraided them for their failure to open
communications between the Albemarle colony and the Ashley
River settlement, and declared that to be the reason why they
had neglected the former in the interest of the latter.

There were not wanting, however, intelligent colonists in
North Carolina who labored diligently to present the situa-
tion to the Lords Proprietors in its true light. As early as
1665, Thomas Woodward, surveyor-general, wrote them
plainly that settlers would not come to Albemarle upon harder
conditions than they could secure in Virginia. Thomas East-
church presented facts which forced them to acknowledge

74 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

that the fault was not with the people but with "those persons
into whose hands wee [they] had committed the Government,"
Timothy Biggs bluntly told them that Albemarle owed
nothing to them, and declared that if it - had received but a
tenth part of the aid and encouragement which they had given
to the Ashley River settlement it would have been a prosper-
ous colony. The truth gradually dawned upon the Lords Pro-
prietors who tardily took steps to relieve the situation as far
as possible. They granted more liberal terms for land-hold-
ing; instructed their governors to issue patents to landown-
ers; assured the settlers that they had no intention of part-
ing with Albemarle to Governor Berkeley or "to any persons
whatsoever"; and appointed a governor for the region south
of Albemarle Sound whom they instructed to encourage set-
tlements along Pamlico and Neuse rivers. But more impor-
tant than all of these reforms was the decade and a half of
good government which began with the appointment of Lud-
well in 1691.

Ludwell, appointed December 2, 1691, was the first gov-
ernor of Carolina. His deputies in North Carolina were
Thomas Jarvis (1691-1694) and Thomas Harvey (1694-1699).
In 1693, Thomas Smith succeeded Ludwell, but retired within
iess than a year and was succeeded by John Archdale. Both
Smith and Archdale continued Harvey in power as deputy-
governor of North Carolina. Lxpon the death of Harvey in
1699, Henderson Walker, president of the Council, took over
the administration in North Carolina which he conducted
until the appointment of Col. Robert Daniel in 1703. Dur-
ing the decade and a half in which these men administered
the government, North Carolina enjoyed such a reign of law
and order as she had not known before. Her governors
brought to their task greater abilities, better personal char-
acters, and larger experiences in colonial affairs, than any
of their predecessors. Ludwell had been active for many
years in the public affairs of Virginia where he had won a
reputation for courage, integrity, and devotion to the public
interests. As governor of North Carolina, he showed that
he "understood the character and prejudices of the people
thoroughly ; and as he was possessed of good sense and proper
feeling, he had address enough * * gradually to re-

store a state of comparative peace." l He made himself ac-
ceptable to the people by recognizing the validity of the
Great Deed, but by the same act incurred the displeasure of

1 Hawks: History of North Carolina, Vol. II, p. 494.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 75

the Lords Proprietors who, unable to find any record of that
document in England, repudiated his action and revoked his
commission. John Archdale, the Quaker governor (1694-
1697), like Seth Sothel, was a Lord Proprietor, but he was
like Sothel in nothing else. He was appointed governor be-
cause his predecessor, Governor Smith, advised the Lords
Proprietors that it was impossible to settle the dis-
orders which had broken out in South Carolina "except
a Proprietor himself was sent over with full power to
heal grievances." Archdale 's sagacity, prudence, and sound
judgment, together with his experience in colonial af-
fairs, pointed him out as the man for the task and he was
given extraordinary powers for dealing with the situa-
tion. The confidence of his colleagues was justified by
the results in both colonies. As a Quaker, Archdale was par-
ticularly acceptable in North Carolina where since 1672 the
Quakers had grown numerous and influential. He spent the
winter of 1696-97 in North Carolina personally directing the
government; there his deep religious faith and impeccable
personal character tended to encourage religion and morality,
while his administration of public affairs was so successful as
to elicit from the Assembly the tribute that "his greatest care
is to make peace and plenty flow amongst us." Both Jarvis
and Harvey, deputies of Ludwell and Archdale, had long
been leaders in North Carolina affairs, understood and sym-
pathized with the feelings and ideals of the people, and were
men of excellent character and good judgment. Henderson
Walker, who succeeded Harvey in 1699, had been in the col-
ony for seventeen years and had served as attorney-general,
justice of the General Court, and member of the Council. A
man of education, a lawyer of ability, a Churchman of sin-
cere religious convictions, he was deeply interested in the
material and the moral and spiritual welfare of the colony,
jealous of its good name, and quick to resent the "imputa-
tion of evil neighbourhood" which some of its neighbors en-
deavored to fix upon it. These men gave to North Carolina
fifteen years of good government under the stimulus of which
the colony grew and prospered.

Settlers pushing across the wide expanse of Albemarle
Sound, slowly penetrated the wilderness to the southward.

*

The way was probably opened by English pioneers from Al-
bemarle, but the first settlers south of the Albemarle Sound
of whom we have any record were French Protestants. The
drastic measures of Louis XIV against the Huguenots, soon
to culminate in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were al-

76 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ready driving many of those industrious people from France
to seek new homes in England and in English colonies. They
possessed the qualities necessary to make good colonists, and
the Lords Proprietors were eager to induce them to settle in
Carolina. Doubtless with this object in view, in 1683, they had
the Fundamental Constitutions, one clause of which guaran-
teed religious freedom, translated into French. Large num-
bers of Huguenots, in their search for religious freedom, as is
well known, settled in South Carolina, while others found their
way to North Carolina. The first Huguenot colonists in
North Carolina came about 1690 from Virginia and settled on
Pamlico River. Their enterprise quickly attracted the atten-
tion of the Lords Proprietors who, in 1694, instructed Gov-
ernor Archdale to erect in that region as many counties as
he thought necessary "for ye better regulating and ye en-
couragem1 of ye people.'1 Accordingly the region from Albe-
marle Sound to Cape Fear was erected into the county of
Archdale although none of the vast wilderness south of Pam-
lico River was yet inhabited by white men. As the settle-
ment on the Pamlico grew in importance, the colonial authori-
ties thought it advisable to extend to it still further encour-
agement. In 1696, therefore, the Palatine's Court ordered
that the region extending from Albemarle Sound to Neuse
River be erected into the county of Bath and given the privi-
lege of sending two representatives to the General Assembly.
About this time, too, a pestilence among the Indians decimated
the tribes along the Pamlico and still further opened up that
region to settlers who continued to arrive from Albemarle,
from Virginia, and from Europe.

Among the last were a "great many French Protestants"
who came under the auspices of the king "depending upon
the Royal assurance which was given for their encouraging
the Exercise of the Protestant Religion and the benefit of
the laws of England. v In 1704, on a bluff overlooking Pam-
lico River, they selected a fine site for a town which a
year later they incorporated under the name of Bath. In
1709, when Bath was only five years old, William Gordon, a
missionary, wrote that it "consists of about twelve houses,
being the only town in the whole province. They have a small
collection of books for a library, which were carried over by
the Reverend Doctor Bray, and some land is laid out for a
glebe; in all probability it will be the centre of

trade, as having the advantage of a better inlet for shipping,
and surrounded with most pleasant savannas, very useful for
stocks of cattle.'1 In spite of these fancied advantages, Bath,

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 77

though at times the home of wealth and culture, never be-
came anything more than a sleepy little village and derives
its chief distinction from the unimportant fact that it was
the first town in the province. The settlers on the Pamlico,
however, prospered and their good reports induced others
to join them. They declared, in 1704, that they had "at vast
labour and expense recovered and improved great quantities
of land thereabouts"; and this boast was borne out by the
Council which, in December 1705, "taking into their serious
consideration" the fact that Bath County had "grown popu-
lous and [was] daily increasing," divided it into three pre-
cincts, and conferred upon each of them the right to send
two representatives to the General Assembly. One of these
precincts embraced that portion of Bath County south of
Pamlico River "including all the Inhabitants of News."

The earliest settlers on the Neuse, like those on the Pam-
lico, were Huguenots. For the most part, they came from
Mannakintown, a French settlement in Virginia a few miles
above the falls of the James, founded in 1699 by Claude Phil-
lipe de Richebourg. They had not prospered there "be-
cause," as Lawson says, "at their first coming over, they
took their Measures of Living, from Europe; which was all
wrong; for the small Quantities of ten, fifteen, and twenty
Acres to a Family did not hold out according to their way
of Reckoning, by Reason they made very little or no Fodder ;
and the Winter there being much harder than with us, their
Cattle failed; chiefly, because the English took up and sur-
veved all the Land round about them; so that they were
hemmed in on all Hands from providing more Land for them-
selves or their Children. ' ' 2 The mildness of the climate in
North Carolina, the ease with which lands could be entered
there, and the favorable reports of their brethren on the Pam-
lico lured many of them, including Richebourg himself, away
from the James to seek new homes on the Neuse and the
Trent. They brought with them the thrift, the industry, and
the skill for which their race had been noted in the Old World,
and the colony soon felt the effects of their presence. John
Lawson, who visited their settlements in 1708, wrote of them:
"They are much taken with the Pleasantness of that Coun-
try, and, indeed, are a very industrious People. *
The French are good Neighbours amongst us, and give Ex-
amples of Industry, which is much wanted in this Country."0*

2 History of Carolina (ed. 1718), p. 114.

3 Ibid., p. 83.

78 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

In 1710, the Neuse River settlement was strengthened by
the arrival of a colony of German and Swiss immigrants.
This colony, in one important respect, differed widely from
the other settlements then in North Carolina. All the other
settlements were the outcome of individual initiative and en-
terprise; this one was the result of organized effort. It was
composed chiefly of natives of that region along the Rhine
known as the Palatinate, whence the name Palatines by which
they are generally called. Their story is a tragic one. Prot-
estants in religion, they were under the dominion of an irre-
sponsible Roman Catholic prince who subjected them to many
forms of religious persecution. Their country was the battle-
ground of Europe and in the barbarous and sanguinary wars
of the seventeenth century was frequently overrun and devas-
tated by hostile armies. To these misfortunes were added the
burdens of exorbitant taxes and tolls which swept the greater
part of their earnings into the coffers of their rulers. These
conditions produced such widespread misery and hopeless
poverty, that at the beginning of the eighteenth century many
of them determined to seek relief by emigration.

In this determination, they met with encouragement from
England. Queen Anne, who looked upon herself as the guar-
dian of the Protestants of Europe, eagerly extended both pro-
tection and assistance to all Protestants who sought safety in
her dominions. In this policy she received the support of
the British nation, and Parliament, in 1709, passed a bill pro-
viding for the naturalization of foreign Protestants. Gener-
ous as this policy was, it was not altogether free from the
taint of selfishness. England needed just such industrious
an 1 thrifty people as the German Protestants for the devel-
opment of her colonial empire. For mAny years, therefore,
those who were interested in colonial enterprises carried on
in Germany a widespread propaganda for the purpose of in-
ducing emigration to America. More than fifty books, pam-
phlets and broadsides relating to Pennsylvania alone were
circulated in Germany. Among those whose attention this
propaganda attracted was Rev. Joshua Kocherthal, a Luther-
an clergyman at Landau in the Palatinate, who, in 1703,
went to England, to seek relief for his own congregation.
There he seems to have conferred with the Lords Proprietors
of Carolina for after his return to Germany he published, in
1706, a glowing account of their province in which he pointed
out its advantages as a home for his countrymen. His book
aroused such general interest among the Protestants of Ger-
many that by 1709 it had reached its fourth edition. Stimu-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 79

lated by Kockerthal 's publication, and secretly encouraged by
the British government, the Palatines and other German
Protestants in large numbers abandoned their native land to
seekmew homes in England, or beyond the Atlantic. Follow-
ing the passage of the naturalization act in 1709, more than
10,000 of them landed in England. They came in such great
numbers that the facilities provided for taking care of them
proved utterly inadequate. Several months passed before
plans could be perfected for their ultimate disposition. Nu-
merous schemes, embracing settlements in England, Ireland,
the Canary Islands, and America, were suggested, but of
them all, colonization in America seemed the most feasible.

A favorable opportunity for transporting a colony of the
Palatines to America was offered by the presence in London
of Franz Ludwig Michel and Christopher de Graffenried, rep-
resentatives of a Swiss syndicate of Bern which had been or-
ganized to plant a Swiss colony in America. De Graffenried,
who was the scion of a noble German family of Bern, had ex-
cellent connections in England through whom he succeeded in
interesting English capitalists in his scheme. Even the queen
agreed to contribute £4,000 to his enterprise in consideration
of his taking 100 families of Palatines to America. In what
part of America should he plant his colony? During one of
his sojourns in England some years earlier, De Graffenried 'a
interest in America had been aroused by the Duke of Albe-
marle, one of the Proprietors of Carolina, who had discoursed
to him on "the beauty, goodness, and riches of English Amer-
ica," and now that he was about to seek "a more considerable
fortune in those far-off countries," his thoughts naturally
turned to the province in which the duke had been especially
interested. He was confirmed in this determination by in-
formation received from John Lawson, surveyor-general of
Carolina, who was then in London supervising the publica-
tion of his "New Voyage to Carolina." The Lords Propri-
etors themselves had shown an interest in the Palatines as
possible colonists, even proposing to settle all of them be-
tween fifteen and forty-five years of age in their province if
the queen would defray the expenses of their transportation ;
and they now offered De Graffenried "very favorable condi-
tions and privileges.'1 De Graffenried, accordingly, deter-
mined upon Carolina and purchased in that province 17,500
acres of land to be located south of the Neuse River.

In making his preparations, De Graffenried acted prompt-
ly and prudently. From the thousands of Palatines, eager
for the enterprise, he chose only "young people, healthy and

80 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

laborious and of all kinds of avocations and handicrafts, ' ' in
number about 650. Tools, equipment, and ships were all se-
lected with great care. The colony was placed under the
direction of "three persons, notables from Carolina, who
happened then to be in London and who had lived already
several years in Carolina." They were John Lawson, the
surveyor-general, Christopher Gale, the receiver-general, and
another colonial official. Twelve assistants, "both sensible and
able," were appointed from among the colonists themselves.
In all his plans and preparations, De Graffenried had the ad-
vice and approval of a royal commission which passed on his
contracts, inspected his transports, and were supposed in
other ways to look after the interests of the Palatines. When
all was ready, the colonists went aboard their ships at Graves-
end and after suitable religious ceremonies weighed anchor
for the New World, leaving De Graffenried in England to
await the arrival of his colony from Bern.

The Palatines sailed in January, 1710. Misfortune dogged
their tracks. The royal commissioners, to whom their inter-
ests had been entrusted, had shamefully neglected their duty.
The transports were badly overcrowded. The food supply
was inadequate in quantity and in quality. The cost of trans-
portation had been reduced to the lowest possible amount and
the ship's captain paid in advance for each passenger; the
death of a passenger, therefore, meant a financial gain to the
ship-owners. Even nature seemed to conspire against the wel-
fare of the Palatines. A few days out of port, they were
overtaken by a storm which threatened them with destruction.
Contrary winds tossed them about on the Atlantic for thir-
teen weeks. Crowded into poorly ventilated quarters, reduced
to a salt diet to which they were not accustomed, attacked
and plundered by a French man-of-war, the wretched Pala-
tines suffered many of the horrors of the middle-passage.
Throughout their long voyage, disease was their constant
companion and death a daily visitor. More than half of them
perished at sea and many others succumbed after landing.
Thus, as De Graffenried says, "that colony was shattered be-
fore it had settled."

Sailing up the James River, the survivors of the colony
landed in Virginia, where they were well received, and re-
mained there long enough to recover somewhat from the ef-
fects of their voyage. Then, under the guidance of John
Lawson, they set out overland for Carolina. Lawson who
had been entrusted with the task of locating the settlement
chose a point on the tongue of land between the Neuse and

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 81

Trent rivers, near the site of the present city of New Bern.
No preparations had been made to receive the Palatines.
They found themselves in a wilderness, during the hot and
unhealthy season, without shelter and with an inadequate sup-
ply of food. The experiences of their first summer in Amer-
ica were paralleled only by those of their voyage across the
Atlantic. Reduced to the direst poverty, they were com-
pelled, "to sell all their clothes and movables to the neigh-
boring inhabitants in order to sustain their life." When De
Graffenried arrived in September, he found them in a
wretched condition, "sickness, want and desperation having
reached their very climax."

De Graffenried sailed in June with a colony of 100 Swit-
zers, and after "a happy voyage," landed in Virginia on
September 10th. Bad news from his Palatines was awaiting
him and he pushed on to their relief with as little delay as
possible. His hopes, however, of obtaining speedy succour
for them were doomed to disappointment. He had expected
help from the colonial authorities, in accordance with a prom-
ise which the Lords Proprietors had given him, but he found
political conditions in North Carolina in such a turmoil that
nothing could be obtained from that source. Provisions were
scarce in North Carolina and flour that he had ordered from
Pennsylvania and Virginia was slow in coming. Consequently,
not only was he unable to relieve the distress of his Palatines ;
he could not even provide for the needs of his Switzers, who,
like the Palatines, were soon "obliged to sell their clothes and
implements in order to get the necessary victuals from the
neighboring inhabitants and keep themselves from starva-
tion." Finally, after a period of intense anxiety and suffer-
ing, grain, pork, salt, butter, and vegetables were secured in
sufficient quantities for the immediate needs of the colony.

In the meantime De Graffenried had taken steps to bring
some order out of the chaos which he had found upon his
arrival. He had the land surveyed and the colonists settled
on their several tracts. Encouraged by his presence they
went to work with a will, cleared the forests, built cabins,
erected water-mills for grinding grain, and laid out a town.
This town was placed on the point of land between the Neuse
and the Trent. It was laid off in the form of a cross with
one arm extending from river to river and the other from
the extremity of the point back indefinitely. De Graffenried
planned to erect a church at each of the four corners. Above
the town, he threw across the peninsular a line of fortifica-
tions as a protection against the Indians. In honor of his na-

Vol. 1—6

82 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

live citv, De Graffenried named the town New Bern. Pros-
pects for the future of New Bern seemed so favorable that
people in Pennsylvania and Virginia invested in lots there.
Indeed, such was the improvement in the situation that De
Graffenried boasted that his colonists "within eighteen
months [had] managed to build homes and make themselves
so comfortable, that they made more progress in that length
of time than the English inhabitants in several years."
"There was," he adds, "a fine appearance of a happy state
of things," when suddenly, without warning, the colony was
overwhelmed by the greatest of all its misfortunes. In Sep-
tember, 1711, the most disastrous Indian war in the history
of North Carolina broke out and raged with intermittent vio-
lence for two years. The losses and suffering fell heaviest
upon the settlers along the Neuse. Their cattle were killed
or driven off, their crops destroyed, their homes burned ; many
of the settlers themselves fell victims to the merciless cruelty
of the savages. The rest were reduced to such desperation
and despair that they determined to abandon the settlement,
and De Graffenried went to Virginia to arrange for their re-
moval to a new location on the Potomac. His negotiations
failed and the scheme came to naught. De Graffenried him-
self, broken in fortune and in spirit, now abandoned his ef-
forts and returned to Europe. The Palatines never recov-
ered from the losses they had sustained and soon ceased to
exist as a distinct German settlement. Scattered throughout
the southeastern section of North Carolina, they were ulti-
mately absorbed in the English population ; even their names
lost their German forms to conform to the English spelling.

By 1710, settlements extended from the Virginia line on
the north to the Neuse River on the south, and up and down
the Roanoke, the Pamlico, and the Neuse for twenty and thirty
miles inland. The French and Germans were not the only
ones who came, for many Virginians were abandoning the
older colonv for the new, and not a few adventurers were find-
■ ing their way hither directly from the mother country. For
the most part, the Virginians and the English did not follow
the French and Germans to the outskirts of the settlements,
but entered lands in Albemarle which was rapidly filling up
with a sturdy people. While it is impossible to estimate the
population of the colony accurately, there is ample evidence
of its steady growth. In 1694, for instance, the total number
of tithables in the colony as reported to the General Court
was 787, which meant a population of about 3,500; eight years
later the tithables of Chowan precinct alone were 283, i. e., a

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 83

total population of about 1,400 ; and in 1708 the population of
Pasquotank was more than 1,300. In 1690, the vanguard of
the French colony had just entered the unbroken wilderness
along the Pamlico ; in 1704, the settlement on the Pamlico had
grown so populous that it contained 200 children who had
never received the rite of baptism. Further evidence is found
in the complaints of the Virginia authorities that North Caro-
lina was draining the Old Dominion of her population. The
president of the Virginia Council wrote in 1708, that "many
of our poorer sort of Inhabitants daily remove into our neigh-
boring Colonies, especially to North Carolina which is the
reason the number of our Inhabitants doth not increase pro-
portionally to what might be expected"; and the Virginia
Council explaining this situation said: "the chief cause of
this Removal is want of Land to plant and cultivate
this has occasioned many families of old Inhabitants whose
former plantations are worn out as well as great number of
young people & servants just free to seek for settlements in
the province of North Carolina where Land is to be had on
much easier terms than here, & not a few have obtained grants
from that Government of the very same [amount of] land
which they would have taken up from this, if liberty had been
given for it."

CHAPTER VI
THE GARY REBELLION

The reign of peace and progress which North Carolina
enjoyed under Ludwell and Archdale, and their deputies, was
of short duration. Henderson Walker, whose administration
came to a close in 1703, bequeathed to his successors an issue
that for several years divided the people into contending fac-
tions, stirred up bitter strife and rebellion, and indirectly
brought upon the colony the worst disaster in its history. This
issue was the question of an Established Church.

From the creation of their proprietary in 1663, the Lords
Proprietors had offered liberal terms, as liberality in religious
matters was construed in those days, to all Protestants who
should settle in Carolina. In their proposals of August, 1663,
to prospective settlers at Cape Fear, they promised "in as
ample manner as the undertakers shall desire, freedom and
liberty of conscience in all religious or spiritual things, and
to be kept inviolably with them, we having power in our char-
ter so to do." A few weeks later, in a letter to Sir William
Berkeley, they explained that their reason for authorizing
him to appoint two governors in Albemarle was that ''some
persons that are for liberty of conscience may desire a gov-
ernor of their own proposing." Moreover, both in the Con-
cessions of 1665 and in the Fundamental Constitutions they
provided toleration for all forms of Christian worship in or-
der "that civil peace may be obtained amidst diversity of
opinion. ' '

On the other hand, neither the Lords Proprietors nor the
settlers understood these promises to be inconsistent with the
setting up of an establishment in the colony. Both of the
charters of the Lords Proprietors assumed that the Church
of England would be the Established Church in Carolina ; and
in all their plans the Lords Proprietors proceeded upon this
assumption. In the Concessions of 1665, in their instructions
to their governors, and in the Fundamental Constitutions,
their intentions to establish the Church are repeatedly set

84

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 85

forth. The Fundamental Constitutions provide that it should
be the duty of "parliament to take care for the building of
churches and the public maintenance of divines, to be em-
ployed in the exercise of religion according to the Church of
England; which being the only true and orthodox, and the
national religion of all the king's dominions, is so also of
Carolina, and therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive
public maintenance by grant of parliament. ' '

The Lords Proprietors, therefore, were quite as much
committed to the policy of an establishment as they were to
that of religious toleration; but as they had allowed nearly
two score years to pass without attempting to carry it into
effect, the colonists generally had come to think of it as a
dead letter. The attempt, therefore, after so many years of
neglect to set up an establishment according to these provi-
sions aroused a bitter and determined opposition from all
classes of Dissenters. The increase of the Dissenters, espe-
cially of Quakers, in numbers and influence, is the most im-
portant fact in the early religious development of the colony.
This growth was so great as to lead the early North Carolina
historians into the error of believing that the colony was set-
tled by religious refugees. As a rule the earliest settlers of
North Carolina had been reared within the pale of the Church
of England, and had the Church followed them into their new
home they would doubtless have remained loyal to her; but
forty years passed before a minister of the Established Church
found his way into the Carolina wilderness, and in the mean-
time the field had been occupied and zealously cultivated by
others.

The first voice of a Christian preacher heard in North Car-
olina was the voice of the Quaker, William Edmundson, who
came hither in 1672, a worthy bearer of the Christian faith
to a new land. In himself he personified the Christian vir-
tues of simplicity, piety, zeal, and charity. Undaunted by the
difficulties, discomforts, and dangers of his undertaking, he
courageously plunged into the Carolina wilderness to carry
his message to the scattered pioneers whom the Church had
forgotten, and by his earnestness and eloquence won many
of them to his cause. Soon after entering the province he
arrived at the house of Henry Phillips who, with his wife
"had been convinced of the truth in New England, and came
here to live; and not having seen a Friend for seven years
before, they wept for joy to see us." Phillips hastily sum-
moned the neighboring planters to a meeting. Because their
manners were crude and they violated the proprieties by

86 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

smoking their pipes during the meeting, Edmundson at first
thought they had "little or no religion"; but the readiness
with which they "received the testimony" and confessed their
faith soon undeceived him. Among the converts at this meet-
ing were a prominent justice of the peace, Francis Toms, and
his wife, both of whom "received the truth with gladness."
At their urgent request, Edmundson held another meeting at
their plantation where they had "a blessed time for several
were tendered with a sense of the power of God, received the
truth, and abode in it."

The work so successfully begun by Edmundson was taken
up by others. In the winter of 1672, George Fox himself, the
founder of the Society of Friends, visited the colony where
he received an hospitable welcome not only from the Friends
but also from the governor and other officials. Passing
through Chowan, Pasquotank, and Perquimans precincts, he
held several "precious" meetings and made many converts.
Then, as he recorded in his journal, ''having visited the
north part of Carolina and made a little entrance for the truth
among the people there, we began to return again towards
Virginia, having several meetings on our way, wherein we
had good service for the Lord, the people being generally ten-
der and open." Four years later Edmundson returned to
Carolina following about the same route that he had taken
in 1672. These four years had worked a great change in the
colony. Whereas on his first visit, Edmundson had found only
two Friends, Henry Phillips and his wife, he now found the
Friends quite numerous and well established. "I had several
precious meetings in that colony," he says, "and several
turned to the Lord. People were tender and loving, and there
was no room for the priests, for Friends were firmly settled,
and I left things well amongst them." From time to time,
during the next quarter of a century, other Quaker mission-
aries came to Carolina, held "many comfortable meetings, ';
made converts, and organized quarterly meetings. The Caro-
lina Quakers also received accessions to their strength by
immigration, especially from Pennsylvania, but the greatest
impetus given to their cause was the appointment, in 1694,
of John Arehdale, a convert of George Pox, as governor. Un-
der Archdale the influence of the Quakers reached its climax.
They not only had the governor, but also gained control of
the courts, the Council, and the Assembly, for, as Doctor
"Weeks says, "There was a material reward for being a Quak-
er, and Churchmen and others who thus found it to their in-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 87

terest deserted their own creeds to enroll themselves among
the Friends. ' ' 1

Though the Quakers were the most influential religious
body in the colony, there were other bodies of Dissenters who
were not so well organized. Eev. John Blair, a missionary
of the Church, writing in 1704, declared that according to re-
ligious preferences, the people of the colony fell into four
classes: (1) the Quakers, who "stand truly to one another in
whatsoever may be to their interest"; (2) "a great many
who have no religion, but would be Quakers if by that they
were not obliged to lead a more, moral life than they are
willing to comply to"; (3) a class "something like Presby-
terians," whose leaders "preach and baptize through the
country, without any manner of orders from any sect or pre-
tended Church"; and (4) Churchmen, "who are really zeal-
ous for the interest of the Church, [but] are the fewest in
number." Under the leadership of the Quakers, who, says
Blair, "are the most powerful enemies to Church govern-
ment," the first three classes had united "in one common
cause to prevent any thing that will be chargeable to them,
as they allege the Church government will be, if once estab-
lished by law," and against this combination the Church party
had been unable to make any headway.

For this situation the Church had only herself to blame.
The elaborate organization provided for in the Fundamental
Constitutions existed in theory only; no parishes had been
laid off, no churches erected, no tithes levied, and no minister
had been sent to the colony. Governor Walker wrote to the
Bishop of London, within whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction all
the American colonies lay, that for fifty years the colony had
been "without priest or altar," adding: "George Fox, some
years ago, came into these parts, and, by strange infatuations,
did infuse the Quakers' principles into some small number
of the people ; which did and hath continued to grow ever
since very numerous, by reason of their yearly sending in
men to encourage and exhort them to their wicked principles ;
and there was none to dispute nor to oppose them in carrying
on their pernicious principles for many years." At last, in
1700, the Church in England, aroused to a show of interest in
the welfare of her scattered flock in Carolina, sent out a cler-
gyman, Rev. Daniel Brett, to that colony. This sudden in-
terest, however, proved more disastrous than the long neglect

1 The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina,
p. 33. (J. H. II. Studies, 10th Series, Nos. V-VI.)

88 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

which had preceded it for Brett turned out to be "ye Monster
of ve Aare." His conduct in North Carolina was so shameful
that it wrung from Governor Walker, a zealous Churchman,
a bitter cry of protest to the Bishop of London. "It hath
been a great trouble and grief to us who have a great venera-
tion for the Church," he wrote, "that the first minister who
was sent to us should prove so ill as to give the Dissenters
so much occasion to charge us with him. ' '

The Church party needed a leader who could unite and
organize its scattered forces. This leader was found in Gov-
ernor Walker who, upon assuming his duties as governor in
1699, resolved to devote his best energies to the task of se-
curing the necessary legislation for the support of an estab-
lishment. Success crowned his efforts in 1701 when the
Church party, under his leadership, by "a great deal of care
and management," secured control of the Assembly which
passed the first vestry act in the history of the colony. This
act provided for the organization of vestries, the laying off
of parishes, the erection of churches, the maintenance of a
clergy, and the levy and collection of a poll tax for these pur-
poses. Elated at their success, the Churchmen of the prov-
ince began at once to carry the act into execution, and within
the next two years erected three churches. The first parish
organized in the colony was the Chowan Parish, afterwards
known as St. Paul's. Its vestry met for organization Decem-
ber 15, 1701, and has had a continuous existence since that
date. "It is not only the oldest organized religious body in
the State," observes Bishop Cheshire, "it is the oldest cor-
poration of any kind in North Carolina."2 The activity of
the Churchmen aroused a determined opposition. Those who
opposed an establishment on principle allied themselves with
those who merely objected to the new taxes to overthrow the
Church party and repeal the obnoxious act. "We have an
Assembly to sit the 3d November next, ' ' wrote Walker to the
Bishop of London, in October, 1703, "and there is above one
half of the burgesses that are chosen that are Quakers, and
have declared their designs of making void the act for estab-
lishing the Church.'1 In this, however, they were anticipated
by the Lords Proprietors themselves who returned the act
with their disapproval because of the inadequacy of the sup-
port provided for clergymen.

The ground on which the Lords Proprietors based their

2 "How Our Church Came to North Carolina" in The Spirit of
Missions, Vol. LXXXI 1 1, No. 5, p. 350.

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90 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

veto indicated that the struggle had just begun and both
parties prepared themselves for it. Two new influences entered
the contest in the Church party's favor. One was a new gov-
ernor, the other the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts. Lord John Granville, palatine and zealous
Churchman, about this time determined on a more vigorous
policy with regard to the Church in Carolina and issued posi-
tive instructions to the governor-general, Sir Nathaniel John-
son, to secure whatever legislation was necessary. Sir Na-
thaniel undertook to direct personally the fight in South Caro-
lina, while in the summer of 1703 he superseded Walker as
deputy-governor of North Carolina with Col. Robert Daniel
of South Carolina. It was an unfortunate change. While
Walker was a zealous Churchman, he was also a patriotic citi-
zen and was greatly concerned for the welfare of the province ;
and although lie had earnestly favored the act of 1701, he
had done so in such a way as to arouse as little friction and
strife as possible; compared with what was to follow he had
given to the colony, as the inscription on his tombstone justly
claims, "that tranquillity which it is to be wished it may never
want." Daniel was also a zealous Churchman, but his zeal
ran into bigotry, and he was ruthless and unscrupulous
in his methods. Coincident with his appointment, the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, recently
organized in England, sent its first missionary, Rev. John
Blair, to North Carolina. The two events were part of the
same scheme for pushing the Establishment. Blair reached
North Carolina in January, 1704, and although he remained
here only a few months his presence was not without in-
fluence on the situation. It helped to bring out clearly the
views of every public man in the colony and to array him on
one side or the other; it solidified the Dissenters and their
sympathizers and united and encouraged the Churchmen for
the struggle which all knew was at hand.

Daniel had been instructed to secure the establishment of
the Church in North Carolina, and Blair had come to the col-
ony expecting to find those instructions already enacted into
law. But in the Assembly of November, 1703, the first to meet
after Daniel's arrival, the Quakers as we have seen were in
the majority, and in the March Assembly, 1704, which Blair
expected "would propose a settlement of my [his] main-
tenance," they still were "the greatest number" and unani-
mously resolved "to prevent any such law passing." The
only hope of the Church party, therefore, was to find some
means of purging the General Assembly of its Quaker mem-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 91

bers; but this seemed so improbable that Blair gave up in
despair and withdrew from his mission. Governor Daniel,
however, was determined and fertile in resources; and he
soon found a weapon suitable for his purpose. This weapon
was the act of Parliament of 1702, which settled the oath of
allegiance to Queen Anne who had recently come to the throne.
It was nothing more than the usual oath which any good
Protestant could take, but as the Quakers would take no oath,
their scruples had always been respected in North Carolina.
In the new oath, which did not reach North Carolina until
the summer of 1704, Daniel saw the weapon he was looking
for and resolved to require all officials to take it before enter-
ing upon their offices. The Quakers, as he anticipated, de-
clined, and the governor accordingly refused to permit them
to take their seats in the courts, the Council, and the Assem-
bly. The expulsion of the Quakers left the Church party in
control of the government, and by a majority of "one or
two votes" that party put through the Assembly a second
vestry act. To make assurance doubly sure, by preventing
the return of the Quakers to power, the same Assembly pro-
vided an oath of office, without making any exception for
Quakers, which all officials and members of the Assembly
must take in the future. But the Quakers were not helpless.
The other Dissenters rallied to their support; and it seems
certain that some influential Churchmen, either because they
were opposed to an establishment,- or because they resented
Daniel's highhanded methods, also came to their assistance.
Complaints against Daniel were sent to Sir Nathaniel John-
son, accompanied by a petition for his removal ; and Sir Na-
thaniel, who was involved in a bitter fight over the same ques-
tion in South Carolina, thought it wise to comply with the
North Carolina petition. He removed Daniel and sent Thomas
Cary to succeed him.

Cary had long been prominent in the affairs of South Car-
olina. Although he had been implicated in a rebellion in that
province, this offense was more than counter-balanced in the
eyes of Governor Johnson by the fact that he was one of the
governor's bondsmen. Restless, ambitious, without settled
political principles, he knew no rule of action in politics ex-
cept to support the party which could best advance his own
fortunes. Since Cary's chief had so promptly removed Daniel
upon complaint of the Quakers, members of that party at
once jumped to the conclusion that Cary would espouse their
cause, and they accepted his appointment as a signal for a
renewal of their political activities. Great was their wrath.

92 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

therefore, when they found in him a more serious obstacle
than Daniel himself had been. Coming into North Carolina
with an eye to his own interests, Cary found the Church party
strongly entrenched in power and promptly aligned himself
with it. He not only repudiated the claims of the Quakers and
dismissed them from office upon their refusal to take the oaths,
but prevailed upon the Assembly to pass an act imposing a
heavy fine upon any person who should presume to perform
an official duty without taking the required oaths, or who
should promote his own election to any office. Exasperated
by this unexpected turn of affairs, the Quakers and their al-
lies determined to carry their case directly to the Lords Pro-
prietors, and in 1706 they sent John Porter to England to seek
a redress of their grievances.

Porter was successful in his mission. Through the influ-
ence of John Archdale, he obtained from the Lords Propri-
etors an order suspending the authority of Sir Nathaniel
Johnson in North Carolina, removing Cary, naming five new
deputies, and authorizing the Council to elect a president who
should perform the duties of governor. Returning to North
Carolina in October, 1707, armed with this order, Porter
found Cary absent and William Glover temporarily adminis-
tering the government. Since Glover's administration seemed
to be giving satisfaction, Porter determined not to disturb it ;
he, therefore, called together the newly appointed deputies
and induced them to elect Glover president of the Council.
Though the commission under which he acted required the
presence of Cary and the former deputies to make this elec-
tion legal, Porter concealed this fact from the deputies as
well as from Glover; and later when he found that he could
not dictate the latter 's policy, he pleaded the illegality of
Glover's election to justify himself in forcing his removal
from office. Porter's apologists have not been able to discern
in his conduct anything more than a shrewd political move,
but less partial critics will doubtless think, it deserving of a
severer condemnation.3 However reprehensible, measured by
modern ideals, the policy of the Church party may have been,
the actions of its leaders throughout these controversies had
been open and above board: on the other hand concealment
and dissimulation characterized Porter's conduct in this af-
fair and it cannot be justified by any standard of political
ethics that places the public welfare above a partisan tri-

3 Weeks: The Religious Development in the Province of North
Carolina, p. 56.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 93

umph. Not only did Porter induce the newly appointed depu-
ties, by concealing from them their lack of legal power to act,
to choose Glover as president, he himself later joined such of
the former deputies as were retained by the new commission
from the Lords Proprietors, including Thomas Cary, in an
official proclamation calling upon the people to render to
Glover that obedience which was due to him as governor of
the province.

Porter, however, soon discovered that he could not con-
trol Glover. When the newly appointed Quaker deputies ap-
peared to take their seats in the Council, dlover tendered
them the prescribed oaths and upon their declining to take
them, refused to admit them to their seats. The old quarrel
flared up with renewed bitterness. Fuel was added to the
flame by the recent arrival in the colony of two missionaries
of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the pros-
pect of a revival of the activities of the Church party in-
creased the alarm of the Dissenters, who now felt justified in
resorting to violent measures to protect their interests. Ac-
cordingly Porter summoned both the old and the new depu-
ties, informed them of the alleged defect in Glover's title to
his office, and over the protest of Glover induced them to de-
clare his election illegal and void. In the meantime the Quaker
party had gained a new recruit. When Cary saw how the tide
was running, he deserted the Church party and went over,
bag and baggage, to its opponents. He and Porter struck a
bargain as a result of which Cary was chosen president "by
the votes of the very same Councillors who had before chosen
Mr. Glover, and all this by virtue of that very same commis-
sion which removed him [Cary] from the government." Glov-
er refused to yield ; both sides took up arms ; blood was shed
and the colony reduced to the verge of civil war.

However, better counsels prevailed and the contending
factions agreed to submit their claims to an Assembly. At
once a new complication arose : by whose writ could an elec-
tion be legally held? To answer this question was to decide
the dispute; accordingly both Glover and Cary issued writs
and the election was held amid bitter strife and tumult. When
the Assembly met, October 11, 1708, both the Glover set of
councillors and the Cary set appeared each claiming the right
to be recognized as the upper house of the Assembly. An
amusing side-light on this curious situation is found in the
action of former Deputy-Governor Daniel. As a landgrave,
one of the ranks of nobility under the Fundamental Constitu-
tions, he was entitled to sit in the Council ; but unable to decide

91 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

which was the true and lawful Council, an 1 fearful of making
a mistake, he sat first with one group and then with the other,
"and," as one historian facetiously remarks, "was equally
uncomfortable with both."4 Glover refused to recognize the
newly appointed Quaker deputies because they declined to
take the required oaths. But in the election of assemblymen,
the Cary party had carried the colony, and they proceeded at
once to organize the lower house regardless of Glover's pro-
tests.

The Cary party organized the Assembly by the ejection of
Edward Moseley as speaker. This election was the beginning
of the most remarkable career in our colonial history. For
forty years Moseley 's biography is practically the history of
North Carolina, so varied were his activities and so deeply
did he impress his personality on his times. His was that
sort of character toward which men cannot be neutral. Those
who did not hate him adored him. The explanation of this
fact is found not merely in the forcefulness of his personality,
but also in the contradictions of his life and career. An aris-
tocrat by nature, he was a democrat by convictions and in
practice. Often an official of the Lords Proprietors and later
of the Crown, he firmly resisted all encroachments on the
rights of the people. Possessed of vast estates, of many
slaves, and of great wealth, he lived in great simplicity and
was genuinely sympathetic with the poor and the unfortunate.
A devoted Churchman, he steadfastly espoused the cause of the
Dissenters in their fight against an establishment. His en-
emies while condemning his character could not withhold their
admiration of his abilities. The Virginia boundary-line com-
missioners in 1710, who could find no terms too strong for
denouncing his motives, at the same time could not refrain
from testifying to "the subtlety [in debate] whereof he is
Master"; and Governor Burrington, his uncompromising foe,
while admitting that Moseley was "a person of sufficient
ability" to be public treasurer, wished that his "integrity
was equal to his ability." The denunciations of his enemies
no less than the eulogies of his friends reveal the dynamics
inherent in the man. He had, as has been well said, the bold-
ness of thought and of action that people admire in their
leaders ; the common sense and self-poise on which people
rely in troublous times; and the honesty of purpose which,
regardless of his own interests, made it impossible for him
to wink at the usurpations of authority. An active man of

4 Hill, D. IT. : Young People's History of North Carolina, p. 75.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 95

affairs, lie was also a student and a lover of learning; his pri-
vate library, which late in life he gave to the town of Eden-
ton as a foundation for a public library, contained a large
collection of books on law, theology, history, and general lit-
erature. Looking beneath the surface of the tumult and strife
in which his life was largely passed; putting to the acid test
of impartial history the hasty and prejudiced judgment of
his contemporaries ; studying his career in the light of subse-
quent developments, one is prepared to accept the verdict of
the careful historian who says of Edward Moseley: "it was
not necessary for him 'to usurp a patriot's all-atoning name,'
for he seems to have sincerely loved his adopted colony, and
to have served it with the steadfast purpose of making it a
home fit for free men. ' ' 5

Such was the man whom the Cary party in the first flush
of their triumph elevated to the leadership of the General
Assembly. The victors were not disposed to show the van-
quished much consideration. They brushed aside the claims
of the contesting Glover delegations ; passed an act nullifying
the test oaths; recognized the Gary councillors as the upper
house; and declared Cary president of the Council and ex-
officio governor. Against these actions Glover protested. He
declared first, that members returned under Gary's writ could
not constitute a lawful Assembly because Cary, not being
president of the Council, had no authority to issue a writ;
and, secondly, that even if legally elected they could not sit as
assemblymen until they had taken the oaths required by law,
which, of course, the Quaker members had not done. It was,
he declared, "a betraying of the trust reposed in the Lords
Proprietors by the Crown, to submit the determinations of
the Government to any number of men howsoever chosen and
delegated, though by the unanimous voice of the whole coun-
trys Except such persons shall first acknowledge their al-
legiance to the Queen, which both the Common Law and the
Statute Law requires to be done by an oath : with which Law
the Queen hath not, and the Lords Proprietors can not dis-
pence." This protest was addressed "To the Gentlemen met
and pretending themselves to be the House of Burgesses."
Glover unquestionably had the better of the legal argument;
but Cary had the votes and his Assembly returned Glover's
protest to him with the curt statement "that they would not
concern themselves in that matter." Glover, seeing that he

5 Hill, D. H.: Edward Moselev : Character Sketch. (North Car-
olina Booklet, Vol. V, No. 3. p. 205.)

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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 97

had lost his fight, wisely abandoned the field and beat a stra-
tegic retreat into Virginia, leaving Cary in possession of the
government and the colony in confusion.

This condition continued for nearly two years before the
Lords Proprietors decided to interfere. Finally in 1710 they
sent out Edward Hyde, a near kinsman of the queen, as
deputy-governor. Hyde arrived in Virginia in August ex-
pecting to receive there his commission from Edward Tynte
of Charleston, who had succeeded Sir Nathaniel Johnson as
governor of Carolina. But before Hyde's arrival Governor
Tynte had died without having made out Hyde 's commission
and although Hyde had in his possession private letters that
confirmed his appointment, without a commission he could not
legally take over the government. This technical defect in
his title, the Gloverites, in their eagerness to dispossess Cary,
were willing to overlook, while Cary and his immediate sup-
porters, whatever may have been their personal sentiments,
were over-awed by the evident desire of the people for the res-
toration of peace and harmony and by the "awefull respect"
felt for Hyde on account of his family connections. Accord-
ingly all who could pretend to any right to a voice in the mat-
ter, including Cary himself, joined in a petition to Hyde to
assume the duties of president of the Council until his com-
mission should arrive from the Lords Proprietors, and Hyde
promptly complied with their request. In the meantime the
Lords Proprietors had decided, December 7, 1710, to appoint
a governor of North Carolina "independent of the Governour
of South Carolina," and had nominated Hyde for that dig-
nity; but as a recent act of Parliament required the assent of
the Crown to appointments of governors of proprietary colo-
nies, a full year passed before all the formalities were finally
completed. Hyde's commission as the first governor of
North Carolina, therefore, was not issued until January 24,
1712 ; he opened it and qualified before the Council May 9th.
Henceforth the governments of North Carolina and South
Carolina were separate and distinct.

In the meantime North Carolina had been passing through
one of the stormiest episodes in its stormy career. Hyde's ad-
ministration had failed to produce the good results so eagerly
anticipated. He allowed himself to fall completely under the
influence of the Glover faction, insisted that all office-holders
must take the prescribed oaths, and in this way purged both
the Council and the Assembly of their Quaker members. The
other Dissenters, seeing the drift of events; deserted their
Quaker colleagues and rode in on the rising tide. Of Hyde's

Vol. 1—7

98 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

first Assembly, which met in March, 1711, John Urmstone, a
minister of the Established Church, wrote : "With much dif-
ficulty we had the majority * The Assembly was
made up of a strange mixture of men of various opinions and
inclinations; a few Churchmen, many Presbyterians, Inde-
pendents, but most anythingarians — some out of principle,
others out of hopes of power and authority in the government
to the end that they might lord it over their neighbors, all
combined to act answerably to the desire of the president and
Council." The party in control could not resist the oppor-
tunity to punish its enemies. Even Governor Spotswood of
Virginia, who detested a Quaker and sympathized with the
principles of the Gloverites, declared that the latter forced
through the Assembly legislation "wherein it must be con-
fessed they showed more their resentment of their ill usage
during Mr. Cary's usurpation (as they call it) than their
prudence to reconcile the distractions of the country." Their
legislation embraced a sedition law for the punishment of
"seditious words or speeches" or "scurrilous libels" against
the existing government ; fixed a fine of £100 upon all officials
who refused to qualify "according to the strictness of the laws
in Great Britain now in force"; provided that "all such laws
made for the establishment of the Church" should be still in
force ; and declared null and void all court proceedings during
Cary's second administration. They also directed Cary to
account to Hyde for all funds collected during his term of
office; required Edward Moseley to give security for certain
fees which he was accused of illegally collecting; and impeach-
ing Cary and Porter of high crimes and misdemeanors,
ordered them into the custody of the provost-marshal.

Cary determined not to submit tamely to these drastic
measures. Collecting his followers, he withdrew to his planta-
tion on the Pamlico and fortifying his house "with great Guns
and other warlike stores," bade defiance to Hyde. So strongly
was he entrenched that "when the Government had taken a
resolution to apprehend him they found it impracticable to
attempt it." Emboldened by Hyde's irresolution, Cary took
the offensive, and reinforced by "a Brigantine of six Guns,
furnished him by a leading Quaker," and "some other vessels
equipp'd in a warlike manner," he denounced Hyde for at-
tempting to exercise executive authority without a com-
mission, proclaimed himself president of the Council, and
moved to attack Hyde and his Council. Governor Spotswood
of Virginia offered to mediate between the warring factions.
Hyde promptly accepted but Cary "obstinately rejected all

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 99

offers of accommodation." On June 30, he assailed Hyde's
forces which had been gathered at Thomas Pollock's planta-
tion on the Chowan and was severely repulsed leaving his
brigantine and her six guns in the hands of the enemy. Cary
thereupon fled to the Pamlico where he reassembled his scat-
tered followers and entrenched himself in the house of Captain
Richard Roach, who, though an agent of one of the Lords
Proprietors, had embraced Cary's cause. Hyde finding him-
self too weak to attack applied for aid to Spotswood who
promptly dispatched to him a company of royal marines. The
sight of the queen's uniform so "frighted the Rebellious
party" that they threw down their arms and dispersed. Cary
and several of his followers fled to Virginia where at Hyde's
request they were apprehended and sent to England for trial
on charges of sedition and rebellion. No evidence, however,
was forwarded to sustain the charges and the prisoners were
soon discharged from custody.

O'lOG

CHAPTER VII

INDIAN WARS OF 1711-1715

With the flight of its leader, the Cary Rebellion collapsed,
but the fires of factionalism still smoldered and it took a catas-
trophe of appalling magnitude to quench them. This was the
great Indian war that raged in North Carolina from 1711 to
1713. Cary's enemies charged his adherents with inciting the
Indians to hostilities, and although the charge rests on too un-
certain a basis to be readily credited, yet it cannot be denied
that the dissensions among the whites, for which Cary was
largely responsible, gave the Indians the opportunity for
which they had long been waiting. The causes of the war were
not different from the causes of most other Indian wars waged
since the white man and the red man first came in contact with
each other. The whites, recognizing no right of the Indian to
the soil, appropriated it to their own use without scruple, and
as they pushed their way to the southward from Albemarle
they necessarily drove the Indians before them and seized
their hunting grounds. To this injustice they added the greater
wrong of kidnapping Indian men, women and children to be
sold into slavery. So extensive had this infamous practice
become that Pennsylvania in 1705 forbade the further ' ' impor-
tation of Indian slaves from Carolina" because it had "been
observed to give the Indians of this province some umbrage
for suspicion and dissatisfaction. ' ' The Meherrins, the Notto-
way s, the Chowanocs, and other similar tribes, powerless to
stay the march of the white man, submitted in sullen anger,
but were ever on the watch for a favorable opportunity to
strike a blow at their advancing foe. By the opening of the
eighteenth century, the power of the Indians had gradually
declined until but one tribe remained strong enough to contest
the hold of the white man upon the country. The Tuscarora
were a warlike nation of northern origin who were near kins-
men of the famous Iroquois of the Long House in Western
New York. They possessed towns on the Roanoke and the
Pamlico, but their chief towns were on the Neuse and its trib-

100

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 101

utaries, and their hunting-grounds extended as far southward
as the Cape Fear. They could muster more than 1,200 war-
riors.

The immediate cause of the war which the Tuscarora began
in 1711, was the recent settlement of the Palatines on the
Neuse in 1710 ; the occasion was Cary 's Rebellion which seemed
to one watchful chief, whom the whites called Hancock, to offer
the very opportunity for attack for which he had been so long
waiting. Accordingly during the summer of 1711 he carefully
organized a coalition between his own tribe and the Coree, the
Pamlico, the Mattamuskeet, and several other smaller tribes.
Early in September, under his shrewd leadership, 500 warri-
ors assembled at Cotechney, his principal town on Contentnea
Creek, near the present village of Snow Hill, and determined
upon September 22d as the date for the attack. So carefully
kept was their secret that but a few days before the blow was
to fall, Christopher de Graffenreid and John Lawson unwit-
tingly ventured into the very heart of the Tuscarora pos-
sessions on an exploring expedition. They were captured
and condemned to execution. De Graffenreid, however, by a
clever stratagem, saved himself, but Lawson, who. in his "His-
tory of Carolina" had eulogized the amiable qualities of
these very Indians, was put to a horrible death. No hint of
their impending fate was permitted to reach the settlers who
continued to receive the Indians into their cabins without
suspicion up« to the very morning of the attack, and slept
peaceably through the preceding night. The war-whoops of
the savages, arousing them from sleep at daybreak, were
their first intimation of danger. Painted warriors poured
out of the woods on all sides and began their horrid work.
Within two hours after sunrise, they had butchered 130 set-
tlers on the Pamlico and eighty on the Neuse. Men, women,
and children fell indiscriminately beneath their bloody toma-
hawks, and the dead lay unburied in the hot September sun,
food for wolves and vultures. For three days the awful
carnage continued with every circumstance of cruelty and
horror. Those who were fortunate enough to escape, fled to
Bath and other places of refuge leaving the entire region be-
tween the Pamlico and the Neuse a scene of ashes, blood, and
desolation.

Fortunately, Tom Blunt, chief of the Tuscarora tribe on
the Roanoke, had refused to join in the conspiracy against
the whites and thus the Albemarle region escaped. Neverthe-
less the situation in the province was critical in the extreme.
The recent dissensions among the people, the refusal of the

102 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Quakers to bear arms, the fears of attack on the western
frontier of Albemarle, the wide-spread destruction of prop-
erty and the loss of life, and above all the shaken morale of
the people made Governor Hyde's task an extremely difficult
one. He acted with vigor and ability. Calling the General
Assembly in session, he induced it to vote a war credit of
£4,000 and to pass an act drafting for military service the
entire man-power of the colony between sixteen and sixty
years of age. He organized as effectively as possible the
armed forces of the colony ; erected forts at strategic points ;
and called on Virginia and South Carolina for aid. Governor
Spotswood promptly ordered a force of Virginia militia to
the border near the Tuscarora towns thus assuring their neu-
trality ; but the Virginia government declined to permit troops
to be sent to the aid of North Carolina unless the North
Carolina Assembly would agree to withdraw its claims to
the region in dispute between the two colonies. South Caro-
lina on the other hand, responding promptly and generously,
dispatched to North Carolina a strong force of whites and
Indians under the command of Col. John Barnwell.

Barnwell acted with dispatch and skill. Marching through
300 miles of wilderness, he struck the enemy in two hard-
fought battles near New Bern and forced them to sue for
peace. His first attack resulted in the reduction of Fort Nar-
hantes, about thirty miles from New Bern, January 12, 1712.
Barnwell writes that after his forces had gained an entrance
into the fort, while his white troops were putting the men to
the sword, his Indians got all the slaves and the plunder, add-
ing regretfully "only one girl we gott. " Immediately after
this success, he advanced on Cotechney, in which Han-
cock had gathered a powerful force of Tuscarora and
their allies. Though reinforced by 250 North Carolinians,
Barnwell was less successful here than he had been at
Narhantes. Failing to take the place by storm, he brought
up some cannon which so terrified the Indians that they pro-
posed a truce. To this Barnwell agreed in order to save from
massacre some white women and children whom Hancock
held as prisoners within the fort. A treaty was signed call-
ing for a cessation of hostilities and the delivery of the pris-
oners in possession of the Indians. The Tuscarora likewise
agreed in the future "to plant only on Neuse River, the creek
the fort is on, quitting all claims to other lands. * * To

quit all pretensions to planting, fishing, hunting or ranging to
all lands lying between Neuse River and Cape Feare, that en-
tirely to be left to the So. Carolina Indians, and to be treated

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 103

as enemies if found in those ranges without breach of peace. ':
Barnwell naturally expected that his services to North
Carolina would be rewarded with great honors and gifts. In-
stead of these rewards, he found himself subjected to very
severe criticism for his failure to press the enemy to a de-
cisive defeat, and disgusted at the ingratitude of the prov-
ince, and unwilling for his men to return home without some
profit, he determined to seek his reward from another source.
Under pretence of peace, he lured a large number of Indians
to the vicinity of the Coree village near New Bern, permitted
his own men to fall upon them unaware, capture many of them
and hasten away to South Carolina to sell their victims into
slavery. This breacli of faith justly incensed the Tuscarora
and. their allies and destroyed what little confidence they had
in the plighted faith of the white men ; and before the summer
of 1712 was gone they were again on the warpath.

During the summer, yellow fever added its horrors to
those of war, and claimed perhaps as many victims. Among
them was Governor Hyde. Hyde was succeeded in the ad-
ministration by Thomas Pollock, president of the Council.
Pollock was the rival and antithesis of Moseley. He had come
to North Carolina from Scotland in 1683 as the deputy of a
Lord Proprietor and throughout his subsequent career was
warmly attached to the proprietary interests. Of good Scotch
stock, well educated, owner of vast estates and master of a
hundred slaves, he was in full sympathy with the ideals and
aspirations of the privileged classes. As a devout Churchman,
loyal to the interests of the Church, he disliked Dissenters of
whatever profession and was particularly hostile to the
Quakers whose theology he detested and whose politics he dis-
trusted. In the Glover-Cary contest, therefore, he adhered to
Glover whom he accompanied, upon Cary's triumph, into exile
in Virginia; later, during the Cary Rebellion, he was Hyde's
chief lieutenant. With him the enforcement of laws and the
preservation of order were cardinal political principles, and
he showed the sincerity of his devotion to them when he suf-
fered imprisonment for resisting Seth Sothel's violations of
the law and when he chose exile rather than submit to what
he regarded as the perversion of orderly government by
Cary's illegal usurpation. To him the call of duty was a com-
mand. Upon assuming the duties of governor after Hyde's
death, he wrote to the Lords Proprietors: "The real desire
to serve his Majesty, your Lordships, and the poor people
here, with the impertunity of the council here, have forced me
to accept of the administration at this time when the country

104 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

seemed to labor under insuperable difficulties when in more
peaceable times I have refused it."

Such was the man who had been called to the helm in the
darkest hour in the history of North Carolina. The difficul-
ties, as he said, might well have seemed "insuperable." Large
sections of the country had been desolated. Along the Neuse,
the Trent and the Pamlico, the plantations had been stripped
of horses, cattle, and hogs, the crops destroyed, and the cabins
reduced to heaps of ashes. The people had no means of re-
couping their losses as the war had completely wiped out
their trade with the outside world "there being no grain nor
little, or no pork this two or three years to send out, so
that what few vessels come in can have little or nothing *
* * so that many have not wherewith to pay their debts,
and but few can supply themselves with clothing necessary
for their families." To their other burdens, they had been
conrpelled to add an enormous war debt. Constantly threat-
ened by their alert and resourceful enemy the settlers in the
stricken region had been compelled to pass the winter and
summer huddled together in small forts and stockades thus
adding a further drain upon the meager food supply of the
Albemarle section. When to all this we add the "dissention
and disobedience as much as ever amongst the people," we
complete the harrowing picture of the ruin and despair to
which the colony had been reduced. Pollock summed up the
situation in these words: "Our enemies strong, and numer-
ous, well provided with armes and ammunition; our people
poor, dispirited, undisciplined, timorous, divided, and gen-
erally disobedient, and not only [in] a great want of armes
and ammunition, but likewise the poor men who have been
out in the service of the Country for want of their pay are
in want of Clothing, so that they are not well able to hold
out in the woods in the cold weather after the Indians."

Colonel Pollock acted with courage and confidence. In
an eloquent plea to the people of the colony he said: "Our
all lies now at stake, our country, our wives, our children, our
estates, and all that is dear to us. * * * Let us therefore
bear with patience some hardships; let [us] strive against
all difficulties. Let us lay aside all animosity, dif-

ference, and dissentions amongst ourselves. Let us shun such,
as we would shun the plague, that endeavour to raise muti-
nies, or to sow seeds of dissention amongst us." To the re-
gions stricken by Avar he dispatched food and clothing, arms
and munitions, and sent reinforcements of troops. Finding
that the northern tribe of Tuscarora were anxious to main-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 105

tain peace with the whites, he negotiated a treaty of neutral-
ity with their chief, Tom Blunt, who agreed to make an effort
to capture Hancock and induce him to make peace. Later a
second treaty was made with Blunt in which he agreed to
continue his neutrality as to the Tuscarora tribes but to make
war with the whites on the Coree, the Pamlico, and other allies
of Hancock. Having succeeded in a remarkable degree in
uniting the strength of the whites and dividing that of the
Indians, Pollock sought and obtained the aid of South Caro-
lina in meeting the new crisis.

That colony a second time came generously to the aid of
the hard-pressed North Carolinians. A body of thirty-three
white men and about 1,000 Indians was promptly raised,
placed under the command of Col. James Moore, and ordered
to North Carolina. Co-operating with a force of North Caro-
linians raised by Pollock, Moore speedily drove the Tusca-
rora and their allies to the cover of their forts, and on
March 20, 1713, attacked Fort Nohoroco. After three days
of fierce fighting, he reduced it, inflicting upon the enemy a
loss of more than 900 men. Crushed by this blow, the severest
ever experienced by the Indians of Eastern Carolina, the rem-
nant of the defeated Tuscarora abandoned North Carolina
migrating to New York, where, joining their powerful kins-
men, the Iroquois of the Long House, they changed the cele-
brated Five Nations into the Six Nations. Hancock's defeat
practically closed the war as the only hostiles left to continue
the struggle were small tribes which Moore's force quickly
reduced. After the close of the war the neutral Tuscarora,
with the remnant of the allied tribes remaining in North Caro-
lina were by treaty between the Indians and the provincial
government placed under the rule of Tom Blunt. k Subse-
quently at various times small bands of the North Carolina
Tuscarora abandoned North Carolina to join their brethren
in New York, the last of them moving northward about the
year 1802.

Two years after the overthrow of the Tuscarora, North
Carolina was able to pay in kind her debt of gratitude to South
Carolina. The Yamassee Indians, who had accompanied Col-
onel Moore on his expedition into North Carolina, having paid
off some ancient scores against the Tuscarora in the war of
1711-13, returned to their wigwams in South Carolina to con-
sider their grievances against the English which, it must
be confessed, were both numerous and well founded. In-
stigated by the Spaniards of Florida, who agreed to
supply them with arms and ammunition, they formed an

106 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ambitious plan to wipe out of existence the colony of
South Carolina. For this purpose an alliance against the
English was effected between all the tribes in the vast region
from the Cape Fear to the Chattahoochee and beyond the Blue
Ridge. Besides the Yamassee, it embraced the Catawbas, the
Congaree, the Creeks, and the Cherokee, numbering in all more
than 6,000 warriors. It was one of the most formidable Indian
conspiracies in American history. The Yamassee opened the
war with an assault along the southern frontier on Good Fri-
day, 1715, in which they slew more than a hundred settlers,
and threatened the existence of the colony. But the settlers,
after recovering from their surprise, quickly rallied under the
wise and energetic leadership of Governor Craven. Craven
met a large force of Indians who were advancing upon Charles-
ton, and routed them with great slaughter. This victory gave
the colony a respite in which to prepare for hostilities. Ap-
peals to Virginia and North Carolina brought prompt aid from
both, from Virginia upon conditions so stringent that South
Carolina was compelled to ask for their modification, from
North Carolina upon no conditions at all.

Promptly upon receiving intelligence of South Carolina's
danger, Governor Eden recently appointed governor of North
Carolina, called his Council together and upon its advice
ordered the captains who were "command1* in the
Honble ye Governo1"9 own Regim* ' ' to call upon their companies
for volunteers to go to the aid of South Carolina under the
command of Colonel Theophilus Hastings; but "in Case of
any Obstinancy and Reluctancy" on the part of the troops to
volunteer, each captain was "to draw out Tenn able men from
Each of ye Companyes provided that they are not those who
have ye most numerous familyes and to see all well provided
with amies and ammunition and to put them under ye said Co11
Hastings. ': At the same time, orders were given for the rais-
ing of another company consisting of fifty men who were to
be sent to South Carolina under command of Colonel Maurice
Moore. Colonel Moore wTas a native of South Carolina, but
had accompanied his brother, Colonel James Moore, to North
Carolina during the Tuscarora War, and had decided to cast
in his fortunes with that colony. Hastings and Moore were
both soon ready. The troops under Hastings, numbering
eighty whites and sixty Indians, sailed in the man-of-war
Sussex and arrived at Charleston about the middle of
July; those under Moore marched overland by way of the
Cape Fear. With this aid, and that received from Virginia,
Governor Craven was able to administer a crushing defeat

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 107

upon the enemy, whom he drove from the colony and forced to
seek refuge among the Spaniards of Florida. Short work was
then made of the smaller tribes along the coast, while those in
the interior hastened to sue for peace.

In this war, the English came for the first time in hostile
contact with the Cherokee, and their first experience with those
cunning, warlike mountaineers gave them some indication of
the formidable enemies they were to find in them during the
next hundred years. After the defeat of the Yamassee, the
Lower Cherokee sent a number of their chiefs to Charleston to
seek terms of peace. Governor Craven, with the view of im-
pressing these remote tribes with a sense of the greatness and
power of the English, determined to send an expedition into
their own country to dictate peace in their very midst. This
expedition, consisting of Moore's North Carolinians and a
company of South Carolinians under Colonel George Chicken,
he placed under command of Colonel Maurice Moore. Colonel
Moore moved rapidly up the north bank of the Savannah River
into the country of the Lower Cherokee, where he made his
headquarters. These Indians, laying the blame for their trou-
bles upon the traders, who "had been very abuseful of them
of late," reaffirmed their desire for peace, but the Upper Cher-
okee were still defiant, and Moore found it necessary to send
a strong detachment against them. This detachment, under
Colonel Chicken, penetrating into the heart of the Cherokee
country, met their chiefs at Quoneashee, on the Hiwassee, near
the present town of Murphy. These warriors wTere eager for
war with some neighboring tribes, with whom the whites wTere
trying to make peace, and demanded large supplies of guns
and ammunition, saying that if they made peace, they would
have no means of getting slaves with which to buy ammuni-
tion. It was not until after " abundance of persuading" by
the officers that they finally "told us they would trust us once
again. " Peace was then made by the English agreeing to fur-
nish the Cherokee with two hundred guns and a supply of am-
munition, and to aid them in hostilities against the tribes with
which the English themselves were still at war. Colonel Mooro
spent the winter among the Cherokee, and in the spring of 171f>
returned to Charleston, where he met with a flattering recep-
tion. The General Assembly invited him to attend its session
to receive "the thanks of this House for his services to this
Province, in his coming so cheerfully with the forces brought
from North Carolina to our assistance, and for what further
services he and they have done since their arrival here."

The Indian wars left North Carolina in a deplorable con-

108 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

dition. They had checked immigration, driven many people
out of the province, and taken a heavy toll of human life.
The destruction of property in the Tuscarora War was
widespread. Bath County, the chief scene of conflict, was
"totally wasted and ruined." Along the Neuse and the
Pamlico all livestock had been driven off or killed, crops
had been destroyed, plantations laid waste, and scarcely a
cabin had been spared the torch. Conditions in Albemarle,
although that county had escaped the ravages of actual
fighting, were but little better. Besides supplying its own
needs, Albemarle had been compelled for three years to pro-
vide for the necessities of Bath County and to support the
military forces raised in both the Carolinas against the enemy.
Its supply of pork and grain was exhausted, its trade de-
stroyed, and its people, wrote Governor Pollock, reduced to
poverty greater than one could well imagine. Throughout
both counties want and distress were universal. The poor had
been ruined and the rich made poor. With ' ' scarcely corn to
last them until wheat time, many not having any at all," with-
out money "wherewith to pay their debts," "having now little
or no trade," and therefore unable to "supply themselves with
clothing necessary for their families," the people of North
Carolina faced the winter of 1713-14 with gloomy apprehen-
sions.

To their private burdens was added the burden of a public
debt which Governor Pollock thought was greater than they
' ' will be able to pay this ten or twelve years. ' ' In 1712, under
the stress of war, the Assembly had unanimously laid "a great
duty * * * on all goods exported or imported by land or
water," but since these duties could not be collected immedi-
ately, it had authorized the emission of bills of credit to the
amount of £4,000, — the first issue of paper money in the his-
tory of North Carolina — which were to be redeemed by the
revenue arising from the duties. The following year another
issue of £8,000 was found necessary. North Carolina, there-
fore, came out of the war heavily in debt and face to face with
urgent demands for funds for the work of reconstruction. In
1714, accordingly, in order to redeem the currency already out
and to provide for the pressing needs of the province, the As-
sembly authorized the emission of £24,000 in bills which were
made "passable for all debts at rated commodities of the coun-
try." By 1722, about one-half of these bills had been retired,
and the Assembly of that year issued £12,000 in new bills to
redeem the balance, but when the king purchased the province

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 109

in 1729, £10,000 of the old bills were still outstanding. Accord-
ingly, before the transfer from the Proprietors to the Crown
had been completed, in order to retire the £10,000 of outstand-
ing bills and to provide an additional currency of £30,000, the
Assembly, "by a pretended Law made in November, 1729,"
authorized an issue of £40,000.

The Assembly adopted numerous expedients to sustain the
value of its currency, but it failed to adhere consistently to the
only one, taxation, which could have accomplished that result.
Duties were imposed on exports and imports to sustain the
issue of 1712, but the duties were not collected. Taxes were
also levied to redeem the bills of 1714, and "the Publick Faith
was pawn'd" to sustain them; but, as Burrington said, "that
Faith was afterwards broke in upon, the Taxes for sinking
them were lessened, and afterwards more Bills emitted." As
a result, the Assembly was early driven to artificial expedients.
In 1715, it found it necessary to declare that all persons who
refused to accept the bills for fees or quit rents, or who took
them at a discount, were "Guilty of a very Great Breach of
the act of the Assembly conserning the currency of these
bills." But the most serious blow to their value came from a
source over which the Assemblv had no control; the Lords
Proprietors refused to accept them for any of their fees and
rents. A committee of the Assembly was appointed to memo-
rialize the Proprietors on the subject and even to petition them
to accept the bills in payment for land in both North Carolina
and South Carolina. The Lords Proprietors were reminded
that the bills had been issued "to defray the Expence of the
Warr to save their Lordships Country from a great danger,
and which they had nothing contributed to defend, therefore it
was reasonable the Lords should so far partake as to suffer
their Rents and Dues to be paid in these Bills. '; To the As-
sembly's prayer, however, the Lords Proprietors curtly re-
plied that the clause in the currency act which made the bills
receivable for their fees and quit rents was an unreasonable
interference "in matters relating only to Us," adding, "We
think you have nothing to do with our Lands and therefore you
must expect to receive that Clause at least, in that Act of
Assembly, repeal'd." At the same time they demanded that
all dues to them be paid "in sterling money," or "in produce
of the Country equivalent thereto. '; This demand was a
severe blow to the credit of the bankrupt colony, and the
result was inevitable. Recognizing the impossibility of pre-
venting depreciation, the Assembly in 1729 accepted the sit-

110 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

uation and reserved to itself the right to declare annually
at what exchange the bills should pass. In the meantime
the bills had been sinking lower and lower. As early as 1717
they were passable even in payment of the stipends of mis-
sionaries only "at a vast discount." In 1725, they passed
at about 5 for 1 of sterling, and in 1733 Burrington de-
clared that he had purchased articles "for which I have pay'd
in the Province Bills more than 20s for what cost but one in
England."

One beneficial result of the Indian war was assuredly some
compensation for its numerous ills. Hancock and his painted
warriors destroyed the factionalism that had so long cursed
the colony. During the war Gary, released from custody in
England, returned to North Carolina, but his arrival excited
neither the hopes of his former friends nor the fears of his
enemies. Bitter experience had taught both a lesson, and Cary,
finding no further opening for the exercise of his talents in
North Carolina, departed for the West Indies, where history
fortunately loses sight of him. Governor Pollock bore witness
to the loyalty with which all factions supported his administra-
tion, declaring that the war had extinguished "the fire of dif-
ference and division amongst the people." "The Quakers,"
he said, "though very refractory and ungovernable in Mr.
Glover's and Governor Hyde's administration, [I]

must needs acknowledge they have been as ready (especially
in supplying provision for the forces) as any others in the
Government." "Thanks be to God," wrote the missionary,
John Urmstone, in the winter of 1713, "we have no disturb-
ance among ourselves, but all peoples hearts unite and every
Member of the Government is as happy as the times will admit
of under the wise and prudent administration of our good
President." When Pollock surrendered the administration
to Governor Eden in May, 1714, the colony was enjoying for
the first time in a decade a period of "peace and quietness."

CHAPTER VIII
PROBLEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION

The peace which followed the Tuscarora War was not the
peace of despair, or of sloth and inaction, nor yet of indiffer-
ence to the public welfare. The defeat of Cary's revolt
against Hyde, the separation of the government of North
Carolina from that of South Carolina, and the expe-
riences of the Indian war, all tended to strengthen the
government and to discredit the revival of personal fac-
tions; the days for such adventurers as Culpepper and
Miller, "Governor Gibbs" and Thomas Cary, were gone for-
ever. Never again in its long history, except during the
dark days of Reconstruction, was a chief executive of North
Carolina to hold his office by a disputed title. The disgraceful
quarrels of Everard and Burrington were yet to come, but
they involved only the narrow circles of the personal friends
of the disputants; the great body of the people stood aloof
looking on with amusement or disgust. Issues more important
than the ambitions and passions of individual leaders gradu-
ally arose, which grew out of conflicting views of the theories
and principles of government and formed the basis for logical
and healthy political divisions among the people. Although
there were no elaborate organizations, or formal declarations
of principles and policies, such as characterize modern polit-
ical parties, nevertheless these divisions were distinct enough
in personnel and in opinions for us to think of them as political
parties.

First, there was the party which, for lack of a better name,
we may call the government party. Its cardinal principle was
belief in the necessity for a strong executive. In the adminis-
tration of the government, it looked for guidance to instruc-
tions from the Lords Proprietors — after 1731 from the king —
which, however inconsistent they might be with the charter,
the Fundamental Constitutions, or even with the principles of
the British Constitution itself, it regarded as binding upon all

in

112 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

colonial officials. This party found its chief support among
members of the Council and other officials who owed their
positions to the Lords Proprietors, or to the Crown; among
those who hope to promote their financial or social
interests through official influence; and among those
who sincerely believed that the best interests of the col-
ony would be served by a government as independent of the
people as possible. The governor himself was regarded as its
leader, although not infrequently some prominent colonist, by
reason of his superior abilities or character, as in the case of
Thomas Pollock, so overshadowed the governor as to become
the real if not the nominal party leader.

Over against this government party was the party which
the historians of North Carolina like to call the popular party.
This name expresses its political philosophy. Its fundamental
principle was that the will of the people should be supreme in
the government and that the people's will found expression
through their representatives in the General Assembly. i ' This
lawless people," wrote Urmstone in 1717, "will allow of no
power or authority in either Church or state save what is de-
rived from them.'1 "The Assembly of this Province," testi-
fied Burrington in 1731, "have allways usurped more power
than they ought to have. '; "All the Governours that were
ever in this Province," he wrote at another time, "lived in fear
of the People * * * and Dreaded their Assemblys. * * *
They insist that no Public money can or ought to be paid
but by a claim given to and allowed by the House of Bur-
gesses.". The people having no voice in the choice of their
governor, the highest office within their gift was the speaker-
ship of the General Assembly; to that office, therefore, the am-
bitious politician aspired and to it the leader of the popular
party was generally chosen. As the Council was the voice of
the government party, so the Assembly was the voice of the
popular party, and most of the political history of the colony
revolves around the struggles of these two forces for suprem-
acy.

The earliest statement extant of the principles of the two
parties is found in the records of the second year of Governor
Eden's administration. Its origin is somewhat obscure, but
it appears to have grown out of the action of the governor and
Council in impressing men and property for military service
against the Indians without specific authority from the Assem-
bly. For this action, the Assembly severely criticised the exec-
utive department. When this criticism was brought to the at-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 113

tention of the Council, that body unanimously resolved that it
" tends very much to ye Infringement of ye Authorityes and
powers of ye Government for that it is undoubtedly preroga-
tive to imppress and provide such necessaryes as they shall
see fitting on any present Invasion, Insurrection or other
pressing Emergencies or unforseen necessaties." Thus
the government party, emphasizing the "prerogative" of the
executive, in reply to the popular party, which had laid em-
phasis on the "Authority of Assembly." The views of the
latter had been expressed in a resolution, drawn, it is thought,
by Edward Moseley, speaker, and for nearly forty years the un-
disputed leader of the popular party, and unanimously adopt-
ed by the Assembly. It declared "that the Impressing the In-
habitants of this Governm* or their Effects under pretence of
its being for ye Publick Service without Authority of Assem-
bly is unwarrantable [and] A Great Infringm* of the Liberty
of ye Subjects." The popular party thus took its stand in
support of the principles upon which the American Revolu-
tion was afterwards fought, and from that position it never
receded. It is the fact that most of the contests during our
colonial history between the executive and the Assembly, i. e.,
between the government party and the popular party, in-
volved this vital principle that lifts them above the level of
petty colonial politics and clothes them with undying interest
and significance.

From the bitter experiences through which North Carolina
had passed, certain lessons were deducible which were not lost
upon the people, and these lessons found expression in the
legislation of the time. It was apparent that many of the col-
ony's troubles were traceable to the weakness of govern-
ment, inefficient and often corrupt administration of public
affairs, and the general confusion arising from the uncertainty
as to what laws were in force in the province. To remedy these
evils, the General Assembly in 1714 determined upon a careful
revision of "the ancient standing laws of this Government,"
and this revision was made by the Assembly in 1715. Its work
forms a landmark in the history of North Carolina. "When
the student of our constitutional development, says Dr. Bas-
sett, comes to this "Eevisal of 1715," he experiences a feeling
of relief, for here he leaves behind all the confusion and diffi-
culties arising from a dubious system and meager data, and
stands at last on solid ground. Doubt gives place to certainty,
for now, in well preserved and authentic records, he has before

Vol. 1—8

114 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

him a clear outline of the government.1 He has, indeed, much
more than that, for in these revised statutes, sixty-nine in num-
ber, covering nearly a half-century of our history, we find a
picture of the life of the people, a record of their struggles and
achievements, and an expression of their ideals and aspira-
tions.

To strengthen the government, an act ''for the more effect-
ual observing of the Queen's Peace, and Establishing a good
and lasting Foundation of Government in North Carolina,"
originally passed in 1711, was brought forward in its entirety.
The preamble is historically interesting. After attributing the
"several Revolutions" that had occurred in the colonv, and
the ruin and suffering resulting from them, to "the late un-
happy Dissentions" among the people, it asserts that "it has
pleased God in a great Measure to influence us with a deep
Concern for our Calamities, and put into our Hands a Power
and Resolution of removing these threatening Evils and Dan-
gers, and for the future to procure a happy Restoration of
Peace and Tranquility amongst us, by making such good and
wholesome Laws whereby Religion and virtue may flourish,
our Duty to our Prince and Governors be put in practice and
maintained, our Laws, Liberties and Estates preserved and
kept inviolated, and Justice and Trade encouraged." To secure
these results severe punishment "by fine, imprisonment, pil-
lory, or otherwise at the discretion of the court," was pro-
vided for persons found guilty of seditious words or conduct,
of spreading "false News" or "scurrilous Libels" against
government, and of participating in conspiracies, riots, or re-
bellions. As a still further discouragement to future Culpep-
pers, Gibbses, and Carys, the act also declared that any per-
son indulging in such pastimes should be incapable of holding
any office in the province for three years. "And because it has
always happened." continues this interesting statute, "that
upon vacancy of the Government, seditious and Evil-minded
Persons have taken Occasion to dispute the Authority of the
succeeding governor or President, however Elected or Quali-
fied, for want of certain Rules being laid down and approved
of by the Lords Proprietors," the Assembly imposed the duty
of filling such a vacancy upon the Council and specifically di-
rected how it should perform that duty.

Careful attention was also given to problems relating to
the administration of public affairs. Acts were passed pro-

The Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina, p. 60.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 115

viding for the appointment and defining the duties of certain
precinct officials ; fixing the fees of all officials from the gov-
ernor down; requiring every officer, unless appointed by the
Lords Proprietors, to give bond "for the faithful discharge
of his Office"; regulating court proceedings; declaring the
methods of probating wills and granting letters of administra-
tion ; providing for the care of orphans ; fixing the age at which
a person should be considered a tithable, and directing how
lists of tithables should be taken in the several precincts. One
important act put into effect that clause of the Fundamental
Constitutions guaranteeing biennial sessions of the General
Assembly. It fixed the date and places of elections ; directed
how elections should be held; defined the qualifications for
members and for voters ; allotted five members each to the pre-
cincts of Albemarle County and two each to all other precincts ;
and declared that "the Quorum of the House of Burgesses for
voting & passing of Bills shall not be less than one full half of
the House."

This act was a favorite measure of the popular party, but
when put to the test it was found to contain defects which nul-
lified its purpose. In September, 1725, in accordance with its
provisions, representatives were elected to meet in Assembly
in November ; but in October, Governor Everard, acting upon
the advice of his Council, prorogued the session until April 1,
1726. His action aroused the indignation of the popular
party, and in defiance of his proclamation the representatives-
elect met at the appointed time and undertook to organize a
house. The governor, of course, refused to recognize them as
a legal body, and declined to send to them the election returns
of members, or to receive their speaker. The representatives
thereupon adopted a protest against this "Pretended Proroga-
tion" as "being Contrary to the Laws of this Province, an In-
fringement of their Liberty & Breach of the Priviledges of the
People." Then, having resolved that they would "Proceed to
no business until their Lawful Priviledges which they now
claim are Confirm 'd unto them by the Governor & Council,"
they adjourned to the date set by the governor's proclama-
tion. However, they were forced to recede from their position
because technically they were in the wrong. The act to which
they appealed called for biennial sessions, "Provided allways
& nevertheless that the Powers granted to the Lords Proprie-
tors from the Crown of Calling, proroguing & dissolving As-
sembly s are not hereby meant or intended to be invaded, lim-
ited or restrained. ' ' This provision, of course, placed sessions

116 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

of the Assembly completely at the mercy of the governors,
who did not fail to make full use of it. Another defect in the
law was the unequal distribution of representatives among the
precincts. This inequality of representation later caused a
division in the popular party itself, which their opponents,
under the leadership of Governor Johnston, skillfully turned to
their advantage. The government party also objected to the
provision that fixed upon a, majority as a quorum, and to the
assumption that the General Assembly had power to erect pre-
cincts and grant them representation ; these two features gave
rise to bitter controversies, and finally, in 1737, led to the
repeal of the act by the king in Council.

As there was no printing-press in the colony, the laws were
to be had only in manuscript form, copies were scarce and
often inaccessible, and public officials in whose custody they
were placed were not careful to keep them properly revised.
So confused had they become that even officials and attorneys
could not say, without long and inconvenient searching of the
scattered records, what laws were in force. To clear up this
uncertainty the Assembly declared that all laws passed prior
to 1715, unless expressly excepted by title, were repealed and
that the statutes contained in the revision of 1715 should "be
of full force & shall be hence forward deemed, taken & ad-
judged as the body of the laws of this Government & no other
heretofore made." At the same time, inasmuch as North Car-
olina was "annexed to and declared to be a Member of the
Crown of England, ' ' and its laws were required by the charter
to be in harmony with the laws of England, the Assembly de-
clared that it was manifest "that the Laws of England are
the Laws of this Government, as far as they are compatable
with our Way of Living and Trade." For the information of
the people, court officials were required to see that a copy of
the laws be "constantly laid open upon the Court table during
the sitting of the Court," and each precinct clerk was to read
them aloud once a year, "publickly & in open Court."

Among the laws of England expressly declared to be in
force in North Carolina were "all such laws made for the es-
tablishment of the Church and the laws made for granting in-
dulgences to Protestant Dissenters." Not only was the legal
status of the Church of England thus recognized, it was fur-
ther declared to be "the only Established Church to have pub-
lick encouragement " in North Carolina. A vestry act was
therefore passed which divided the province into nine parishes,
named vestrymen in each, prescribed their duties, and empow-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 117

ered them "to raise and levy money by the poll" for support
of the Establishment. It was the last vestry act passed under
the proprietary government, and remained in force until
1741.

Ministers were supplied to the colony by the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel. Its first missionary to North
Carolina was John Blair, who arrived in January, 1704. Blair
found in the colony three small churches. He remained here
only six months, but by travelling "one day with another, Sun-
days only excepted, about thirty miles per diem," and often
sleeping in the woods at night, he succeeded in covering the
parishes of Chowan, Perquimans, and Pasquotank. In them he
organized vestries, instructed them in their duties, preached
twice every Sunday and often on week-days, and baptized
about one hundred children. "There are a great many still to
be baptized," he reported, "whose parents would not conde-
scend to have them baptized with god-fathers and god-moth-
ers. ' ' At the end of six months he returned to England to pre-
sent the needs of the colony to the society.

Four years passed after Blair's departure before the
arrival of William Gordon and James Adams, the next
missionaries of the Church in North Carolina. Gordon
took up his work in Chowan and Perquimans, Adams
in Pasquotank and Currituck. In Chowan, Gordon found
the church badly in need of repair; in Perquimans, he
found a compact little church, "built with more care and
expense, and better contrived than that in Chowan, ' ' but still
unfinished. Adams found no church in either of his parishes,
but his presence stimulated the people to resolve "to build a
church and two chapels of ease." Although Gordon remained
in the colony only four months, and Adams but little more than
a year, both of these earnest men made a deep impression
upon the people. Their exemplary characters, their genuine
interest in the welfare of their parishioners, and the sincerity
of their faith and piety did much to silence the enemies and
stimulate the friends of the Establishment,

Following Gordon and Adams came first John Urm-
stone and then Giles Eainsford. The latter arrived in
June, 1712, and remained about two years. At his first
service he found the people interested, but "perfect
strangers to the Method of the Worship of our Church. ';
When he preached in "a small Chapel near an Old Indian
Town" a "vast Crowd" came to hear him, but "exprest very
little or rather no devotion in time of the divine Service. ' ' On

118 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

another occasion the crowd was so great that he was obliged
to hold the service out-of-doors "under a large mulberry
tree"; here the people were devout and "very ready in their
responses as in their method of singing praises to God."
Rainsford was a narrow Churchman and immoderate in his ar-
raignment of Quakers and "Quakerism," but he was sincere
and upright and displayed intelligent zeal in his labors. The
Indians particularly excited his sympathetic interest. He
lived five months with the Chowanocs, made himself "almost a
Master at their Language," and tried to teach them the prin-
ciples of Christianity.

In 1717 Ebenezer Taylor came as a missionary to
Bath County. He was "aged and very infirm," but neither
age nor infirmity could dampen his ardor. For four years
he labored zealously and finally, in 1720, met his death
from exposure and cold "after having been ten days and
nights in an open boat" in the dead of winter. Taylor's suc-
cessor in Bath was Thomas Bailey, who came about 1725;
Bailey's colleague in Albemarle was John Blacknall. Of
Bailey and Blacknall, their work and character, it is impossible
to speak with certainty. They left no records of their own,
and so completely were they involved in the quarrels of Gov-
ernor Everard and George Burrington that the testimony of
their contemporaries is worthless as a basis of judgment.
Bailey, whom the vestry of St. Thomas Parish at Bath charac-
terized as "our Pious & Exemplary Minister," was denounced
by Governor Everard as "a scandalous drunken man;" while
Blacknall, according to the same authority, was "a very good
Preacher, a Gentm perfectly sober, belov'd by all but Mr. Bur-
rington 's Party. ' '

Finally, there was the notorious John Urmstone. No
difficulty in reaching a correct judgment confronts us here.
With his own hand, in numerous letters to the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel, Urmstone revealed his own
character both as a man and as a minister, and in neither
capacity does he show a single redeeming quality. Quarrel-
some, dishonest, self-seeking and avaricious, false in word and
faithless in conduct, he was utterly lacking in genuine piety or
Christian charity and devoid of the slightest sense of his duty
as a minister of the Church. Both the Church and the colony
were gainers when, in March, 1721, without notice or explana-
tion, he suddenly deserted his post and sailed for England. His
desertion, says Governor Eden, left "nine parishes consisting

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120 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

of upwards of 2,500 white souls entirely destitute of any as-
sistance in religious affairs."

Historians are agreed that the Establishment was a hin-
drance to the development of religious life in North Carolina,
but they attribute this result to different causes. One traces
it chiefly to the character of the colonial clergy, another to the
insuperable physical difficulties incident to a frontier commun-
ity. "The wickedness and carelessness of the people," in the
opinion of Dr. Weeks, "was induced in part, no doubt, by the
badness of the missionaries. * * the chief fruit [of

their labors] was civil dissension and bloodshed, culminating
in foistering on the colony an Establishment which was to be a
constant source of annoyance and which is directly responsible
for a large share of the backwardness of the State. ' ' 2 Bishop
Cheshire, on the other hand, sees in the several vestry acts
passed from 1701 to 1715 "evidence of a reviving interest in
religion" among the people generally. "In almost all parts
of the colony," he says, "the people desired the ministrations
of the Church but they were mostly living upon isolated plan-
tations. No missionary could reach and serve a sufficient num-
ber of people to form any effective organization. The legal es-
tablishment, with its power to levy taxes for the support of the
Church, was a real disadvantage, because it provided no ade-
quate support while it took off the sense of obligation from
the most zealous members of the Church. Clergymen and mis-
sionaries came and labored for a while and then disappeared ;
some good, some indifferent, others weak and unworthy ; and
very few of them, even the best, able to deal effectively with
the strange conditions of the new and poor settlement. ' ' 3 The
historian and the Churchman are both partially right, but
neither sees the whole truth. The missionaries, as a rule, were
better men than the prejudices of the historian will allow;
nevertheless, had they been as zealous as their calling and task
demanded, they would have overcome most of the difficulties
which the Churchman pleads in extenuation of their failure.
During the proprietary period of our history a majority of the
people of North Carolina undoubtedly adhered to the teach-
ings and preferred the liturgy of the Church of England, and
would have been glad to see that Church strong and flourishing
in the colony; but even then many of the ablest Churchmen

2 Church and State in North Carolina, p. 22 (J. E. V. Studies,
11th Series, Nos. V-VI).

3 "How Our Church Came to North Carolina," in The Spirit of
Missions, Vol. LXXXIII, No. 5, p. 349.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 121

■

seemed to have had an instinctive feeling that an Established
Church was an anomaly in the New World and out of harmony
with the spirit of the civilization which they were developing
here. Their instinct was right, and that is why the Establish-
ment in North Carolina was a failure.

It cannot be said that the Dissenters were ever reconciled
to the Establishment; still, after 1715, they made little or no
organized opposition to it. They probably felt that such resist-
ance would be futile and result only in arousing the church
party to action. As it was, Churchmen generally displayed but
little interest in the Establishment; enforcement of the law
was always lax, and its burdens more imaginary than real.
But perhaps the chief reason for the lack of organized opposi-
tion was the act of 1715, which gave Dissenters a legal status
and threw around them the protection of the law. The same
act which declared that all laws of England "made for the Es-
tablishment of the Church" were the laws of North Carolina
also declared to be of equal force in the colony all "laws
made for granting indulgences to Protestant Dissenters. ' ' The
position of Protestant Dissenters in England had been defined
in the Toleration Act of 1689, which granted to them the privi-
lege of attending their own places of worship and guaranteed
them freedom from disturbance upon condition that they took
the oath of allegiance and subscribed the declaration against
transubstantiation. In line with this policy, the North Caro-
lina Assembly, immediately after passing the vestry act of
1715, passed "An Act for Liberty of Conscience," which de-
clared "that all Protestant Dissenters within the Government
shall have their Meetings for the exercise of their Religion
without Molestation. ' : It also granted to Quakers the right to
affirm, but forbade them "by virtue of this Act" to serve as
jurors, to testify in criminal cases, or to hold office. Although
many irritating and unjustifiable restrictions were still im-
posed upon Dissenters yet this act was recognized as a great
step forward, and, as Dr. Weeks says, "From that time the
Dissenters, in characteristic English fashion, submitted to the
will of the majority and began to fight their battle along legal
and technical lines. During the next sixty-two years North
Carolina was not without discussion and agitation on ecclesi-
astical matters, and this dissension, culminating in the Meck-
lenburg instructions of 1775 and 1776, and crystallizing in the
Constitution adopted at Halifax in December, 1776, put North
Carolina close to Virginia, the first political organization to

122 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

solve the problem of a free church in a free state, each inde-
pendent of the other. ' ' 4

Politics and religion shared the attention of the Assembly
of 1715 with immigration and industry. The statutes of 1669
relating to trade, landholding, and foreign debts, which were
designed to attract immigration, were re-enacted ; while one
of the purposes of the act providing for biennial sessions of
the Assembly, it was expressly stated, was to secure to the
colony through "the frequent sitting of Assembly [which] is
a principal safeguard of the People's privileges" such "privi-
leges & immunities" as would attract immigrants and "there-
by enlarge the Settlement. ': Several statutes were passed re-
lating to trade, commerce, and transportation. "For estab-
lishing a Certainty in Trade," a legal rating was given to cer-
tain commodities at which all persons were required to receive
them in payment of debts unless their contracts specifically
called for payment in sterling money. To promote facility in
trading, as well as to prevent fraud, standards of weights and
measures were fixed and entrusted to the care of the vestries,
who were required to keep them accessible for testing. Every
cooper, for instance, was required to stamp his barrels with
his "proper Brand Mark," which must have been previously
registered in the office of the precinct clerk, and heavy penal-
ties were imposed for failure to come up to the specifications
required by law. Attempts to pass off commodities "not good
or Merchantable," or packed in unlawful casks, were punish-
able by heavy fines. One of the most serious obstacles to the
prosperity of the colony had been the absence of grist-mills.
Mill sites were scarce and more than fifty years passed after
the settlement of North Carolina before a mill was erected in
the colony. As late as 1710 De Graffenried states that "there
was in the whole province only one wretched water mill."
Poor people pounded their grain in wooden mortars, while
the wealthy used hand mills, or else imported flour and meal
from New England. The Assembly of 1715 sought a remedy
for this situation in an act which permitted mill sites to be
condemned, but mills erected on such condemned sites were to
be "Publick Mills," required by law to grind all grain offered
to them at a fixed legal toll. Looking to the improvement of
inland transportation and commerce, the Assembly adopted a
comprehensive plan for the laying out of roads, the building
of bridges, and the establishment of ferries, and for then-
maintenance; while for the encouragement of inter-colonial

4 Church and State in North Carolina, p. 11.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 123

and foreign commerce it made provision for keeping pilots at
Roanoke and Ocracoke inlets who were required "constantly
and diligently to make it their business to search & find out the
most convenient channels," keep them properly staked out, and
to pilot vessels safely over the bars.

Recognizing the importance of towns as centers of trade
and commerce, the Assembly for the "Encouragement of the
Town of Bath and all other Towns now or hereafter Built
within this Government," conferred upon them whenever they
should have at least sixty families the privilege of representa-
tion in the General Assembly. At this time Bath, Edenton,
and New Bern were the only towns in North Carolina. Of
Bath, the oldest of these towns, William Gordon wrote in 1709
that it "consists of about twelve houses and is the only town in
the province. I must own it is not the unpleasantest

part of the country — nay, in all probability it will be the center
of a trade, as having the advantage of a better inlet for ship-
ping, and surrounded with the most pleasant of savannahs,
very useful for stocks of cattle." The Tuscarora War struck
Bath a hard blow from which it never recovered. ' ' We expect
to hear," wrote Urmstone in 1714, "that famous city of Bath,
consisting of nine houses, or rather cottages, once styled the
metropolis and seat of this Government, will be totally de-
serted." In an effort to revive it the Lords Proprietors in
1716 made Bath a port of entry, but to no purpose; fifteen
years later Governor Burrington reported that Bath was "a
town where little improvements have been made." A better
fortune awaited De Graffenried's "townlet" on the Neuse.
The act of 1715 granting representation to towns with sixty
families conferred this privilege upon New Bern "altho' there
should not be Sixty families Inhabiting in the said Town.': In
1723, having recovered somewhat from the disasters of the
Indian war, New Bern was incorporated and its boundaries
greatly enlarged. It enjoyed an advantageous situation for
trade and soon became the largest town, and eventually the
capital of the province. For many years New Bern's only
rival, as a political and commercial center, was the "Towne
on Queen Anne's Creek," which, in 1722, was incorporated
under the name of Edenton in honor of Governor Eden whose
home was there. From 1720 to 1738, the Assembly held its
sessions at Edenton which was accordingly looked upon as the
seat of government. Though never counting in colonial times
a population of more than four or five hundred, Edenton re-
tained its importance as the political, social and commercial
center of the colony until after the Revolution.

CHAPTEE IX
THE PASSING OF THE PROPRIETARY

The removal of the constant menace presented by the pres-
ence of the Tuscarora, the displacing of personal factions as
the mainspring of politics by real political parties, and the
strengthening of the authority of government prepared the
way for a period of growth and progress in North Carolina for
which the legislation of 1715 laid the foundation. Under the
stimulus of peace and the resultant feeling of security, the col-
ony was able to repay its debt to South Carolina for her aid in
the Tuscarora War ; to revive its trade ; to free itself from the
disgrace of piracy; to increase its population and expand its
frontiers ; to settle peacefully its long-standing boundary dis-
pute with Virginia ; and, finally, to undergo a profound change
in its government without a jar.

On May 28, 1714, Charles Eden took the oath of office as
governor. He was a man of fair ability and amiable disposi-
tion and, except for suspicions of improper dealings with
"Blackbeard, " the pirate, was generally held in high esteem
in the colony. The "peace and quietness" which he found
upon his arrival continuing throughout his administration,
were favorable to the revival of trade and commerce. Internal
trade conditions were improved by a stricter enforcement of
the road law. At a single session of the General Court in 1720
three road overseers were indicted and subsequently fined for
neglect of their duty in the "making, mending, & Repairing of
Roads & Highways." Many new roads were cut through the
wilderness. Especially important was the road laid out by
Governor Burrington "from Nuse to Cape Fear River about
one hundred miles in length," which was a realization in part
of the long-cherished plan of the Lords Proprietors to estab-
lish a land route between their two provinces. This road not
only stimulated trade; it also served as a highway for settlers
who were seeking new homes on the Cape Fear. Intercolonial
trade which had been practically destroyed by the Cary Re-
bellion and the Indian wars also showed signs of revival and

121

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 125

New England skippers piloted through the channels of Ocra-
coke and Roanoke inlets, now marked out in accordance with
the pilotage law of 1715, once more cast their anchors at the
wharves of the hospitable planters. The erection of a num-
ber of saw mills greatly increased the output of lumber as an
article of commerce ; while during the decade following 1715,
tar, pitch and turpentine, commodities for which North Caro-
lina afterwards became so famous, began to appear in the
lists of the colony's exports. "Of late," says a report writ-
ten in 1720, "they [the planters] made ab1 6000 barrells of
pitch and tarre which the New England sloops carry first to
New England and then to Great Brittain. " Efforts were
made to keep this reviving trade in legitimate channels by
appropriating part of the duty on imports "to Beacon out
the Channels from Roanoke to Ocracoke Inlets," and by es-
tablishing collection districts at Currituck, at Edenton on the
Roanoke, at Bath on the Pamlico, at Beaufort at Topsail In-
let, and later at Brunswick on the Cape Fear ; but these meas-
ures served chiefly to stimulate smuggling which increased
more rapidly than legitimate trade.

Most of this smuggling was done by traders who had
purchased their cargoes honestly and became violators of the
law only when they evaded the payment of the duties, but
much of it was the work of out-and-out pirates. Piracy had
long been one of the chief obstacles to the development of the
commerce of the Carolinas, the natural dangers that repelled
legitimate traders making the Carolina coast a favorite re-
sort for buccaneers. Behind the bars and shifting sands that
obstruct the entrances to the Carolina waters scores of pirates
rested secure from interference, leisurely repaired damages,
and kept a sharp lookout for prey. But nature was not their
only ally. The corruption of many of the colonial officials,
the weakness of the proprietary government, the willingness
of the people to shelter violators of the navigation laws with-
out enquiring too strictly into the nature of their enterprises,
all combined with the character of the coast to stimulate
smuggling and piracy. The period from 1650 to the close of
the first decade of the eighteenth century, John Fiske has
aptly called "the golden age of pirates." It was during this
period that Carolina was settled and for the reasons just
mentioned became a retreat for freebooters. As early as
1683, the Board of Trade complained of the "harbouring and
encouraging of Pirates in Carolina and other Governments

126 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

and Proprietys," but it was not until 1718 that effective meas-
ures were taken to destroy the evil.

It would be easy to attach too much significance to these
facts and to draw from them conclusions which they do not
warrant as to the comparative morality of the people of the
Carolinas. In none of the colonies, during the seventeenth
century, was there that condemnation of smuggling and that
horror of piracy characteristic of more highly organized com-
munities and of more enlightened ages, and the freebooter
with a rich cargo for sale knew well enough that neither in
Boston nor in New York, in Philadelphia nor in Baltimore,
need he fear too close a scrutiny into his title to his property
if he were liberal enough with his presents and his rum, and
if his prices were satisfactory. Besides, the extent to which
piracy flourished in Carolina and in the other proprietary
colonies was greatly exaggerated. Most of the reports on the
subject came from crown officials, or from officials of crown
colonies, who made but little distinction between smugglers
and pirates ; their reports moreover were part of the propa-
ganda carried on for many years for the purpose of dis-
crediting the proprietary colonies in order to pave the way
for their seizure by the Crown.

Nevertheless the evil was serious enough and efforts to
induce the colonial authorities to exterminate it proved un-
availing. Too many of the officials were hand in glove with
the robbers. In South Carolina, Robert Quarry, secretary of
the colony, was dismissed from office "for harbouring pirates
and other misdemeanors"; his successor, Joseph Morton,
was charged with permitting pirates openly to use Charles-
ton harbor for securing their prizes; and John Boone was
expelled from the Council for correspondence with the free-
booters. In North Carolina, it was charged that Seth Sothel
actually issued commissions "to Pvrates for rewards"; that
John Archdale sheltered pirates "for which favour he was
well paid by them"; that Governor Eden and Tobias Knight,
the latter secretary of the colony and acting chief-justice,
actually shared the pirates' ill-gotten gains. Perhaps some
of these accusations were groundless, but that so many offi-
cials fell under suspicion indicates a low state of official moral-
ity. Finally, near the close of the seventeenth century, the
king, despairing of accomplishing anything through colonial
officials, determined to take a hand himself in the matter, and
by a judicious mixture of executive clemency and extreme
severity soon drove the enemy out of all their strongholds ex-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA" 127

cept New Providence and Cape Fear. In 1718, an English
fleet captured New Providence. "One of its immediate ef-
fects, however," as Fiske observes, "was in turn the whole
remnant of the scoundrels over to the North Carolina coast,
where they took their final stand."

Among the noted pirates who had made their headquarters
at New Providence were Edward Teach, or Thatch, better
known as "Blackbeard," and Major Stede Bonnet. The for-
mer was merely a pirate, — a swaggering, merciless brute with-
out even that picturesqueness of personality which has clothed
so manv of his kind with romantic interest and robbed their
careers of the horrors which the naked truth would inspire;
the latter was a gentleman of birth, wealth and education, who
had already won distinction and rank as a soldier when, catch-
ing the contagion of the times, in a spirit of adventure, he
turned his back upon all and joined "Blackbeard" in his ca-
reer of crime. After being driven from New Providence,
"Blackbeard" made his headquarters at Bath, Bonnet at
Cape Fear, and together they harried the coast from Maine
to Florida. But the day had passed when it was considered
respectable to hold dealings with pirates, and the evil repute
which their wild deeds brought upon North Carolina together
with the lethargy of the officials in dealing with them, aroused
the indignation of such men as Edward Moseley and Maurice
Moore. They could effect nothing, however, because, as it
was currently believed and afterwards proved, some of the
highest officials, including certainly the secretary of the col-
ony, and possibly the governor, were beneficiaries of the
pirates, and refused to move against them.

The blows which destroyed piracy in North Carolina wat-
ers, therefore, came from South Carolina and Virginia. Gov-
ernor Robert Johnson of South Carolina had suffered a deep
official and personal humiliation at the hands of "Black-
beard" and was eager to wipe out the disgrace. When, there-
fore, he learned in the summer of 1718, that a pirate was suc-
cessfully operating off the coast of the Carolinas, he promptly
fitted out an expedition under Col. William Rhett, a daring
and experienced seaman, and sent him in search of the pirate.
Rhett found his enemy lurking behind the bars at the mouth
of the Cape Fear River and after a desperate battle of five
hours captured him. He proved to be none other than the
notorious Bonnet. Carried at once to Charleston, Bonnet
was tried, convicted, and hanged. A few weeks later, Gov-
ernor Spotswood of Virginia receiving information that

128 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Teach was in Carolina waters with a prize, secretly fitted
out two sloops manned with crews from British men-of-war
then stationed in the James River, placed them in command
of Lieut. Robert Maynard of the royal navy, and sent them
in search of the freebooter. Maynard found Teach near Ocra-
coke Inlet and on November 22, 1718, attacked him. The bat-
tle long hung in doubt. Fortune finally seemed to favor the
pirates when Teach at the head of a strong attacking party
boarded Maynard 's sloop. Maynard, however, had adopted
a stratagem to bring about this very movement, and his men
who had been hiding below, now rushed on deck, and in a
desperate hand-to-hand conflict killed "Blaekbeard" and over-
powered his followers. Of " Blackboard's" crew of eighteen
men, one-half had been killed outright; the other half were
made prisoners, carried to Virginia, tried and convicted of
piracy. The victories over Bonnet and Teach were decisive
blows to piracy along the Carolina coast, and after a few more
years the black flags of the buccaneers disappeared from our
seas.

High public officials had been for some time under sus-
picion of complicity with the pirates and this suspicion became
a certainty when a friendly letter of recent date from Secre-
tary Knight and a memorandum of goods deposited with him
by the pirate were found upon the person of the dead ' ' Black-
beard." Knight wrote: "My ffriend, If this finds you yet in
harbour I would have you make the best of your way up as
soon as possible. * I have something more to say to

you than at present I can write. * I expect the Gov-

ernor this night or tomorrow who I believe would be likewise
glad to see you before you goe. * * Your real ffriend

and Servant, T. Knight." Knight however strenuously de-
nied having received any goods from "Blackbeard," but a
search made by Spotswood's officers, accompanied by Edward
Moseley and Maurice Moore, revealed the articles concealed in
his barn. In spite of this evidence, the governor and Council
publicly exonerated Knight, denounced the charges against
him as false and malicious, and declared him innocent of
wrong-doing; but the evidence was conclusive of Knight's
guilt, and the governor's anxiety to prevent his prosecution
seemed to many persons to confirm the suspicions attaching
to his own relations with the pirate.

These suspicions Moseley and Moore undertook to probe
to the bottom. For that purpose they sought to examine the
records of Knight's office which, according to the instructions

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 129

of the Lords Proprietors, were subject to public inspection.
Denied this right, with some of their followers they broke
into a private house in which the records were deposited, and
seized and examined them. For this offense, the governor
promptly issued a warrant for their arrest and ordered out
a strong armed posse to execute it. Moseley denounced his
conduct in vigorous language, declaring that the governor
"could easily procure armed men to come and disturb quiet
& honest men, but could not (tho' such a Number would have
clone) raise them to destroy Thack. " "It is like the com-
mands of a German Prince ! " he exclaimed indignantly. For
these and other "seditious words" he was indicted under the
statute of 1715 "for the more effectual observing of the King's
Peace, and Establishing a good and lasting Foundation of
Government in North Carolina," to which his own name, curi-
ously enough, is signed as speaker of the Assembly. The
case aroused great public interest. Moseley was the acknowl-
edged leader of the popular party, and his contest with the
governor assumed a political importance which lifted it above
an ordinary criminal prosecution. Popular sympathy was
with Moseley; even the jurors, bound as they were by their
oath, seem to have done their best to find a loophole through
which they might extricate the popular champion, for while
they could not deny that he had uttered the words with which
he was charged, they returned as their verdict that "if the
Law be for our Sovereign Lord and King, then we find him the
sd Edward Moseley Guilty, but if the Law be for the sd Mose-
ley then we find him not Guilty." The court decided that the
law was against Moseley, imposed upon him a fine of £100,
and declared him incapable of holding any office or place of
trust in the colony for three years. Thus Eden triumphed,
his rival was silenced, and his dealings with the pirates
shielded from further investigation, for before Moseley 's disa-
bilities were removed, Eden's death had put an end to their
controversy.

Eden's successor was George Burrington, a native of that
county of Devon, which gave to England so many of those
great navigators and adventurers to whom she owed her Amer-
ican empire, the home of Gilbert, Hawkins, Grenville,
Drake, and Raleigh. Burrington himself was not without
the high spirit and ability which distinguished these men, but
he had serious defects of character which rendered it impos-
sible for him to rival their achievements. lie had the aggres-
sive spirit and dauntless courage that qualify men for leader-

Vol. 1—9

130 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ship, but he was governed by a violent, uncontrollable temper
that invariably drove high-spirited men from the ranks of
his followers. He had the restless energy and boundless am-
bition which inspire men to great enterprises, but he was pos-
sessed of an overweening egotism that made him incapable
of sinking his personal interests in the interest of a cause. He
had the keen insight into current conditions and the resource-
fulness of intellect which fit men for the tasks of statesman-
ship, but he was controlled by a spirit of blind partisanship
which destroyed his usefulness for the highest forms of pub-
lic service.

Burrington was a bundle of contradictions. As governor
he was zealous for the good of the province, but he was domi-
neering and tyrannical in his conduct; he was fertile in ideas
for its development, but tactless in presenting them to the con-
sideration of others and intolerant of opposition ; he was ener-
getic in carrying his plans into execution, but ruthless and
unscrupulous in his methods. His zeal for the public welfare
was never unmixed with his personal interests for he had
staked out for himself vast estates in the province and did
not scruple to use his official position to enhance their value.
In his relations with other men, he acknowledged no neutrals.
There were only friends and enemies. But both his friend-
ships and his enmities were as often dictated by genuine in-
terest in the affairs of the province as by personal feelings;
and to advance the one or indulge the other, he was as ready
to sacrifice his friends as to crush his enemies, and he did
both with equal efficiency. Dissimulation was utterly foreign
to his character ; he was open and frank in friendship and in
enmity, and gave no man cause to doubt where he would stand
in any controversy; but with his friends he was selfish and
exacting, domineering and, if his interests so dictated, faith-
less; while with his enemies he was quarrelsome and relent-
less, vengeful and brutal. His official papers show an inti-
mate knowledge of the country and the measures best adapted
to promote its development and considered alone, unconnected
with his quarrels, present him as an active, intelligent and
efficient official ; but they cannot be considered alone, and they
reveal him, therefore, as a man of ability, indeed, but utterly
disqualified by character for the position he occupied.

Burrington was appointed governor in February, 1723,
but he did not arrive in North Carolina until January, 1724.
It was characteristic of him that he should align himself with
the popular party. Moseley, who was of his Council, received

Christopher Gale

First Chief Justice of North Carolina

132 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

from him numerous marks of confidence. When about to set
out upon a journey to South Carolina, Burrington designated
Moseley as acting-governor in his absence. He associated him-
self with Moseley, Moore and other leaders of the popular
party in planting settlements on the Cape Fear. The Assem-
bly, too, found him responsive to its wishes. At its request he
ordered the Carolina land office, which had been closed by
order of the Lords Proprietors, to be re-opened; and although
the Lords Proprietors had forbidden the sale of any land
within twenty miles of Cape Fear, again at the instance of the
Assembly he ordered this instruction to be disregarded. The
government party, which considered the governor as its nat-
ural head, keenly resented Burrington 's desertion. Chief Jus-
tice Gale now became its leader, and early came into hostile
conflict with Burrington who threatened to slit Gale's nose,
crop his ears, "lay him in irons," and blow up his house with
gun-powder. Unable to make headway against the governor
and the Assembly, Gale finally carried his case to the Lords
Proprietors. He charged that Burrington had violently broken
up the sittings of the General Court, thereby rendering the
chief justice incapable of executing his office; that Burring-
ton had made murderous assaults upon him forcing him "in
bodily fear of his life ' ' to flee the province ; that Burrington
had been guilty of malpractices in office whereby he had pre-
vented the king's customs officers from performing their du-
ties. These charges, which the Assembly denounced as "mali-
cious," the Lords Proprietors, who were accustomed to such
violent controversies in their province, might have been will-
ing to overlook in view of the material prosperity which the
colony was enjoying under Burrington 's energetic adminis-
tration ; but a fourth count against him, hinted at rather than
openly charged, was a more serious matter. It was suggested
that Burrington "intended a Eevolution in this Government
as was some years ago in South Carolina." The reference
of course was to the Revolution of 1719 in which the South
Carolinians overthrew the proprietary government and in-
vited the Crown to assume direct control of their affairs. Bur-
rington's efforts to ingratiate himself with the popular party,
his close association with Moseley and with Moore, whose
brother had been a prominent leader in the South Carolina
Revolution, his repudiation of the instructions of the Lords
Proprietors, his zeal in opening the Cape Fear to settlements,
and his visits to South Carolina, all gave color to the sugges-
tion, and alarmed the Lords Proprietors, who in great haste

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 133

removed him after he had been but a year in office, and ap-
pointed to succeed him Sir Richard Everard, who qualified
at Edenton, July 19, 1725.

Neither the Proprietors nor the colony reaped any benefit
from the change. It resulted, for the former, in hastening
the transfer of their property to the Crown ; for the latter, in
six years of bad government. Everard had all the vices and
none of the virtues of Burrington. His intellect was mean,
his character contemptible. As a man he was vain, selfish and
cowardly ; as governor he practiced nepotism, tyrannized over
his colleagues, and accepted bribes. Besides these disqualifi-
cations for his place he was strongly suspected of Jacobitism.
Upon the death of George I, it is said, he exclaimed with an
air of exultation: "Now adieu to the Hanover family; we
have done with them !' He had administered the government
but a few months before Chief Justice Gale, Thomas Pollock,
and other leaders who had hailed his appointment as a great
party triumph, were clamoring for his removal. Because of
his "great Incapacity and "Weakness," they declared, the gov-
ernment had "grown so weak and Feeble" that but for its
transfer to the Crown "it could not have subsisted much
longer, but must have Dwindled and sunk into the utmost Con-
fusion and Disorder.'1 Everard was the last of the proprie-
tary governors. During his administration the Lords Propri-
etors surrendered their charter to the Crown, — a step which,
though inevitable sooner or later, was doubtless hastened by
the utter breakdown of the proprietary government under
Everard 's direction.

The period covered by the administrations of Eden, Bur-
rington, and Everard, in spite of bad government, was a peri-
od of growth and improvement. Immigration increased rap-
idly, settlements expanded to the west and the south, and four
new precincts were erected for the convenience of the new
settlers. By 1720 settlements had ceased to hug the coast.
Now and then some adventurer, more daring than the rest,
with axe in one hand and rifle in the other, had dared to turn
his back upon the older communities and plunge into the great
unexplored forests to the westward. Along the bank of some
stream he would select a fertile spot, clear away the trees, and
build his rude cabin. Scores of such cabins were soon scat-
tered throughout the interior. North of Albemarle Sound
and Roanoke River, such settlers early pushed across the
broad placid waters of Chowan River into the wilderness be-
yond. In 1722, the Assembly found that "that part of Albe-

134 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

marie County lying" on the West side of Chowan River, being
part of Chowan Precinct, is now inhabited almost to the ut-
most of the said County Westward" and that the inhabitants
were daily "growing very numerous"; for their convenience,
therefore, it erected that region into the precinct of Bertie.
Settlers were also pushing southward. The overthrow of the
Tuscarora along the Neuse had removed the most serious ob-
stacle to the expansion of the province in that direction; and
during the decade from 1713 to 1723, a few scattered adven-
turers cut their way through the wilderness as far south as
White Oak and New rivers in what is now Onslow County.
In 1724-25, more than 1,000 families came into the province,
most of whom pushed on across the Albemarle Sound into
Bath County which rilled up so rapidly that before 1730 three
new precincts — Tyrrell (1729) at the extreme north end of
the county, Carteret (1722) at the extreme east, and New Han-
over (1729) embracing the infant settlement on the Cape Fear
River, in the extreme south — were found necessary for the
accommodation of the people.

About the same time that the opening of the Cape Fear
added that fertile region to the province in the South, an im-
portant addition was made in the North by the settlement of
the long-standing boundary-line dispute with Virginia. Credit
for this result was due chiefly to Governor Eden, who in 1716,
in a spirit of compromise, reached an agreement with Gov-
ernor Spotswood of Virginia, which made the settlement pos-
sible. It will be remembered that the charter of 1665 called
for the line to be run from ' ' the north end of Currituck river
or inlet" in a direct westerly direction "to Wyonoak Creek ':
in 36 degrees, 30 minutes, north latitude. The question in
dispute was the location of Weyanoke Creek, Virginia main-
taining its identity with Wicocon Creek, North Carolina with
Nottoway River. Since this question could never be settled
with absolute certainty, the interests of both colonies sug-
gested a compromise. Eden and Spotswood, therefore, agreed
upon one of three courses, viz : beginning at the north shore
of Currituck Inlet the line should run due west to Chowan
River; if it cut the Chowan between the mouths of Nottoway
River and Wicocon Creek, it should continue in the same
course to the mountains ; if it cut the Chowan south of its con-
junction with Wicocon Creek, it should run from that point up
the river to the creek, thence west; if it cut Blackwater River
north of Nottoway River, it should run down the Blackwater to
the Nottoway, thence west. This agreement was signed by

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 135

both governors and transmitted by Eden to the Lords Propri-
etors, by Spotswood to the Crown for ratification. Spotswood
urged ratification upon the Crown, saying that the compromise
contained "the only Overture which has been made from ye
beginning, wherein both Governments could be brought to ac-
quiesce"; that while both sides adhered to their original
claims, "it was not easy to foresee an end to this contest,
though the Inconveniencys to both Governments by the con-
tinuance of this dispute is very obvious, and likely still to
increase, many people settling themselves in those contro-
verted Lands who own obedience to ye laws of neither Prov-
ince." Both the king and the Lords Proprietors ratified the
agreement and directed the line to be run accordingly. These
directions were not given, however, until after the death of
Eden and the removal of Spotswood from office.

The line was run in 1728. On the part of North Carolina
the commissioners were Christopher Gale, John Lovick, Wil-
liam Little, and Edward Moseley; on the part of Virginia,
William Byrd, Richard Fitz-Williams, and William Dand-
ridge. The Virginians, desiring to turn their arduous enter-
prise into a triumphant pageant through the wilderness, made
elaborate preparations in keeping with the dignity of the great
province they represented. That the Carolina commissioners
might come similarly prepared, they took pains to notify them
of their plans. Besides themselves and their retinue of per-
sonal servants, they said, their party would embrace a chap-
lain, scientists and mathematicians, Indian traders, expert
woodsmen, and a company of soldiers. "We shall have with
us a Tent and Marques for the convenience of ourselves and
our Servants. We bring as much wine and rum as will enable
us and our men to drink every night to the good Success of
the following day. And because we understand there are many
Gentiles on the frontier who never had oppertunity of being
Baptized we shall have a Chaplain with us to make them
Christians." The Carolina commissioners, who had not con-
sidered any pom]) and ceremony as necessary in connection
with their undertaking, were astonished by this announcement
and somewhat perplexed as to the course they shouldjidopt.
Their hard common sense, however, came to their rescue.
"We are at a Loss, Gentlemen," they wrote, "whether to
thank you for the particulars you give us of your Tent Stores
and the manner you design to meet us. Had you been silent
about it we had not wanted an Excuse for not meeting you in
the same manner but now vou force us to Expose the naked-

136 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ness of our Country and to tell yon we cant possibly meet you
in the manner onr great respect to you would make us glad
to do whom we are not Emulous of outdoing unless in Care &
Di'lligence in the affair we come to meet you about. So all we
can answer to that article is that we will Endeavour to pro-
vide as well as the Circumstances of things will admit us and
what we may want in necessaries we hope will be made up in
the Spiritual Comfort we expect from your Chaplain of whom
we shall give notice as you desire to all Lovers of Novelty
and doubt not of a great many Boundary Christians. " " That
keen thrust under the guard," comments George Davis, ''de-
livered too with all the glowing courtesy of knighthood, is ex-
quisite. If the Virginians were as familiar with
sweet Will as they undoubtedly were with the value of tent
stores, they must have had an uncomfortable remembrance of
Sir Andrew Aguecheek — 'An I thought he had been so cun-
ning in fence, I'd have seen him damned ere I'd have chal-
lenged him.' "

The commissioners began their work at Currituck Inlet,
March 6, 1728, and having ascertained the exact location of
36 degrees, 30 minutes, north latitude, they drove a cedar post
in the seashore at that point to mark the beginning of the line.
They then began their westward course. It is not necessary
to follow them in their long and difficult task as they cut their
way through the tangled wilderness, plunged through noxious
swamps, and ferried deep and sluggish rivers. The experience
of the surveyors in the Great Dismal Swamp, was full of ad-
venture, hardships and dangers that called for a high degree
of intelligence, endurance, and dauntless courage. They were
the first white men to pass through that vast wilderness of
water and network of trees and vines, through which even the
rays of the sun could not penetrate. The survey brought to
light many interesting facts and revealed situations full of
surprises not only to the commissioners but to the inhabitants
along the line. The line, for instance, "cut through William
Speight's Plantation, taking the Tobacco House into Carolina
and leaving the Dwelling House in Virginia." Several other
planters had similar experiences. The intersection of the line
with Blackwater River was found to be a half-mile north of
the mouth of Nottoway River "which agreed to half a minute
with the observation made formerly by Mr. Lawson." Pro-
ceeding according to instructions down the Blackwater to the
Nottoway, the commissioners ran the line due west from their
confluence. Having thus settled the most acute phase of the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 137

dispute, the commissioners, on April 5, "considering the great
fatigue already undergone, and the danger of Rattle snakes
in this advanced season, determined to proceed no further
with the Line till the Fall." On September 25th, they re-
sumed their work. Upon reaching the Hycootee River, a trib-
utary of the Roanoke, in what is now Person County, 168
miles from the starting point at Currituck Inlet, the Carolina
commissioners resolved to proceed no farther saying that as
the line then extended fifty miles beyond the remotest settle-
ment and that many years would elapse before settlers would
penetrate so far into the interior, it would involve needless
trouble and expense to continue it. The Virginians protested
against this step and announced their determination to pro-
ceed alone until they should reach the foot of the mountains.
This course the Carolina commissioners declared would be
"irregular and invalid," contending that a line so run "would
be no Boundary. ' ' Nevertheless the Virginians, showing more
wisdom than their opponents, carried the line farther west-
ward about seventy-two miles into the present county of
Stokes. In all they ran it 211 miles from the beginning.

On the whole the settlement was favorable to North Caro-
lina. It vindicated her commissioners of 1709 from the se-
vere strictures cast upon them by their Virginian colleagues,
and showed that the Virginia commissioners of that year had
been in error 211/2 miles. "To the great surprise of all who
had read the report of former [Virginia] Commissioners,"
wrote Lieutenant-Governor William Gooch of Virginia, an-
nouncing the result to the Board of Trade, "it is now found
that instead of gaining a large Tract of Land from North Car-
olina, the line comes rather nearer to Virginia than that which
Carolina has always allowed to be our bounds." The Caro-
lina commissioners reported that "there was taken by the
Line into Carolina a very great Quantity of Lands and Num-
ber of Families that before had been under Verginia of which
the time would not admit to take an Exact account but com-
puted to be above One hundred Thousand acres and above
Three hundred Tythables," i. e., above 1,200 inhabitants. The
great gain to both provinces was in the removal of a cause of
controversy, the quieting of titles to property, and the estab-
lishment of the authority of government over a large number
of persons who had taken advantage of the dispute to settle in
a strip of territory "where the laws of neither Province could
reach them."

The result, of the survey was reported not to the Lords Pro-

138 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

prietors but to officials of the Crown for when the survey was
completed North Carolina had ceased to be a proprietary col-
ony. This result had long been a foregone conclusion. For
more than forty years crown officials and agents had carried
on a propaganda against the proprietary colonies with the
design of bringing them under the direct government of the
Crown. The chief reason assigned for this policy was the
failure of the proprietary governments to enforce the navi-
gation laws, but other reasons were also given. It was charged
that they had failed to accomplish "the chief design" for
which they were established; that they enacted statutes "con-
trary and repugnant to the Laws of England and directly
prejudicial to Trade;" that they denied appeals from their
courts to the king in Council; that they harbored smugglers
and pirates ; that they debased their currency and by offering
immigrants exemption from taxation, drew people from the
crown colonies, thus "undermining the Trade and Welfare
of the other Plantations;" that they promoted manufactures
which were proper only to England ; that they neglected their
defenses against attack by Indians and foreign enemies
"which is every day more and more to be apprehended, con-
sidering how the French power encreases in those parts;"
and, finally, that all these evils arose from their misuse of
the powers granted in their charters "and the Independency
which they pretend to. '; Accordingly the Board of Trade
recommended as the remedy for these evils that "the Char-
ters of the severall Proprietors and others intitling them to
absolute Government be reassumed by the Crown and these
Colonies be put into the same State and dependency as those
of your Majesties other Plantations."

Such a result, however, could not be brought about by
summary proceedings ; the consent of the Proprietors was
necessary, but since the Proprietors did not seem inclined to
give their consent voluntarily, the Crown determined upon a
line of policy designed to compel compliance. Step by step it
proceeded, always in the same direction, to loosen the hold of
the Proprietors upon their possessions. As early as 1686 quo
warranto proceedings were ordered to be instituted against
them with the purpose of having their charter forfeited to the
Crown. These proceedings failing, the Privy Council, in
1689, recommended action by Parliament to bring the pro-
prietary colonies "under a nearer. dependence on the Crown."
In line with this recommendation Parliament, in 1696, passed
an act requiring that the nominees of the Proprietors for

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 139

governors of their colonies be approved by the Crown before
assuming their duties, and, further, that they give bond to
the Crown for the enforcement of the navigation and customs
laws. To assure the punishment of violators of these laws,
the Crown also proposed to appoint the attorneys-general
of the proprietary colonies and to establish in them admiralty
courts whose officials were to be appointed by the king. In
1701, upon the recommendation of the Board of Trade, a bill
was introduced in Parliament "for remitting to the Crown
the Government of several [proprietary] colonies and
Plantations in America;" and the surveyor-general of His
Majesty's customs, Edmund Randolph, who had been the
Crown's most active agent in securing data against the pro-
prietaries, was instructed to appear at the Bar of the House
of Lords in support of the measure. But "by reason of the
shortness of time and multiplicity of other business" before
Parliament, the bill failed of passage; the Board of Trade,
however, announced that it would "again come under consid-
eration the next Session of Parliament," and appealed to
Governor Nicholson of Virginia for information "relating to
the conduct of Proprietary Governours and Governments,
more especially in relation to Carolina and the Ba-
hama Islands," which could be used in support of the bill.
For some reason not revealed the bill was not pressed. In
1714, it was proposed to require the laws passed by the pro-
prietary governments to be submitted to the Crown for ap-
proval, but an inspection of their charters quickly con-
vinced the king's advisers that this could not be done without
an act of Parliament. Besides these official attacks, officials
and agents of the Crown and of crown colonies poured forth a
constantly flowing stream of abuse and misrepresentation of
the proprietary colonies, all with the single purpose of wear-
ing out the patience of the Proprietors and inducing them to
surrender their charters.

For nearly half a century the Lords Proprietors of Caro-
lina resisted these encroachments of the Crown upon their
chartered rights. When quo warranto proceedings were begun
in 1686, Shaftesbury wrote: "I shall bee as unwilling to dis-
pute his Ma[jes]ties pleasure as any man but this being a
Publique Concerne tis not in any perticular man's power to
dispose of it." The Lords Proprietors complained that they
were given "no oppertunity to rectifie or clear some misin-
formations" about their colonies laid before the king by
Randolph and the Board of Trade, upon which the bills for

140 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

forfeiting their charter had been based; and they protested
against the appointment of the attorney-general and the erec-
tion of admiralty courts by the Crown as violations of the
terms of their charter. As time passed, however, they realized
that they were waging a losing battle. In 1719 came the Revo-
lution in South Carolina, and the ease with which the people
overthrew their authority and the eagerness with which the
Crown recognized the rebel government revealed the slight
hold they had on their provinces. When they considered, too,
' ' the number of the Proprietors, their disunion, the frequency
of minorities amongst them, their Inability to procure to them-
selves Justice from South Carolina with respect to their
Quit Rents and their Want of Power to correct the great
Abuses committed by the settlement about the Paper Money
and other Publick acts to the Prejudice of the British Com-
merce and an apprehension that in Case of an Invasion the
Colony would be lost to the great detriment of the Publick as
well as to themselves," they realized the wisdom of yielding
to the inevitable. In January, 1728, accordingly, they united
in a memorial to the Crown offering to surrender their char-
ter. Negotiations were accordingly opened which resulted in
all of the Lords Proprietors agreeing to surrender their politi-
cal rights, and in seven of them agreeing to sell their prop-
erty interests for £2,500 each.1 In addition to the purchase
price, the king consented to allow them £5000 for arrears of
quit rents due them. The agreement was submitted to Parlia-
ment which promptly passed an act embodying the terms of
the sale. The conveyance was duly executed on July 25, 1729,
the colony passed under the direct authority of the Crown, and
the rule of the Lords Proprietors came to an end.

The people of the colony heard the announcement of the
transfer with great satisfaction. The Council at once pre-
pared a memorial to the king in which they declared that it

1 The shares were then held as follows: Clarendon's share by
James Bertie of Middlesex; Albemarle's by Henry Somerset. Duke of
Beaufort, and his minor brother Noell Somerset; Craven's by William
Lord Craven; Lord Berkeley's by Joseph Blake of South Carolina;
Ashley's by John Cotton, a minor, of the Middle Temple. London;
Colleton's by Sir John Colleton of Devonshire; Sir William Berkeley's
by Henry Bertie of Buck's Countv, or Mary Danson of Middlesex, or
Elizabeth Moore of London, the title being: in litigation ; and Carteret's
by John Lord Carteret, Baron of Hawes. afterwards Earl of Gran-
ville. Carteret though surrendering all his rights of political control,
refused to sell his share; accordingly, one-eighth of the original grant
was reserved from the purchase and in 1744 was laid off for him
wholly within North Carolina.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 141

was ''with the greatest Pleasure we Received the Notice of
your Majesty's having taken this Government under your
Immediate direction." Throughout the colony the change
was celebrated with great rejoicings. At Edenton, wrote Gov-
ernor Everard, "the utmost demonstrations of joy was shewn
by all people in generall and the night concluded wth a Com-
pleat illumination and Boon Fires and drinking his Maj1^
health and all the Royall Familys long life."

The people had cause for their joy. Crippled by the com-
mercial policy of their powerful northern neighbor, neglected
by the Lords Proprietors, antagonized by the Crown, what
those early Carolinians had obtained they got through their
own unassisted exertions and without favor from anybody.
None of the English colonies had passed through a more des-
perate struggle for existence. The geographical position of
North Carolina was such as placed its commerce at the mercy
of Virginia, and there was then, as Saunders observes, no
Federal Constitution to prevent unneighborly legislation.
The inefficient government of the Proprietors was unable to
preserve either order or safety in the province, and was just
strong enough to be a source of constant irritation. The Cul-
pepper Rebellion, the Cary Rebellion, the Indian wars and
the struggle with piracy severely tested the character and the
capabilities of the people. Their situation, for instance, at
the close of the Indian wars was almost desperate. Most of
the people have "scarcely corn to last them until wheat time,
many not having any at all;" "the community miserably
reduced by Indian cruelty," and "the inhabitants brought to
so low an ebb ' ' that large numbers fled the province ; ' ' our in-
testine broils and contentions, to which all the misfortunes
which have since attended us are owing;" "a country pre-
served which everybody that was but the least acquainted with
our circumstances gave over for lost" — these are typical ex-
pressions with which the correspondence of the period
abounds. That the colony survived these conditions is better
evidence of the character and spirit of the people than the
sneers and jibes of hostile critics, either contemporary or mod-
ern. Had the greater part of the population of North Caro-
lina, or even a considerable minority of it, been composed of
"the shiftless people who could not make ;i place for them-
selves in Virginia society," as William Byrd and John Fiske
w^ould have us believe, all the aristocracy of Virginia and
South Carolina combined could not have saved the colony from
anarchy and ruin. Yet between the years 1663 and 1728

142 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

somebody laid here in North Carolina the foundations of a
great state. The foundation upon which great states are built
is the character of their people, and the "mean whites" of
Virginia are not now, nor were they then, the sort of people
who found and build states. No colony composed to any extent
of such a people could have rallied from such disasters as
those from which North Carolina rallied between 1718 and
1728. Those years were years of growth and expansion. The
population increased threefold, the Cape Fear was opened to
settlers, new plantations were cleared, better methods of hus-
bandry introduced, mills erected, roads surveyed, ferries
established, trade was increased, towns were incorporated, bet-
ter houses built, better furniture installed, parishes created,
churches erected, ministers supplied, the schoolmaster found
his way thither, and the colony was fairly started on that
course of development which brought it, by the outbreak of
the Revolution, to the rank of fourth in population and impor-
tance among the thirteen English-speaking colonies in
America.

CHAPTER X

ENGLISH AND SCOTCH-HIGHLANDERS ON THE

CAPE FEAR

The first three decades of royal rule in North Carolina
were decades of growth and expansion. In 1730, the popula-
tion was confined to the coastal plain and certainly did not ex-
ceed 30,000; in 1760, it stretched all the way to the foot of
the Blue Ridge Mountains and numbered probably not less
than 130,000. Much of this growth was due to natural in-
crease, for large families were characteristic of the people.
Not only did the women marry young, but as Brickell takes
pains to record they were "very fruitful, most Houses being
full of Little Ones, and many Women from other Places who
have been long Married and without Children, have removed
to Carolina, and become joyful Mothers."1 But much the
greater portion of the increase was from immigration. From
South Carolina on the south ; from Virginia, Pennsylvania
and New Jersey on the north; from England, Scotland and
Ireland; from the mountains of Switzerland and from the
valleys of the Rhine and the Danube, thousands of hardy, en-
terprising pioneers poured into North Carolina, filling up the
unoccupied places in the older settlements, moving up the
banks of the Roanoke, the Neuse, and the Cape Fear, and
spreading out over the plains and through the valleys of
the Piedmont section.

Explanation of this extraordinary movement is to be
found in a variety of causes, all of which acted and reacted
upon each other. Land syndicates exploiting the mildness
of the climate, the fertility of the soil, and the cheapness of
the land, induced many immigrants to come. A spirit of
adventure moved others. Hunters and trappers were at-
tracted by the great variety and number of fur-bearing ani-
mals in the West. A lofty missionary zeal to preach the

1 Grimes, J. Bryan, (ed.) : The Natural History of North Caro-
lina, by John Brickell, M. D. (Dublin, 1737), p. 31.

143

144 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Gospel of Christ to their scattered countrymen and to the
savages of the wilderness inspired a choice few. Economic
conditions in Scotland; economic and religious conditions in
Ireland; economic, religious, and political conditions in Ger-
many drove thousands from those countries to seek new
homes on the Carolina frontier. To all these causes should
be added the activity of the royal governors, Burrington,
Johnston, and Dobbs, who showed a laudable zeal to make
known to the people of the Old World the boundless resources
of the New World.

During the first decade, 1729-1739, most of the new set-
tlers occupied lands in the section that had been settled dur-
ing the proprietary period, i. e., the section north and east
of Cape Fear River. Into this region immigrants came
sIoavIv but steadily. In 1733, Burrington, the first royal
governor, wrote : "The Reputation this Government has lately
acquired, appears by the number of People that have come
from other Places to live in it. Many of them are possessed
of good American Estates. I do not exceed in saying a thou-
sand white men have already settled in North Carolina, since
my arrival [in 1731], and more are expected." Twenty fami-
lies had cut their way through the forest to the head of navi-
gation on the Tar River. A hundred families had planted a
"thriving" settlement on New River. Others, singly and in
groups, had penetrated into the interior as far as the North
East River. A small colony of Scotch Highlanders had found
homes on the upper Cape Fear. Such was the expansion of
settlements, that by 1734 three new precincts were necessary
for their convenience. In 1734, the General Assembly finding
that New Hanover precinct had "become very populous,"
erected the New River settlements into a separate precinct
called Onslow. Similarly the settlements on Tar and North
East rivers were erected into Edgecombe and Bladen pre-
cincts. At the close of his administration, Burrington esti-
mated that there had been an increase in the population of
more than 5,000 in five years.

None of the new settlements had made such rapid progress
as that which Burrington had done so much, when governor
for the Lords Proprietors, to plant on the Cape Fear River.
The first attempt to plant a settlement on Cape Fear River
was made without success by some New England adventurers
in 1660. Four years later a party of royalist refugees from
Barbados established a colony near the mouth of the river,
where, in 1665, they were joined by other Barbadians under

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 143

Sir John Yeamans who had been appointed governor. The
settlement, which contained a population of about 800 and ex-
tended for several miles up the river, was erected into the
county of Clarendon. Its prospects were not good and Gov-
ernor Yeamans soon abandoned it, returned to Barbados, and
later joined the colony which the Lords Proprietors had
planted on the Ashley and Cooper rivers of which he was ap-
pointed governor. The Lords Proprietors, who directed all
their energies toward building up the rival settlement to the
southward, took but little interest in the Cape Fear colony,
and the settlers, after suffering many hardships, abandoned
it in 1667.

After the failure of the Clarendon colony, the Cape Fear
region fell into disrepute and nearly fifty years passed be-
fore a permanent settlement was planted there. Four causes
contributing to this delay were the character of the coast at
the mouth of the river, the pirates who sought refuge there
in large numbers, the hostility of the Cape Fear Indians, and
the closing of the Carolina land-office by the Lords Propri-
etors.

The character of the coast, of course, could not be changed,
but those who were interested in the development of the Cape
Fear section employed pen and tongue to change the reputa-
tion which its very name had forever fastened upon it. "It
is by most traders in London believed that the coast of this
country is very dangerous," wrote Governor Burrington, "but
in reality [it is] not so. ': The fact remains, however, that
this sentence stands as a better testimonial of the governor's
zeal than of his regard for truth. A different spirit inspired a
later son 2 of the Cape Fear who, with something of an honest
pride in the sturdy ruggedness and picturesque bleakness of
that famous point, wrote thus eloquently of it: "Looking then
to the cape for the idea and reason of its name, we find that
it is the southernmost point of Smith's Island, a naked, bleak
elbow of sand, jutting far out into the ocean. Immediately in
its front are the Frying Pan Shoals pushing out still farther
twenty miles to sea. Together they stand for warning and for
woe; and together they catch the long majestic roll of the At-
lantic as it sweeps through a thousand miles of grandeur and
power from the Arctic towards the Gulf. It is the playground
of billows and tempests, the kingdom of silence and awe, dis-
turbed by no sound save the seagull's shriek and the breakers'

George Davis.

Vol. I— 10

146 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

roar. Its whole aspect is suggestive not of repose and beauty,
but of desolation and terror. Imagination cannot adorn it.
Romance cannot hallow it. Local pride cannot soften it.
There it stands today, bleak and threatening and pitiless, as
it stood three hundred years ago, when Grenville and White
came near unto death upon its sands. And there it will stand,
bleak and threatening and pitiless, until the earth and sea
give up their dead. And as its nature, so its name, is now,
always has been, and always will be the Cape of Fear."

But the very dangers that repelled settlers attracted pi-
rates, and the Cape Fear became one of their chief strong-
holds on our coast. As late as 1717, it was estimated that
more than 1,500 pirates made their headquarters at New
Providence and Cape Fear. Darting in and out of these har-
bors of refuge for many years they preyed upon French,
Spanish, British and American commerce with the utmost im-
partiality and with impunity. The capture of Bonnet in 1718
was the beginning of the end. The following day several other
pirate vessels were taken off Cape Fear, and as a result of
these captures a hundred freebooters were hanged at one time
on the wharves of Charleston. When the Cape Fear ceased to
be the refuge of crime it became the home of law and industry.

The Cape Fear Indians "were reckoned the most barba-
rous of any in the colony." Their hostility to the English
was implacable. They made war on the Clarendon settlers
which was one of the reasons for the failure of that colony.
In 1711-13, they joined the Tuscarora; and two years later
took an active part in the Yamassee War. Occupying an im-
portant strategic position between the two colonies, they
made cooperation between them difficult. In the summer of
1715, they cut off a band of friendly Indians whom North Caro-
lina was sending to the aid of South Carolina, but later were
in turn defeated by the forces under Col. Maurice Moore.
Their power, much weakened by the defeat of the Tuscarora
on the north and of the Yamassee on the south, was finally de-
stroyed in 1725, in the battle of Sugar Loaf, opposite the
town of Brunswick, by a force under Roger Moore.

But the struggles of the Carolina settlers with the forces
of nature, the freebooters of the sea, and the savages of the
wilderness would have availed nothing had they yielded
obedience to the orders of the Lords Proprietors. In 1712, the
Lords Proprietors resolved that no more grants should be
issued in North Carolina, but such sales of land only as were
made at their office in London were to be good ; and two years

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 147

later, the governor and Council ordered that no surveys should
be made within twenty miles of the Cape Fear River. But
there were men in North Carolina who were not willing that
a group of wealthy landowners beyond the sea should pre-
vent their clearing and settling this inviting region, and about
the year 1723 the ring of their axes began to break the long
silence of the Cape Fear. They laid off their claims, cleared
their fields, and built their cabins with utter disregard of the
formalities of law. When Governor Burrington saw that they
were determined to take up lands without either acquiring
titles or paying rents, he decided that the interests of the Lords
Proprietors would be served by his giving the one and receiv-
ing the other. At his suggestion, therefore, the Assembly pe-
titioned the governor and Council to reopen the land office in
Carolina, and the governor and Council finding officially what
they already knew personally that " sundry persons are al-
ready seated on the vacant lands for which purchase money
has not been paid nor any rents," granted the Assembly's
prayer.

Good titles thus assured settlers were not wanting. Con-
spicuous among the leaders, were Governor Burrington and
Col. Maurice Moore. Burrington 's claims to this credit were
repeatedly asserted by himself and acknowledged by contem-
poraries who bore him no love. The grand jury of the prov-
ince, in 1731, bore testimony to the "very great expense and
personal trouble" with which he "laid the foundation" of
the Cape Fear settlement; while the General Assembly, in an
address to the king declared that his "indefatigable industry
and the hardships he underwent in carrying on the settlement
of the Cape Fear deserve our thankful remembrance. ': Such
testimony to His Sacred Majesty was doubtless very flattering
and duly appreciated, but Burrington evidently expected
something more substantial, for he complained more than once
that the only reward he ever received for his losses and hard-
ships "was the thanks of a House of Burgesses." The first
permanent settlement on the Cape Fear was made by Maurice
Moore, who, while on his campaign against the Yamassee In-
dians in 1715, had been attracted by the fertility of the lower
Cape Fear region and determined to lead a settlement there.
This plan he carried into execution sometime prior to the year
1725, accompanied by his brothers, Nathaniel and Roger
Moore. Burrington, in a letter to the Board of Trade in 1732,
after he had broken with the popular party, refers to these
men in the following passage: "About twenty families are

148 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

settled at Cape Fear from South Carolina, among them three
brothers of a noted family whose name is Moore. They are
all of the set known there as the Goose Creek faction. These
people were always troublesome in that government, and will,
without doubt, be so in this. Already I have been told they
will expend a great sum of money to get me turned out." Bur-
rington's reference to their conduct in South Carolina is evi-
dently to the fact that James Moore, their oldest brother, in
1719, led the revolt in South Carolina against the Lords Pro-
prietors and after its success was elected governor. A cen-
tury and a quarter later, George Davis, himself an eminent
son of the Cape Fear, paid the following tribute to Maurice
and Eoger Moore: " These brothers," said he, "were not
cast in the common mould of men. They were 'of the breed
of noble bloods.' Of kingly descent,3 and proud of their
name which brave deeds had made illustrious, they dwelt upon
their magnificent estates of Rocky Point and Orton, with
much of the dignity, and something of the state of the ancient
feudal barons, surrounded by their sons and kinsmen, who
looked up to them for counsel, and were devoted to their will.
Proud and stately, somewhat haughty and overbearing per-
haps, but honorable, brave, high-minded and generous, they
lived for many years the fathers of the Cape Fear, dispensing
a noble hospitality to the worthy, and a terror to the mean and
lawless. * They possessed the entire respect and con-

fidence of all; and the early books of the register's office of
New Hanover County are full of letters of attorney from all
sorts of men, giving them an absolute discretion in managing
the varied affairs of their many constituents."

• Besides the Moores, conspicuous among the early settlers
of the Cape Fear were the Moseleys, the Howes, the Porters,
the Lillingtons, the Ashes, the Harnetts, and others whose
names are closely identified with the history of North Caro-
lina. Of them, Mr. Davis says: "They were no needy adven-
turers, driven by necessity — no unlettered boors, ill at ease
in the haunts of civilization, and seeking their proper sphere
amidst the barbarism of the savages. They were gentlemen of
birth and education, bred in the refinements of polished soci-
ety, and bringing with them ample fortunes, gentle manners,
and cultivated minds. Most of them united by the ties of
blood, and all by those of friendship, they came as one house-
hold, sufficient unto themselves, and reared their family altars

3 This is a reference to the tradition that the Moores were de-
scendants of the ancient kinss of Leix.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 149

in love and peace. " 4 After these leaders had cleared the way,
they were joined by numerous other families from the Albe-
marle, from Barbados, and other islands of the West Indies,
from New England, from South Carolina, Pennsylvania,
and Maryland, and from Europe.

The oldest grant for land on the Cape Fear now extant, is
one to Maurice Moore for 1,500 acres on the west bank of the
river, dated June 3, 1725. From this grant Maurice Moore, in
1725, laid off, fourteen miles above the mouth of the river, a
tract of 320 acres as a site for a town, and his brother Roger,
"to make the said town more regular, added another parcel of
land. ' ' To encourage the growth of the town, Maurice Moore
donated sites for a church and graveyard, a courthouse, a
market-house and other public buildings, and a commons "for
the use of the inhabitants of the town." The town was laid
off into building lots of one-half acre each to be sold only to
those who would agree to erect on their lots, substantial
houses. Moore then made a bid for royal favor by naming his
town Brunswick in honor of the reigning family. But the
career of Brunswick did not commend it to the favor of
crowned heads or their representatives ; it never became more
than a frontier village, and in the course of a few years, during
which, however, it played an important part in the history of
the province, it yielded with no good grace to a younger and
more vigorous rival sixteen miles farther up the river, which
was named in honor of Spencer Compton, Earl of Wil-
mington.

The settlement grew rapidly. Writing from the Cape
Fear in 1734, Governor Johnston said: "The inhabitants
of the southern part of this government, particularly of
the two branches of this large river, * are a very

sober and industrious set of people and have made an
amazing progress in their improvement since their first
settlement, which was about eight years ago.': Large tracts
of forest land had been converted into beautiful meadows and
cultivated plantations; comfortable, if not elegant, houses
dotted the river banks ; and two towns had sprung into exist-
ence. The forest offered tribute to the lumberman and tur-
pentine distiller; a number of saw mills had been erected
while some of the planters were employing their slaves chiefly
in "making tar and pitch." A brisk trade in lumber, naval
stores, and farm products had been established with the other

4 University Address in 1855.

150 HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA

colonies, the West Indies, and even with the mother country,
and before the close of the decade the governor was able to
declare that the Cape Fear had become "the place of the
greatest trade in the whole province." The collector's books
at Brunswick showed that during the year 1734 forty-two
vessels cleared from that port. At that time the population
of the Cape Pear settlement numbered about 1,200; by 1740
it had increased to 3,000.

Life on the Cape Fear was seen at its best not in the towns
but on the estates of the planters scattered along the banks
of the river and its branches. In the immediate vicinity of
Brunswick the most celebrated were, Orton, the finest colonial
residence now standing in North Carolina, where lived and
reigned "Old King" Roger Moore, "the chief gentleman in
all Cape Fear"; Kendal, the home of "Old King" Roger's
son, George, whose wives, "with remarkable fidelity and
amazing fortitude, presented him every spring with a new
baby, until the number reached twenty-eight ; ' ' 5 and Lilliput,
adjoining Kendal, first the residence of Chief Justice Eleazer
Allen, and later of Sir Thomas Frankland, the great-grandson
of Oliver Cromwell. Farther up the river came then and later
a succession of celebrated plantations. Forty miles above
Brunswick on the east bank of North East River stood Lilling-
ton Hall, the home of Alexander Lillington, who led the Cape
Fear militia at Moore's Creek Bridge in 1776. On the oppo-
site bank were Stag Park, the Cape Fear estate of Governor
Bnrrington: the Neck and Green Hill, the residences of Gov-
ernor Samuel Ashe and General John Ashe; Moseley Hall,
where lived Sampson Moseley, afterwards a delegate to the
famous Halifax convention of 1776; and Rocky Point, the
estate of Maurice Moore, described by an English visitor in
1734 as "the finest place in all Cape Fear." Across the
river farther down came a series of places, the most historic
of which were Castle Haynes, owned by Hugh Waddell, who
is buried there, and the Hermitage, owned by John Burgwin,
for many years clerk of the Council and private secretary to
the governor, which was one of the most celebrated homes in
the Cape Fear country for a hundred years. "The great ma-
jority of these residences were wooden structures, some of
them being large, with wide halls and piazzas, but without any
pretence to architectural beauty, and some being one story

s Sprunt, James : Tales and Traditions of the Lower Cape Fear,
p. 58.

o

w

H
O
3

152 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

buildings, spread out over a considerable space. A few were
of brick, but none of stone, as there was no building stone
within a hundred miles; but all, whether of brick or wood,
were comfortable and the seats of unbounded hospitality."6
Perhaps the best picture of the Cape Fear settlement at the
close of its first decade is a pamphlet written and published
in London by an English visitor who arrived at Orton in the
afternoon of June 16, 1734. After four pleasant days with
"Old King" Roger, his party set out on their trip up the river
under the guidance of Nathaniel Moore. The first day's trip
carried them past "several pretty plantations on both sides"
of the river, which they found "wonderfully pleasant" and
the following morning brought them "to a beautiful planta-
tion, belonging to Captain Gabriel [Gabourell], who is a great
merchant there, where were two ships, two sloops, and a brig-
antine, loading with lumber." The night was agreeably
passed at "another plantation belonging to Mr. Roger Moore,
called Blue Banks, where he is going to build another very
large brick house.'1 The visitors were astonished at the fer-
tility of the soil. "I am credibly informed," declared their
chronicler, "they have very commonly four-score bushels of
corn on an acre of their overflowed land. I must con-

fess I saw the finest corn growing there that I ever saw in my
life, as likewise wheat and hemp." That night, they "met
with good entertainment" at the home of Captain Gibbs, whose
plantation adjoined Blue Banks; and the next day dined with
Jehu Davis, whose house was "built after the Dutch fashion,
and made to front both ways, on the river and on the land."
The visitors were delighted with the "beautiful avenue cut
through the woods for above two miles, which is a great addi-
tion to the house." They left Davis's house in the afternoon
and the same evening reached Nathaniel Moore's plantation,
which was "a very pleasant place on a bluff upwards of sixty
feet high." Three days after their arrival, "there came a
sloop of one hundred tons, and upwards, from South Caro-
lina, to be laden with corn, which is sixty miles at least from
the bar. * * * There are people settled at least forty
miles higher up," that is, in what is now Cumberland
County. The visitor's last experience in the Cape Fear sec-
tion was such a one as was calculated to leave with him a
bitter prejudice against the country and its people, but for-
tunately his mind, recalling the hospitality which he had just

6Waddell. A. M. : Historic Homes in the Cape Fear Country.
(North Carolina Booklet, Vol. II, No. 9, p. 20.)

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 153

been enjoying, rose superior to such a feeling. Reaching
Brunswick about eight o'clock in the morning of August 11th,
on his departure from the colony, he says: "I set out from
thence about nine, and about four miles from thence met my
landlord of Lockwood Folly, who was in hopes I would stay
at his house that night. About two I arrived there with much
difficulty, it being a very hot day and myself very faint and
weak, when I called for a dram, and to my great sorrow found
not one drop of rum, sugar or lime juice in the house (a pretty
place to stay all night indeed) which made me re-

solve never to trust the country again on a long journey." 7
Returning to Brunswick from his trip up the river, the
English visitor "lay that first night at Newtown, in a small
hut." With this slight mention he dismisses the place from
his narrative, but had he returned twenty years later he would
doubtless have given it as much as a paragraph in a revised
edition. Today a visitor describing the Cape Fear section
might possibly mention Brunswick for its historic interest,
but Newtown, though masquerading under another name,
would form the burden of his story. The former, in spite of
its name, was not popular with the royal governors who threw
their influence to the latter, and the rise of Newtown was fol-
lowed by the decline of Brunswick. Newtown was laid off
just below the confluence of the two branches of Cape Fear
River. It consisted originally of two cross streets called Front
and Market, names which they still bear, while the town itself
for lack of a better name was called Newtown. From the first
Brunswick regarded Newtown as an upstart to be suppressed
rather than encouraged. Rivalry originating in commercial
competition was soon intensified by a struggle for political
supremacy. The chief factor in this struggle was Gabriel
Johnston, who, in 1734, succeeded George Burrington as gov-
ernor. The new governor became one of the most ardent
champions of Newtown and used not only his personal in-
fluence but also his official authority to make it the social,
commercial and political center of the rapidly growing prov-
ince. Encouraged by his favor, Newtown in March, 1735,
petitioned the governor and Council for a charter, but the
prayer was refused because it required an act of the Assembly
to incorporate a town. To the Assembly, therefore, Newtown
appealed and as a compliment to the governor asked for incor-
poration under the name of Wilmington, in honor of John-

7 Georgia Historical Collections; Vol. II, p. 59.

154 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ston's friend and patron, Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilming-
ton, afterwards prime minister of England. The granting of
this petition meant death to all the hopes of Brunswick. By
it Brunswick would be compelled to surrender to Wilmington
the courthouse and jail, the county court, the offices of the
county officials, the office of the collector of the port, and the
election of assemblymen, vestrymen and other public officials.
Brunswick, therefore, stoutly opposed the pretentions of Wil-
mington and kept up a bitter struggle against them for four
years. The end came in the Assembly of February of 1739.
Apparently no contest was made in the lower house, for
Brunswick evidently looked to the Council for victory. The
Council was composed of eight members, four of whom were
certainly of the Brunswick party. Accordingly when the Wil-
mington bill came before the Council four voted for, and four
against it. Then to the consternation of the Brunswickers,
the president declared that as president he had the right to
break the tie which his vote as a member had made, and in
face of violent opposition, cast his vote a second time in the
affirmative. The Brunswick party entered vigorous protests,
but they availed nothing with the governor, who, in the pres-
ence of both houses of the Assembly, gave his assent to the
bill.

Brunswick did not accept defeat gracefully, nor did Wil-
mington bear the honors of victory magnanimously. The feel-
ings aroused by the long struggle and the manner in which
it was finally brought to a close strained their commercial and
political relations and embittered their social and religious
intercourse for many years. This hostility made it necessary
to divide the- county into two parishes — St. James, embracing
the territory on the east side of the river, and St. Phillips, em-
bracing that on the west side. But this division did not help
matters much at first, as there was only one minister, and he
does not seem to have had the inexhaustible amount of tact
that was necessary to deal with the situation. Says he: "A
missionary in this river has a most difficult part to act, for by
obliging one of the towns, he must of course disoblige the
other, each of them opposing the other to the utmost of their
power. Notwithstanding the majority of the present vestry at
Wilmington are professed dissenters and endeavored by all
ways and means to provoke me to leave that place, yet they
cannot endure my settlement at Brunswick. While I was
their minister they were offended at my officiating frequently
among them." But Brunswick struggled in vain against the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 155

*

Wilmington tide. Nature had given to Wilmington a better
and safer harbor, and this was an ally which Brunswick could
not overcome. Besides far more important matters than the
supremacy of one straggling village over another soon claimed
their united consideration, and they found that factional quar-
rels and jealousies would result only in injury to both. After
a short time, therefore, when the actors in the early struggle
were all dead, when their animosities had been mellowed by
time, and when danger from a common enemy threatened the
welfare of both, their differences were buried and forgotten,
and the two towns stood side by side in the struggle for inde-
pendence. This union was never broken, for the ties formed
during those days of peril proved stronger than ever their
differences had been, and Brunswick abandoning the old site
united fortunes with Wilmington.

The people whom the English visitor found on the lower
Cape Fear in 1734, were mostly of English origin, but had he
continued his voyage up the river as far as the head of navi-
gation, he would have found a small settlement lately made by
representatives of another race destined to play no small part
in the history of North Carolina. These settlers were the
vanguard of that army of Scotch Highlanders which began
to pour into North Carolina about the middle of the eighteenth
century, as the result of political and economic conditions in
Scotland. In 1746 occurred the last of those periodical efforts
of the Highland clans to restore the Stuarts to the thrones
of Scotland and England, which ended in disaster at Culloden.
Thereupon, exasperated at these repeated rebellions, the Brit-
ish government determined upon a course of great severity
toward the clans. To overthrow the clan system which fos-
tered this rebellious spirit, the government abolished the
authority of the chiefs, confiscated their estates, and under
heavy penalties forbade the Highlanders to carry arms and
to wear the costumes of their clans. The estates of the High-
land chiefs were distributed among the British soldiers who,
of course, felt none of those natural ties that held chief and
clansmen together and cared nothing for the fate of Highland
rebels. These new landlords soon introduced a new economic
factor in the Highlands. Finding sheep-raising more profit-
able than farming, they turned thousands of acres which be-
fore had been under cultivation into pasture lands, thus
depriving large numbers of people of their homesteads. This
complete overthrow of their social and economic systems left

156 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the people helpless. Kents increased, hundreds of families
lost their means of livelihood, and distress became universal.

To enforce these harsh measures, an English army under
the Duke of Cumberland, afterwards known in Highland his-
tory as ''Butcher Cumberland," established headquarters at
Inverness, and from that base fell upon the inhabitants and
laid waste their country in every direction. Their cattle were
driven away or slaughtered; the mansions of the chiefs and
the huts of the clansmen were laid in ashes; captured High-
land soldiers were put to death with brutal ferocity; women
and children, without food, without homes, without husbands
and fathers, wandered helplessly among the hills and valleys
to die of hunger, cold and want. It became the boast of the
English soldiery that neither house nor cottage, man nor
beast could be found within fifty miles of Inverness ; all was
silence, ruin, and desolation.

One ray of light penetrated the darkness. After Culloden,
the king offered a pardon to all Highland rebels who would
take the oath of allegiance and emigrate to America. Many
clansmen hastened to avail themselves of this act of clemency
and to the ruined Highlanders America became a haven of
refuge. Of all the American colonies North Carolina was
perhaps the best known in the Highlands. A few Highlanders
had made their way to the upper Cape Fear as early as 1729.
Here they found a genial climate, a fertile soil, and a mild and
liberal government, and they filled their letters to their friends
and relatives in Scotland with praise of the new country. An-
other influence was introduced in 1734, when Gabriel Johnston,
a Scotchman from Dundee, was sent to North Carolina as
governor. Johnston is said to have been inordinately fond of
his fellow-countrymen, his enemies even charging that he
showed favor to Scotch rebels and manifested a woful lack
of enthusiasm over the news of "the glorious victory at Cullo-
den.'1 Be that as it may, he certainly took a praiseworthy
interest in spreading the fame of North Carolina in the High-
lands and was successful in inducing Scotchmen to seek homes
in the colony. In the summer of 1739, Neill McNeill, of Kin-
tyre, Scotland, sailed for North Carolina bringing with him a
"shipload" of 350 Highlanders who arrived in the Cape Fear
River in September of that year. They landed at "Wilmington
where, it is said, their peculiar costumes and outlandish lan-
guage so frightened the town officials that they attempted to
make the strangers give bond to keep the peace. This indig-
nity McNeill managed to avoid, and taking his countrymen

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 157

up the river found for them a hearty welcome among the High-
landers there. At the next session of the Assembly, a memo-
rial was presented in behalf of these new settlers, accompanied
by a statement, "if proper encouragement be given them, that
they'll invite the rest of their friends and acquaintances over.':
The General Assembly hastened to take advantage of this
opportunity, exempting the new settlers from all taxation for
ten years. A similar exemption "from payment of any Pub-
lick or County tax for Ten years" was offered to all High-
landers who should come to North Carolina in groups of forty
or more, and the governor was requested "to use his Interest,
in such manner, as he shall think most proper, to obtain an
Instruction for giveing encouragement to Protestants from
foreign parts, to settle in Townships within this Province."
On the heels of this action came the disaster of Culloden, the
rise in rents, ami the harsh enactments of the British Parlia-
ment ; and the liberal offers of the North Carolina Assembly,
together with the active exertions of the Highlanders already
in the colony, produced in Scotland ' ' a Carolina mania which
was not broken until the beginning of the Revolution. The
flame of enthusiasm passed like wildfire through the Highland
glens and Western Isles. It pervaded all classes, from the
poorest crofter to the well-to-do farmer, and even men of easy
competence, who were according to the appropriate song of
the day

'Dol a ah 'iarruidh an fhortain do North Carolina:' "8
Shipload after shipload of sturdy Highland settlers sailed for
the shores of America, and most of them landing at Charles-
ton and Wilmington found their way to their kinsmen on the
Cape Fear. In a few years their settlements were thickly
scattered throughout the territory now embraced in the coun-
ties of Anson, Bladen, Cumberland, Harnett, Moore, Rich-
mond, Robeson, Sampson, Hoke, and Scotland. With a keen
appreciation of its commercial advantages, they selected a
point of land at the head of navigation on Cape Fear River
where they laid out a town, first called Campbellton, then
Cross Creek, and finally Fayetteville.

The Highlanders continued to pour into North Carolina
right up to the outbreak of the Revolution, but as no official
records of their number were kept it is impossible to say how
numerous they were. Perhaps, however, from reports in
letters, periodicals, and other contemporaneous documents an

s "Going to seek a fortune in North Carolina." MacLean, J. P.
The Highlanders in America, p. 108.

158 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

estimate mav be made with some degree of accuracy. In 1736,
Alexander Clark, a native of Jura, one of the Hebrides, sailed
for North Carolina with a "shipload" of Highlanders, and
settled on Cape Fear River where he found "a good many
Scotch." Three years later, as we have seen, McNeill brought
over a colony of 350 Highlanders. But the real immigration
did not set in until after the battle of Culloden. Seven years
after that event, colonial officials estimated that there were in
Bladen County alone 1,000 Highlanders capable of bearing
arms, from which it is reasonable to infer that the total popu-
lation was not less than 5,000. The Scot's Magazine, in Sep-
tember, 1769, records that the ship Molly had recently sailed
from Islay filled with passengers for North Carolina, and that
this was the third emigration from that county within six
years. The same journal in a later issue tells us that between
April and July, 1770, fifty-four vessels sailed from the West-
ern Isles laden with 1,200 Highlanders all bound for North
Carolina. In 1771, the Scot's Magazine stated that 500 emi-
grants from Islay and the adjacent islands were preparing
to sail for America, and later in the same vear Governor
Tryon wrote that "several ship loads of Scotch families" had
"landed in this province within three years past from the
Isles of Arran, Durah, Islay, and Gigah, but chief of them
from Argvle Shire and are mostly settled in Cumberland
County." Their number he estimated "at 1,600 men, women,
and children." A year later the ship Adventure brought a
cargo of 200. emigrants from the Highlands to the Cape Fear,
and in March of the same year Governor Martin wrote to Lord
Hillsborough, secretary of state for the colonies: "Near a
thousand people have arrived in Cape Fear River from the
Scottish Isles since the month of November with a view to
settling in this province whose prosperity and strength will
receive great augmentation by the accession of such a number
of hardy, laborious and thrifty people." In its issue of April
3, 1773, the Courant, another Scottish journal, reports that
"the unlucky spirit of emigration" had not diminished, and
that many of the inhabitants of Skye, Lewis and other places
were arranging to sail for America in the following summer.
In subsequent issues, during the same year, that journal
records that in June between 700 and 800 emigrants sailed for
America from Stornoway; in July, 800 from Skye and 840
from Lewis ; in August, another 150 from Lewis ; in Septem-
ber, 250 from Sutherlandshire and 425 from Knoydart, Locha-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 159

bar, Appin, Mamore, and Fort William; and in October, 775
from Moray, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness.

The Highlanders continued to come even after the Revo-
lution was well under way. In June, 1775, the Gentleman's
Magazine records that "four vessels, containing about 700
emigrants," had sailed for America from Glasgow and Green-
ock, "most of them from the north Highlands." In Septem-
ber of the same year, the ship Jupiter, with 200 emigrants on
board, "chiefly from Argyleshire" sailed for North Carolina,
and as late as October, 1775, Governor Martin notes the ar-
rival at Wilmington of a shipload of 172 Highlanders. From
1769 to 1775, the Scotch journals mention as many as sixteen
different emigrations from the Highlands, besides "several
others." Not all of these emigrants came to North Carolina.
Georgia, New York, Canada, and other colonies received a
small share, but "the earliest, largest and most important
settlement of Highlanders in America, prior to the Peace of
1783, was in North Carolina along Cape Fear River. " 9 In
1775 Governor Martin wrote that he could raise an army of
3,000 Highlanders, from which it is a reasonable conclusion
that at that time the Highland population of North Carolina
was not less than 20,000. Several of the clans were repre-
sented, but at the outbreak of the Revolution the MaeDonakls
so largely predominated in numbers and in leadership that the
campaign of 1776, which ended at Moore 's Creek Bridge, was
often spoken of at the time as the "insurrection of the Clan
MacDonald. ' '

Though unfortunate economic conditions lay behind this
Highland emigration, it is not therefore to be supposed that
the emigrants belonged to an improvident and thriftless class.
They were, in fact, among the most substantial and energetic
people of Scotland and they left the land of their nativity be-
cause it did not offer them an outlet for their activities.
"The late great rise of the rents in the Western Islands of
Scotland," said Scot's Magazine in 1771, "is said to be the
reason of this emigration." "The cause of this emigration,"
the same journal repeats in 1772, "they [the emigrants] as-
sign to be want of the means of livelihood at home, through
the opulent graziers engrossing the farms, and turning them
into pastures." Some of the landlords became alarmed and
offered better terms to tenants, but the offer came too late to
check the movement. Governor Tryon says that many of them
were skilled mechanics who "were particularly encouraged to

9 MacLean : The Highlanders in America, p. 102.

160 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

settle here by their countrymen who have been settled many
years in this province;" and Governor Martin, in the letter
quoted above, describes them as a "hardy, laborious, and
thrifty people. ,: Nor should it be supposed that they arrived
in Carolina empty-handed. The Scot's Magazine in 1771 tells
us that a band of five hundred of these emigrants had recently
sailed for America "under the conduct of a gentleman of
wealth and merit, whose ancestors had resided in Islay for
many centuries past." Another colony, according to the same
journal, was composed of "the most wealthy and substantial
people in Skye" who "intend to make purchases of land in
America"; while the Courant, in 1773, declared that five hun-
dred emigrants who had just sailed were "the finest set of
fellows in the Highlands," and carried with them "at least
£(yX)0 sterling in ready cash." From the single county of
Sutherland, in 1 772 and 1773, about fifteen hundred emigrants
sailed for America, who, according to the Courant carried
with them an average of £4 sterling to the man. "This,"
comments that journal, "amounts to £7,500 which exceeds a
year's rent of the whole county." It is not easy to arrive at
any satisfactory conclusion as to the financial condition of
the Highlanders after their arrival in North Carolina. On
the whole they were poor when compared with their English
neighbors, but their condition was undoubtedly a great im-
provement over what it had been in Scotland.

From governors and Assembly the Highlanders received
numerous evidences of welcome to their adopted country.
The governor commissioned several of their leaders justices
of the peace. In 1740 the Assembly exempted them from taxa-
tion for ten years, and offered a similar exemption to all who
should follow them. For the convenience of the new settlers,
the region around Campbellton was erected into a county
which, with curious irony, was named in honor of "Butcher
Cumberland. ' ' The first sheriff of the new county was Hector
McNeill, but the services of a sheriff seem to have been so
little in demand that his fees for the whole year amounted to
only ten pounds. Another important event in the development
of the Highland settlements, was the passage by the Assembly
of an act for the building of a road from the Dan River on
the Virginia line through the heart of the province to Cross
Creek on the Cape Fear, and another leading to it from Shal-
low Ford on the Yadkin. These roads threw the trade of all
the back country into Cross Creek which soon became one of
the chief towns of the province.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 161

The Highlanders desired to reproduce in Carolina the life
they had lived in Scotland, but changed conditions, as they
soon found, made this impossible. True no law made it
illegal for the clans to maintain their tribal organizations, or
forbade the chiefs to exercise their hereditary authority, or
made it a crime for the clansmen to bear arms or wear tar-
tans. But as the basis of the clan system was military neces-
sity, in the absence of such necessity the system could not
flourish. In Scotland the clansmen had obeyed their chief
in return for his protection against hostile neighbors ; in Caro-
lina there were no hostile neighbors, law reigned supreme,
and under its benign sway the humblest clansman was assured
of far more effective protection of life and property than the
most powerful chief in the Highlands could possibly have
given him. As soon as the clan system became unnecessary
it became irksome and irritating, and rapidly disappeared.
With its passing passed also the meaning, and therefore, the
usefulness, of the Highland costume, which was soon laid
aside for the less picturesque but more serviceable dress of
their English fellow countrymen. Their language was des-
tined to a similar fate. When preaching in English to the
Highlanders at Cross Creek in 1756, Hugh McAden found that
many of them ' ' scarcely knew one word ' ' he spoke. The Gaelic
made a brave struggle against the English, but a vain and use-
less one. Entrenched in an impregnable stronghold as the lan-
guage of all legal, social, political and commercial transac-
tions, the English tongue effected an easy conquest, and the
Gaelic soon disappeared as a common medium of expression.
Under these circumstances the peculiar institutions and cus-
toms of the Highlanders gave way before those of their
adopted country, and after the second generation had fol-
lowed their fathers to the grave nothing remained to distin-
guish their descendants from their English neighbors save
only their Highland names.

Vol. I— 11

CHAPTER XI
THE COMING OF THE SCOTCH-IRISH AND GERMANS

While the Highlanders were moving up the Cape Fear
River, two other streams of population were flowing into the
province and spreading out over the plains and valleys of the
Piedmont section. Though flowing side by side, they origi-
nated in widely separated sources and throughout their
courses kept entirely distinct one from the other. One was
composed of immigrants of Scotch-Irish, the other of immi-
grants of German descent.

The term Scotch-Irish is a misnomer, and does not, as one
would naturally suppose, signify a mixed race of Scotch and
Irish ancestry. It is a geographical, not a racial term. The
so-called Scotch-Irish were in reality Scotch people, or de-
scendants of Scotch people who once resided in Ireland. Into
Ireland they came as invaders and lived as conquerors, hated
as such by the Irish and feeling for the Irish that contempt
which conquerors always feel for subjugated races. From
one generation to another the two peoples dwelt side by side,
separated by an immense chasm of religious, political, social,
and racial hostility, each intent upon preserving its blood
pure and uncontaminated by any mixture with the other.
Thus the Scotch in Ireland remained Scotch, and the term
" Irish" as applied to them is merely a geographical term used
to distinguish the Scotch immigrants who came to America
from Ireland from those who came hither directly from Scot-
land. In fact the term ''Scotch-Irish" is American in its
origin and use, and has never been known in Ireland, where
the descendants of the Scotch settlers are distinguished from
the Irish proper by the far more significant terms of "Irish
Protestants" and "Irish Presbyterians." Another name,
"Ulstermen," often applied to them, especially within recent
years, is derived from the province in which they are chiefly
found.

The ancestors of these people came originally from the

162

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 163

Lowlands of Scotland, and were introduced into Ireland by
James I in pursuance of his policy of displacing the native
Irish, always so bitterly hostile to the British Crown, with a
new people upon whose loyalty the government could depend.
For the success of his plan he needed a people whose aversion
to the Irish and to their religion would operate as a barrier
to any intermingling of the two races. Of all his subjects,
the Scotch Presbyterians of the Western Lowlands were best
suited for his purpose. Possessed of intense racial pride,
they would not intermarry with the Irish. The most uncom-
promising of Protestants, they would resist to the uttermost
the attacks of Catholicism. Tenacious of their property
rights which they would owe to the generosity of the king,
they would maintain and defend his Crown at all hazards.
Accordingly, having confiscated the Irish estates in Ulster,
in 1610, James brought from Scotland a colony of Lowlanders
whom he settled upon them. This was the beginning of a great
migration from Scotland to Ireland. During the decade from
1610 to 1620, 40,000 Scotch Presbyterians were thus settled
in Ulster. They were among the most industrious, thrifty
and intelligent people in the world. In Ulster they drained
the swamps, felled the forests, sowed wheat and flax, raised
cattle and sheep, and began the manufacture of linen and
woolen cloth which they were soon exporting to England.
As Greene says: "In its material result the Plantation of
Ulster was undoubtedly a brilliant success. Farms and home-
steads, churches and mills, rose fast amid the desolate wilds
of Tyrone. * * * The foundations of the economic pros-
perity which has raised Ulster high above the rest of Ireland
in wealth and intelligence were undoubtedly laid in the con-
fiscation of 1610." J

From Ireland descendants of these Scotch settlers came
to America. Anomalous as it may seem, it is nevertheless
true that the immediate causes of this second emigration
arose out of the fact that the Scotch settlement in Ireland had
succeeded too well. Planted there in 1610 to develop the
country industrially and establish a strong Protestant civili-
zation, a century later the success of their industrial enter-
prises was the envy of their competitors in England, while
the tenacity with which they held to their religious convic-
tions srave offense to the bishops and elor<rv of the Established
Church. Bv the close of the seventeenth century, the linen

1 A Short History of the English People. Revised Edition, p. 458.

164 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

and woolen manufactures of Belfast, Londonderry, and other
cities of Ulster had grown so prosperous that English manu-
facturers complained of the competition, and at their solici-
tation, the British Parliament passed a series of acts that
greatly restricted the output of the Irish factories and placed
them at the mercy of their English rivals. About the same
time, the High Church party in England secured the passage
of laws making it illegal for Presbyterians in Ireland to hold
office, to practice law, to teach school, and to exercise many
of their other civil and religious rights. "All over Ulster
there was an outburst of Episcopalian tyranny."

In these two sources, one economic, the other religious,
originated the Scotch-Irish emigration to America. During
the fifty years preceding the American Eevolution thou-
sands of thrifty Protestants left Ireland never to return. In
1718 there was mention of "both ministers and people going
off. ': In 172S, Archbishop Boulter, Primate of Ireland, stated
that above 4,200 had sailed within the past three years. In
1740, a famine in Lister "gave an immense impulse" to emi-
gration, and during the next several years the annual flow to
America was estimated at 12,000. During the three years, 1771
to 1773, emigration from Ulster is estimated at 30,000, of
whom 10,000 were weavers. This movement, says Froude,
' ' robbed Ireland of the bravest defenders of the English inter-
ests, and peopled the American seaboard with fresh flights of
Puritans. Twenty thousand left Ulster on the destruction of
the woolen trade. Many more were driven away by the first
passing of the Test Act. Men of spirit and energy

refused to remain in a country where they were held unfit
to receive the rights of citizens; and thenceforward, until
the spell of tyranny was broken in 1782, annual shiploads of
families poured themselves out from Belfast and London-
derry. The resentment which they carried with them con-
tinued to burn in their new homes; and, in the War of Inde-
pendence, England had no fiercer enemies than the grandsons
and great-grandsons of the Presbyterians who had held UJlster
against Tyrconnell." 2

Occasional settlers of Lowland Scotch and Scotch-Irish
descent were found in North Carolina at a very early date.
In 1676, William Edmundson, the Quaker missionary, re-
cords his visit to James Hall, who with his family "went
from Ireland into Virginia," whence he removed into North

- The English in Ireland. Vol. 1. p. 392.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 165

Carolina. John Urmstone, the missionary of the Church of
England, in 1714, lists among his numerous grievances the
fact that three of his vestrymen were "vehement Scotchmen
Presbyterians." The Pollock family was of Lowland stock,
and while Thomas Pollock himself came to North Carolina,
some of his brothers emigrated to the North of Ireland. But
one must be careful not to make too much of the presence of
these pioneers of the Lowland Scotch and Scotch-Irish in
North Carolina. They were simply isolated instances of indi-
viduals of an adventurous spirit who broke away from their
home ties to seek their fortunes in a new land, and cannot be
considered as a part of the great Scotch-Irish immigration
of the eighteenth century.

The first of these settlers who came to North Carolina as
an organized group were brought into the province by land
companies. In 1735 Arthur Dobbs and "some other Gentle-
men of Distinction in Ireland," associated with Henry Mc-
Culloh, a London merchant, presented a memorial to the
Council of North Carolina "representing their intention of
sending over to this Province several poor Protestant familys
with design of raising Flax and Hemp." For this purpose
they sought a grant of 60,000 acres of land on Black River in
New Hanover precinct. The grant was made and in the fol-
lowing year the immigrants arrived and were settled in what
is now Sampson and Duplin counties where they organized
themselves into two congregations called Goshen and the
Grove. Others followed, sent hither by Arthur Dobbs, him-
self a Scotch-Irishman, who in 1753 was appointed governor
of North Carolina. In November of that year there arrived
at New Bern a brigantine "from Belfast, in Ireland, sent
hither by his Excellency Governor Dobbs, with a great Num-
ber of Irish Passengers, who are come to settle in this Prov-
ince." A small colony of Swiss was also settled in the same
community. In the meantime, in 1736, McCulloh, in asso-
ciation with Murray Crymble, James Huey and others, among
them Arthur Dobbs, had embarked upon a much vaster
scheme. Upon their petition, an order in Council was is-
sued, May 19. 1737, under which warrants for 1,200,000 acres
were allowed them to be located in the back country chiefly
along the Yadkin, the Eno, and the Catawba rivers. Under
the terms of his grant, McCulloh, the moving spirit in the
enterprise, was to settle within it a large number of "sub-
stantial people" who were "to carry on the Pott Ashe Trade"
and to raise "hemp and other naval stores." But these

Arthur Dobbs

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 167

grandiose schemes were never realized. As late as 1754,
McCulloh had actually settled but 854 people within his grant.
Innumerable difficulties arose, especially in Mecklenburg and
Anson counties, between his agents and the people. There
were disputes over boundary lines, quit rents, and titles,
which led to frequent riots and bloodshed, and finally in
1767, forced McCulloh and his associates to surrender their
grants to the Crown.

Of the Scotch-Irish immigrants who poured into North
Carolina from 1735 to 1775, a few landed at Charleston and
moved up the banks of the Pee Dee and Catawba rivers into
the hill country of the two Carolinas, but the great majority
landed at Philadelphia whence they moved into Western Vir-
ginia and North Carolina. High prices of land deterred them
from settling in Pennsylvania. In 1751, Governor Johnston
expressed the opinion that Pennsylvania was already " over-
stocked with people." In 1752, Bishop Spangenberg, the
Moravian leader, declared that many settlers came into North
Carolina from England, Scotland, and the northern colonies,
"as they wished to own lands and were too poor to buy in
Pennsylvania or New Jersey." To the same effect wrote
Governor Dobbs who, in 1755, said that as many as 10,000
immigrants from Holland, Britain and Ireland had landed
at Philadelphia in a single season, and consequently many
were "obliged to remove to the southward for want of lands
to take up" in Pennsylvania. Many of these immigrants
were induced to pass through Virginia into North Carolina
because of the severity of the Virginia laws on religion in
comparison with those of the latter colony. But there was
still another reason why the Scotch-Irish were attracted to
North Carolina in such large numbers. During the thirty
years from 1734 to 1765 the chief executives of North Caro-
lina were Gabriel Johnston, a native of Scotland, and Mat-
thew Rowan and Arthur Dobbs, who were both Scotch-Irish-
men from Ulster, and all three exerted themselves personally
and officially to induce Scotch-Irish immigrants to settle
here. The route which these settlers followed from Pennsyl-
vania into North Carolina is plainly laid down on the maps
of that day as the "Great Eoad from the Yadkin River
through Virginia to Philadelphia." It ran from Philadel-
phia through Lancaster and York in Pennsylvania, to Win-
chester in Virginia, down the Shenandoah Valley, thence
southward across the Dan River to the Moravian settlements
on the Yadkin. The distance was 435 miles. Commenting on

168 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the movement by this route, Saunders says: "Remembering
the route General Lee took when he went into Pennsylvania
on that memorable Gettysburg campaign, it will be seen that
very many of the North Carolina boys, both of German and
of Scotch-Irish descent, in following their great leader, visited
the homes of their ancestors and went hither by the very
route by which they came away. To Lancaster and York
counties, in Pennsylvania, North Carolina owes more of her
population than to any other known part of the world,3 and
surely there never was a better population than they and
their descendants — never better citizens, and certainly never
better soldiers." 4

This great tide of Scotch-Irish immigrants rolled in upon
that section of North Carolina drained by the headwaters of
the Neuse and the Cape Fear, and by the Yadkin, the Cataw-
ba, and their tributaries. As early as 1740 scattered families
were living along the Hico, the Eno, and the Haw. In 1746,
according to the family records of Alexander Clark, a few
families removed from the Cape Fear to the "west of the
Yadkin," where they joined others who had already broken
into that wilderness. But prior to 1750 immigration into
that remote region was slow, after that date, family followed
family, group followed group in rapid succession. In 1751,
Governor Johnston noted that "Inhabitants flock in here
daily, mostly from Pennsylvania and other parts of America,
and some directly from Europe. They commonly seat them-
selves toward the west and have got near the mountains.'
Bishop Spangenberg, in 1752, declared that "there are many
people coming here because they are informed that stock
does not require to be fed in the winter season. Numbers of
[Scotch-] Irish have therefore moved in." In 1775 Gov-
ernor Dobbs, writing of seventy-five families who had set-
tled on his lands along Rocky River, a tributary of the Yad-
kin, said: "They are a colony from Pennsylvania, of what we
call Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who with others in the neigh-
boring Tracts had settled together .in order to have a teacher
[i. e., minister] of their own opinion and choice." This was
a typical pioneer Scotch-Irish community, held together on

3 The accuracy of this statement is open to question ; most of
the Scotch-Irish and German settlers, who came thenee into North
( 'arolina, merely passed through Pennsylvania without ever residing
there.

4 Prefatory Notes to Colonial Records of North Carolina. Vol.
IV, p. xxi.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 169

the frontier by common religious sympathies. A good index
to the rapid increase of such communities in North Carolina,
from 1750 to 1755, is found in the number of "supplications
for ministers" which they sent up to the annual Synod of
Philadelphia. In 1751, Rev. John Thomson, whom the Synod
had directed to correspond with "many people" of North
Carolina who desired to organize congregations, visited the
Scotch-Irish settlements along the Catawba. He was the
first preacher of any eh arch in all that region, yet when
Hugh McAden came through the province four years later,
he preached to more than fifty such Scotch-Irish congrega-
tions most of which were west of the Yadkin. How rapidly
the number of these immigrants increased is shown by a let-
ter from Matthew Rowan, acting-governor, in 1753. He
writes: "In the year 1746 I was up in the Country that is
now Anson, Orange, and Rowan Countys. There was not
then above one hundred fighting men: there is now at least
three thousand for the most part Irish Protestants and Ger-
mans, and dayley increasing." This means that within six
years the population of about 500 had increased to at least
15,000.

Still another indication of the rapid increase of popula-
tion on the western frontier is the dates of the formation of
new counties in that section. One should bear in mind that
these counties as they now exist, though still retaining their
old names, have not retained their original boundary lines :
the frontier county in colonial days had no western boundary,
but ran as far westward as white population extended. Ac-
cordingly every time a county was formed from the western
end of an existing county, we know that white population had
moved farther westward. In 1746, Edgecombe, Craven, and
Bladen had such far-reaching western extensions. But so
fast was population increasing and the colony expanding that
in that year Granville was cut off from Edgecombe, John-
ston from Craven, and three years later, Anson from Bladen.
The boundaries of these new counties extended to the moun-
tains and beyond. In 1752, Orange, still farther westward,
was taken from Granville, Johnston and Bladen; and in 1753
Rowan was cut off from Anson. Nine years later another
part of Anson, still farther to the westward, was taken to
form Mecklenburg, which had become the center of the Scotch-
Irish settlements. Thus within sixteen years, as a result of
the influx of Scotch-Irish and German immigrants into Pied-

170 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

mont Carolina, six new comities were found necessary for
their convenience.5

It is difficult to arrive at a just estimate of the character
of the Scotch-Irish. There is perhaps no virtue in the whole
catalogue of human virtues which has not been ascribed to
them ; no great principle of human liberty which has not
been placed to their credit; no great event in our history in
which they are not said to have played the leading part.
Eulogy has exhausted the English tongue in their praise.
But eulogy is not necessarily history, and history must strive
to preserve the true balance between praise and censure. We
know that the Scotch-Irishman was domestic in his habits
and loved his home and family; but we know also that he
was unemotional, seldom gave expression to his affections,
and presented to the world the appearance of great reserve,
coldness, and austerity. He was loval to his own kith and
kin, but stern and unrelenting with his enemies. He was
deeply aud earnestly religious, but the very depth and earn-
estness of his convictions made him narrow-minded and bigot-
ted. He was law-abiding as long as the laws were to his
liking, but when they ceased to be he disregarded them,
peaceably if possible, forcibly if necessary. Independent and
self-reliant, he was opinionated and inclined to lord it over
any who would submit to his aggressions. He was brave,
and he loved the stir of battle. He came of a fighting race;
the blood of the old Covenanters flowed in his veins, and the
beat of the drum, the sound of the fife, the call of the bugle
aroused his fighting instincts. His whole history shows that
he would fight, that he might be crushed but never subdued.
In short, in both his admirable and his censurable traits, he
possessed just the qualities that were needed on the Carolina
frontier in the middle of the eighteenth century, qualities that
enabled him to conquer the great wilderness of the Piedmont
plateau, to drive back the savages, and to become, as Mr.
Roosevelt has said, "the pioneers of our people in their
march westward, the vanguard of the army of fighting set-
tlers, who with axe and rifle won their way from the Alle-
ghanies to the Rio Grande and the Pacific."6

Moving over the same route as the Scotch-Irish, and also
coming from Pennsylvania, flowed the stream of German

5 Hanna estimates the Scotch population in North Carolina in
1775 at about one-third the total population, i. e. 65,000. — The Scotch-
Irish in America, Vol. I, pp. 82-84.

c Winning of the West. Vol. T, p. 134.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 171

immigrants who came into North Carolina from 1745 to 1775.
Various motives prompted their migration. Some came in
search of adventure and good hunting grounds. Others were
looking for good lands and, like the Scotch-Irish, turning
their backs on Pennsylvania because of the high price of
lands in that colony. Still others were inspired by religious
zeal. The first and smallest of these three groups became
hunters and trappers, and in the vast unexplored forests
extending along the foothills of the Alleghanies and cover-
ing the mountain sides, they chased the fox and the deer,
hunted the buffalo and the bear, shot the wolf and the
panther, and trapped the otter and the beaver. With the
opening of spring, they would gather up their stores of
furs and skins and seek the settlements, frequently going as
far north as Philadelphia and as far south as Charleston, to
dispose of their winter's harvests. Typical of this class of
immigrants was Daniel Boone, who, though not of German
ancestry, was born in a Pennsylvania-German settlement and
came to North Carolina along with the tide of German immi-
gration. Those who came in search of land found it of course
plentiful, cheap and fertile. The only capital needed on the
Carolina frontier was thrift, energy, and common sense, and
these the Germans possessed in a marked degree. Accord-
ingly many thousands of them, driven from the Fatherland
by unfavorable economic conditions, carved handsome estates
for themselves and their children out of the Carolina wilder-
ness, dotting the banks of the Yadkin and Catawba rivers
with their neat, pleasant farms, and their plain but comfort-
able cabins. A third class of Germans came to North Caro-
lina in search of religious freedom and fields for missionary
activity. like their neighbors, the Scotch-Irish, they were
inspired by a fervent religious zeal, but many of them came
not so much to seek religious freedom for themselves as to
carry the Gospel to the Indians. They represented three
branches of the Protestant church, — the Unitas Fratrum, or
Moravian Church, the Lutheran, and the German Reformed.

Tho most distinct of the German settlements in North
Carolina was the one made by the Moravians in Wachovia.
In 1752, the Moravians at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, moved
by a desire to find a home free from all religions interfer-
ence, by a purpose to carry Christianity to the Indians, and
by a wish to develop a community on their own peculiar prin-
ciples without outside meddling, determined to plant a settle-
ment on the Carolina frontier. With that thoroughness which

Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 173

was one of their most marked characteristics, they first dis-
patched an exploring party under the leadership of Bishop
Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg, to view the land and select
the site for the colony. Spangenberg's party proceeded first
to Edenton, thence crossed almost the entire length of North
Carolina, and ascended to the very summit of the Blue Ridge
Mountains where they viewed the headwaters of streams that
rise in North Carolina and flow into the Mississippi River.
A journal in which the good bishop recorded the minutest
details of their expedition tells us in simple and impressive
language the story of the dangers and hardships which the
members of his party encountered. Sickness, cold and hun-
ger were among the least of their sufferings. After a thor-
ough and painstaking survey the party selected a tract of
land in what is now Forsyth County containing about 100,-
000 acres. "As regards this land," wrote the bishop, "I re-
gard it as a corner which the Lord has reserved for the
Brethren. The situation of this land is quite pecu-

liar. It has countless springs and many creeks; so that as
many mills can be built as may be desirable. These streams
make many and fine meadow lands. The most of

this land is level and plain; the air fresh and healthy, and
the water is good, especially the springs, which are said not
to fail in summer. In the beginning a good forester

and hunter will be indispensable. The wolves and bears must
be extirpated as soon as possible, or stock raising will be
pursued under difficulties. The game in this region may also
be very useful to the Brethren in the first years of the
colony."

It was Bishop Spangenberg who called the settlement
Wachovia. The word is derived from two German words,
"wach" a meadow, and "aue" a stream. Wachovia lay with-
in the possessions of Lord Granville and from him the Mora-
vian Brethren purchased it in August, 1753. Two months
later their plans were all completed, and on October 8, 1753,
twelve unmarried men set out from the Moravian settlement
at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to break ground for the settle-
ment in North Carolina. No better evidence is needed of the
shrewd, common sense of those German settlers than the
simple fact that this small band, whose mission was to lay
the foundation of civilization in the wilderness, consisted of
a minister of the Gospel, a warden, a physician, a tailor, a
baker, a shoemaker and tanner, a gardener, three farmers,
and two carpenters. In the community which they went out

174 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

to establish there was to be no place for drones. It is also
interesting to note that they were fnllv conscious of the
significance of their undertaking. Looking far into the future
they foresaw the growth and development of their community
and the intense interest with which posterity would inquire
into its beginnings. Accordingly from the very beginning
they recorded their dailv doings to the minutest and most
trivial details.

The little band of Moravian Brethren made their journey
from Pennsylvania to Carolina in a large covered wagon
drawn by six horses. Nearly six weeks were required for
the trip. When they left Pennsylvania they were oppressed
with heat: when they reached North Carolina the ground wis
covered with snow. At 3 o'clock Saturday afternoon, Novem-
ber 17th, they reached the spot where now stanls the town
of Bethabara, better known in its immediate neighborhood as
"Old Town." There they found shelter in a log cabin which
had been built but afterwards deserted by a German trapper
named Hans Wagoner. It was an humble abode, without a
floor and with a roof full of cracks and holes, but in it the
Brethren held their first divine service and had their first
"love feast. ': Sundav was observed as a day of real rest,
but was followed by weeks of earnest, manly toil. One of
their first cares was to enlarge their cabin and to lav in a
supply of provisions for the winter. Their rifles supplied
them with game in abundance. Salt was procured from Vir-
ginia, flour and corn from the Scotch-Irish settlements on
the Yadkin, and beef from those on the Dan. In December
they sowed their first wheat. A few days later came the
Christmas season, and on Christmas Eve they gathered
around the great open fire in their log cabin to hear again
the wonderful story of Bethlehem. "We had a little love
feast," says their faithful journal, "then near the Christ
Child we had our first Christmas Eve in North Carolina, and
rested in peace in this hope and faith. * All this

while the wolves and panthers howled and screamed in the
forest? near by."

Throughout their first year the Moravian Brethren kept
steadily at their tasks, and before the year had gone they
had in oppration a carpenter shop, a tailoring establishment,
a pottery, a blacksmith shor), a shoe shop, a tannery and a
cooper shop; had harvested wheat, corn, tobacco, flax, mil-
let, barley, oats, buckwheat, turnips, cotton, garden vegeta-
bles; had cleared and cultivated fields, cut roads through the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 175

forests, built a mill an 1 erected several cabins. They made
long journeys to Philadelphia and to Wilmington. The physi-
cian, Doctor Lash, made trips twenty, fifty and even a hun-
dred miles through the forests to visit the sick and relieve
the suffering. The Brethren had many visitors who came
long distances to consult the physician or to secure the
services of the shoemaker or the tailor. Within three months,
during the year 1754, 103 visitors came to Wachovia. The
next year the number was 426. Visitors were so numerous
that the Brethren decided to build a " strangers' house."
This was the second building in Wachovia. Four days after
it was finished it was occupied by a man and his invalid
wife who came to consult the physician. Travel between
Wachovia and Pennsylvania was frequent and the little col-
ony continued to grow. More unmarried men and later a
few married couples came from Pennsylvania, and by 1756
the Bethabara colony numbered sixty-five souls. Until the
outbreak of the French and Indian War, the Moravians were
on friendly terms with the Indians. Indeed, one of their
purposes in coming to North Carolina was to preach the
Gospel to the Indians who soon began to speak of the settle-
ment at Bethabara as "the Dutch fort, where there are good
people and much bread." But with the breaking out of the
war the savages became hostile, and their enmity gave the
Moravian Brethren much trouble. The Brethren were com-
pelled to build forts, to arm every man in the colony, and
to place sentinels around the settlement. The Moravians
were frequently called upon to go to the defense of their
white neighbors. From thirty to forty miles around families
sought refuge at Bethabara Avhere all learned to love and re-
spect the Moravian Brethren, and not a few applied for
membership in the Moravian Church.

After the close of the war the settlement grew more
rapidly. Two towns, Bethabara and Bethania, were founded
before 1760, but from the first the Brethren intended that the
chief town should be in the center of Wachovia, and they
thought the closing of the Indian war and the re-establishment
of peace a favorable time to begin it. The first act in the
founding of this new town, which received the name of Salem,
took place January 6, 1766. During the singing of a hymn,
work was begun by clearing a site for the first house, and
on February 19th eight young men moved into it. Other
houses were then erected in quick succession, and during the
next vears manv of the Bethabara community moved to

176 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Salem, where they were joined by more Brethren from Beth-
lehem, and by a goodly number directly from Germany. Sa-
lem soon became the principal settlement of the Moravians in
North Carolina. In 1773, an Englishman who visited Salem,
left an interesting description of the town and its people as
they appeared just upon the eve of the Revolution. "This
society, sect or fraternity of the Moravians," he wrote, "have
everything in common, and are possessed of a very large and
extensive property. * From their infancy they are

instructed in even- branch of useful and common literature,
as well as in mechanical knowledge and labour.
The Moravians have many excellent and very valuable farms,
on which they make large quantities of butter, flour and pro-
visions, for exportation. They also possess a number of use-
ful and lucrative manufactures, particularly a very extensive
one of earthenware, which they have brought to great perfec-
tion, and supply the whole country with it for some hundred
miles around. Tn short, they certainly are val-

uable subjects, and by their unremitting industry and labour
have brought a large extent of wild, rugged country into a
high state of population and improvement. ' ' 7

As a rule the Germans came into North Carolina as or-
ganized bodies. The Moravians, as has been seen, kept their
organization intact and distinct from all others, but Reformed
and Lutheran congregations frequently united to build
churches and support ministers. Two such congregations,
desiring to build a church in common, drew up an agreement
in which they stated as their reason for uniting that "Since
we are both united in the principal doctrines of Christianity,
we find no difference between us except in name." Prior to
the Revolution many such union churches were built through-
out the present counties of Guilford, Alamance, Orange,
Randolph, Davidson, Davie, Iredell, Cabarrus, Stanly, Union,
Mecklenburg, Lincoln, Catawba, and Burke. The first of
these settlements was made about 1745. In that year Luther-
an congregations were organized on Haw River. In the same
year Henry Weidner, a Pennsylvania-German, entered what
is now Catawba County as a hunter and trapper; before 1760
he had been joined by other German settlers in number suf-
ficient to form a congregation. The first Germans in Rowan
County appeared about 1750. Three years later, Matthew

7 Smyth, J. F. D. : A Tour in the United States of America, Vol.
I, pp. 214-17.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 177

Rowan, acting-governor, wrote that "our three fruntire
County's are Anson, Orange, and Rowan. They are for the
most part settled with Irish Protestants and Germans, brave,
Industrius people. Their Militia amounts to upwards of
three thousand Men and Increasing fast. ' ' We are not with-
out evidence of how fast this increase was. A correspondent
of the South Carolina and American General Gazette, writing
from Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1768, says: "There is scarce
any history either ancient or modern, which affords an ac-
count of such a rapid and sudden increase of inhabitants
in a back frontier country, as that of North Carolina. To
justify the truth of this observation, we need only to assure
you that twenty years ago there were not twenty taxable
people within the limits of the county of Orange; in which
there are now four thousand taxable. The increase of Inhabi-
tants, and the flourishing state of the other adjoining back
counties, are no less surprising and astonishing." Four
thousand taxables means about 16,000 people. Most of these,
of course, were Scotch-Irish, but the Germans formed a large
percentage of the total. In 1771, the vestry of St. Luke's
Parish, Salisbury, stated that in Rowan, Orange, Mecklen-
burg, and Tryon counties there "are already settled near
three thousand German protestant families, and being very
fruitful in that healthy climate, are besides vastly increasing
by numbers of German protestants almost weekly arriving
from Pennsylvania and other provinces of America. ': Ac-
cording to Governor Dobbs, the frontier families generally
embraced from five to ten members each; on this basis,
therefore, allowing for probable exaggeration, the total Ger-
man population of Rowan, Orange, Mecklenburg and Tryon
counties in 1771 must have been not less than 15,000.s

Like the Scotch Highlanders, the Germans in North Caro-
lina endeavored to preserve their language and customs. In
1773, an English traveller who had lost his way in the vicinity
of Hillsboro, records in his journal: "It was unlucky for
me that the greater number of the inhabitants on the plan-
tations where I called to inquire my way, being Germans,
neither understood my questions nor could make themselves
intelligible to me." It was not until years after the Revolu-
tion that English became the common language in the Ger-
man settlements. The first English school among them was

8 Faust estimates the German population in North Carolina in
1775 at 8,000. — manifestly an under-estimate. — The German Element
in the United States, Vol. I, pp. 284-85.

Vol. 1—12

178 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

opened in Cabarrus County in 1798. English made its way
slowly against the opposition of the older people who clung
tenaciously to the language of their cradles, and finally won
only because their children, wiser than their parents, were
unwilling to go through life under the handicap of being
ignorant of the very language in which they had to transact
their daily affairs. In one respect the fate of the Germans
was harder even than that of the Scotch Highlanders, — the
former lost not only their language, but their names also,
for as time passed, most of the German names became Angli-
cized. Thus Kuhn became Coon, Behringer became Bar-
ringer, Scheaffer became Shepherd, Albrecht became Al-
bright, Zimmerman became Carpenter, so that many families
in North Carolina today whose names indicate an English
ancestry are really of German descent.

Estimates of the population of North Carolina prior to
the census of 1790 vary widely, and when attempts are made
to go still further and estimate the proportion of the various
racial elements in that population the divergences are greater
still. Nevertheless, taking all these estimates into considera-
tion, and adopting a very conservative course, one can
scarcely resist the conclusion that, placing the total popula-
tion in 1760 at 130,000 is certainly not open to the criticism
of exaggeration. The same data on which this estimate is
based lead to the conclusion that the number of negro slaves
in the colony at that time was about one-fourth of the total
population. Doubling Faust's estimate of the German popu-
lation, which the data seem to justify, accepting Hanna's es-
timate of the Scotch as one-third of the total, and rejecting
all other elements, i. e., French, Swiss and Welsh, as too
small to be taken into account, and the Indians, who were not
included in any of the estimates, we arrive at the following
analysis of the population of North Carolina in 1760 :

English 45,000

Scotch 40,000

German 15,000

Negroes 30,000

Total 130,000

The English and Scotch were born subjects of the British
Crown, and the Germans, therefore, were the only important
foreign element in the white population. To place them, and

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 179

those who claimed titles to property derived from them, upon
an equality with the English and Scotch, the Assembly, in 1764,
enacted "that all Foreign Protestants heretofore inhabiting
within this Province, and dying seized of any Lands, Tene-
ments, or Hereditaments, shall, forever hereafter, be deemed,
taken, and esteemed to have been naturalized, and intituled
to all the Rights, Privileges, and Advantages of natural Born
Subjects.

J 7

CHAPTEK XII
SOCIETY, RELIGION AND EDUCATION

It is obviously impossible in the brief space of a single
chapter to give an adequate account of the social, religious
and educational ideals and practices of any large and complex
community through a century of its history. All that will be
attempted here, therefore, will be a very brief statement of
some of the more important of these ideals and practices in
colonial North Carolina to which nothing more than mere ref-
erence can be made in the general narrative which makes up
this volume.

In colonial times, class distinctions wTere sharply drawn.
The highest social group was that which was composed of the
large planters, professional men, and public officials. Many
of them were connected by family ties with the gentry of
England, Scotland, and Ireland and they sought to maintain
in America the social distinctions which characterized their
class in the Old World. Speaking broadly they were men and
women of education, culture, refinement and character. Evi-
dence of their social rank is found in the application to them
of such terms as "gentleman," "esquire," "planter," all
of which had a technical significance when used, as they
commonly were, in such official documents as wills, deeds,
and court records. The general use of such insignia as fam-
ily crests and coats-of-arms was also indicative of the social
rank of the planters. Says a scholarly Virginia historian:
"There is no reason to think that armorial bearings were as
freely and loosely assumed in those early times as they are
so often now, under republican institutions; such bearings
were then a right of property, as clearly defined as any other,
and continue to be in modern England, what they were in
colonial Virginia. In the seventeenth century, when so large
a proportion of the persons occupying the highest position
in the society of the colony were natives of England, the un-
warranted assumption of a coat-of-arms would probably have

180

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 181

been as soon noticed, and perhaps as quickly resented, as in
England itself. The prominent families in Virginia were as
well acquainted with the social antecedents of each other in
the mother country as families of the same rank in England
were with the social antecedents of the leading families in
the surrounding shires; they were, therefore, thoroughly
competent to pass upon a claim of this nature; and the fact
that they were, must have had a distinct influence in prevent-
ing a false claim from being put forward. In a general way,
it may be said it was quite as natural for Virginians of those
times to be as slow and careful as contemporary English-
men in advancing a claim of this kind without a leg'al right
on which to base it, and, therefore, when they did advance
it, that it was likely to stand the test of examination by the
numerous persons in the colony who must have been familiar
with English coats-of-arms, in general. The posses-

sion of coats-of-arms by the leading Virginian families in the
seventeenth century is disclosed in various incidental ways.
Insignia of this kind are frequently included among the per-
sonal property appraised in inventories. And they were also
stampt on pieces of fine silver-plate." 1 A more frequent use
was to stamp impressions on seals of letters and valuable
papers. That what Mr. Bruce says of the use and significance
of such insignia in Virginia is equally true of North Caro-
lina, is shown by an examination qf the wills and other val-
uable papers of colonial families, many of 'which are sealed
with crests and arms which show close relationship between
their signers and the gentry of the mother country.

Just below the planters in social rank was the largest
single social group in the colony which was composed chiefly
of small farmers, who tilled the land with their own hands.
Their life was crude. They enjoyed few luxuries and fewer
refinements. They worked hard, played hard, lived hard.
Brickell declares that some of them "equalize with the Ne-
groes in hard Labour." On holidays, or between working
seasons, they indulged in such sports as horse-racing, cock-
fighting, wrestling, and on these occasions generally drank
hard and deep of strong liquor. "I have frequently seen
them, ' ' wrote Brickell, ' ' come to the Towns, and there remain
Drinking Rum, Punch, and other Liquors for Eight or Ten
Days successively, and after they have committed this Excess,

1 Bruce : Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, pp
105-108.

182 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

will not drink any Spirituous Liquor, 'till such time as they
take the next Frolick, as they call it, which is generally in
two or three Months." Despite crudities and excesses, due
chiefly to the hard, circumscribed life of a frontier community,
they possessed the sterling qualities characteristic of English
veomen. Thev, too, had a keen class consciousness and took
as much pride in being able to write after their names, as their
wills and other records testify, such terms as "farmer,"
"husbandman," "yeoman," as the planters did in using
terms similarly descriptive of their social rank. "I, Thomas
West, of Bertie County and Province of North Carolina,
Yeoman," thus Thomas West begins his will. A strong,
fearless, independent race, simple in tastes, crude in manners,
provincial in outlook, democratic in social relations, tenacious
of their rights, sensitive to encroachments on their personal
liberties, and, when interested in religion at all, earnest, nar-
row and dogmatic, such were the people who chiefly deter-
mined the character of the civilization of North Carolina.

Next in the social order were the indentured white servants
among whom were represented many classes and conditions.
Some — fortunately a negligible number — were convicts sold
into bondage as a punishment for crime. Another class en-
tered in the official records as criminals were guilty only of
political offenses. Many of the followers of the Duke of
Monmouth after his defeat at Sedgemore in 1685 were de-
ported to the colonies under sentences of servitude. An even
more unfortunate class were the women and children who had
been kidnapped in London and other large cities and sent to
the colonies to supply the increasing demands for labor. But
the largest number of indentured servants were those who
had voluntarily taken upon themselves the obligations of serv-
ice in order to pay for their passage across the Atlantic.
Some of this class were of low moral and intellectual develop-
ment, but most of them were energetic, industrious and thrifty
persons who had simply taken the only means open to them to
leave the Old World for the greater opportunities of the New
World. At the expiration of their terms of service their mas-
ters were required by law to fit them out decently with food
and clothes ; in the case of a man-servant, the master must
also furnish "a good well-fixed Gun." An indentured serv-
ant, at the expiration of his term, was also entitled to take
up fifty acres of land. Thus many of this class entered the
ranks of the small farmer group and by industry and frugal-
ity became good, substantial citizens.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 183

The lowest social group was, of course, composed of negro
slaves. From the beginning of the colony the soil of North
Carolina was dedicated to slavery. It was recognized in the
Concessions of 1665 and in the Fundamental Constitutions.
The Lords Proprietors encouraged it by granting fifty acres
for each slave above fourteen years of age brought into the
colony. At a court held in February, 1694, several persons
appeared and proved their rights to land by the importation
of negroes. Besides negroes the whites early adopted the
custom of reducing to slavery Indians captured in battle.

Necessity made the slave code harsh and cruel. Stringent
restrictions were thrown around the movements of slaves.
They were not to be permitted to leave their masters' planta-
tions without proper tickets of identification stating the place
from which, and the place to which they were going ; and simi-
lar restraints, under severe penalties, were placed on their
right to hunt, to bear arms, and to assemble together or com-
municate with one another at night. The Fundamental Con-
stitutions gave masters "absolute power and authority over
negro slaves," but the king, after purchasing the colony,
sought to mitigate this law by securing to the slave his right
to life. It was not, however, until 1754 that the Assembly
considered making the wilful killing of a slave punishable
by death, and even then the Council rejected the bill. In 1773
a similar measure introduced by William Hooper passed both
houses and was rejected by the governor. The following year
such an act was passed by both houses, and was the last law,
but one, that was signed by a royal governor of North Caro-
lina. Barbarous punishments were inflicted upon slaves con-
victed of crimes. Brickell records that he had frequently seen
negroes whipped until large pieces of skin were hanging down
their backs, "yet," he added, "I never observed one of them
shed a tear." A negro, mulatto, or Indian convicted of per-
jury was punished by being compelled to stand for one hour
with his ear nailed to pillory, after which he was released by
having his ear cut off; then a similar proceeding was followed
with the other ear ; and the punishment was completed by the
infliction of thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, well laid on.
Negroes guilty of rape were often castrated. There are on
record instances of negroes, who had been convicted of mur-
der, being burned at the stake by order of the court. It would
be easy, however, to make too much of the severity of these
punishments, and, to draw unwarranted conclusions from
them, for it ought not to be forgotten that they were inflicted

184 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

at a time when the criminal codes of all nations were disgraced
by cruel and barbarous practices.

The earliest slaves in the colony were undoubtedly pagans,
and their masters as a rule were willing enough for them to
remain so. This attitude was due less to indifference than to
a widespread belief that it was illegal to hold a Christian in
bondage. In 1709, Rev. James Adams reported that there
were 211 negroes in Pasquotank Precinct, "some few of which
are instructed in the principles of the Christian religion, but
their masters will by no means permit them to be baptized,
having a false notion that a Christian slave is, by law, free."
This belief, however, was not universal and some masters per-
mitted their slaves to be baptized. Gradually it died out alto-
gether and the baptism of slaves who professed Christianity
became general.

The hold which the institution of slavery secured on the
colony is indicated by its rapid growth. Careful estimates,
some of which are official, show the population of negroes at
various times as follows: 1712, 800; 1717, 1,100; 1730, 6,000;
1754, 15,000; 1756, 19,000; 1765, 30,000; 1767, 39,000. The
increase was due chiefly to births. In 1754, only nineteen
negroes were entered in the customs-house at Bath ; and during
the preceding seven years the average number annually
brought in at Beaufort was only seventeen. The stronghold
of slavery was in the East where, as early as 1767, the negroes
out-numbered the whites.

Historians do not agree in their delineation of the char-
acter of the settlers of North Carolina. There are those, of
whom perhaps George Davis, the historian of the Cape Fear,
was the most eminent, who would have us believe that they
''were no needy adventurers, driven bv necessity —
no unlettered boors, ill at ease in the haunts of civiliza-
tion, and seeking their proper sphere amidst the barbarism
of the savage," but that "they were gentlemen of birth and
education, bred in the refinement of polished society, and
bringing with them ample fortunes, gentle manners, and cul-
tivated minds."2 On the other hand there are others who,
like John Fiske, could see in colonial North Carolina nothing
more than "a kind of back-woods for Virginia," "an Alsatia
for insolvent debtors," "mean white trash," and "outlaws,"
from the northern colony. Fiske divides the early settlers of
North Carolina into two classes : First, the thriftless, im-

2 University Address, 1855.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 185

provident white servant class who could not maintain a
respectable existence for themselves in Virginia; second, the
"outlaws who fled [from Virginia] into North Carolina to
escape the hangman. " 3 Neither picture is true, for if Davis
insists that the shield is all gold, none the less does Fiske
insist that it is all of a baser metal. The truth lies between.
Undoubtedly there were enough well-born, educated leaders
among the population to give a cultured tone to the best so-
ciety in the colony; and undoubtedly there were enough
escaped outlaws to stimulate the vigilance of the officers of
the criminal law. But both together constituted no larger
percentage of the population of North Carolina than of the
other colonies and in none of them were they ever more than
a very small minority. Between the two extremes, constitut-
ing them as now the bone and sinew of the population, were
those sturdy, enterprising, law-abiding, and liberty-loving
middle class Englishmen who have always from Crecy and
Agincourt to Yorktown, Gettysburg, and Mons formed the
strength and character of English-speaking peoples. After
the middle of the eighteenth century came that great tide of
Scotch peoples who renewed and strengthened but did not
essentially alter these characteristics of the great mass of the
population of colonial North Carolina.

The best contemporary account of the social and industrial
life of the colony during the first seventy-five years of its ex-
istence is that found in Brickell's "Natural History of North
Carolina," published in 1737. The author was a physician
and scientist of ability whose residence for several years in
the colony gave him ample opportunity for observation. Says
he: "The Europians, or Christians of North-Carolina, are a
streight, tall, well-limbed and active People. * The

Men who frequent the Woods, and labour out of Doors, or use
the Waters, the vicinity of the Sun makes Impressions on
them ; but as for the Women who do not expose themselves to
the Weather, they are often very fair, and well-featured, as
you shall meet with any where, and have very Brisk and
Charming Eyes ; and as well and finely shaped, as any Women
in the world. * * * They marry generally very young, some
at Thirteen or Fourteen; and she that continues unmarried,
until Twenty, is reckoned a stale maid, which is a very indif-
ferent Character in that Country. * * The Children
are very Docile and apt to learn any thing, as any

3 Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, Vol. II, p. 316.

186 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Children in Europe ; and those that have the advantage to be
Educated, Write good Hands, and prove good Accountants.

The young Men are generally of a bashful, sober
Behaviour, few proving Prodigals, to spend what the Parents
with Care and Industry have left them, but commonlv Im-
prove it. The Girls are not only bred to the Needle

and Spinning, but to the Dairy and domestic Affairs, which
many of them manage with a great deal of prudence and con-
duct, though they are very young. * The Women are
most Industrious in these Parts, and many of them by their
good Housewifery make a great deal of Cloath of their Cotton,
Wool, and Flax, and some of them weave their own Cloath
with which they decently Apparel their whole Family though
large. Others are so Ingenious that they make up all the
wearing apparel both for Husband, Sons and Daughters.
Others are very ready to help and assist their Husbands in
any Servile Work, as planting when the Season of the Year
requires expedition: Pride seldom banishing Housewifery.

The Men are very ingenious in several Handycraft
Businesses, and in building their Canoes and Houses
Their Furniture, as with us, consists of Pewter, Brass, Tables,
Chairs, which are imported here commonly from England:
The better sort have tolerable Quantities of Plate, with other
convenient, ornamental and valuable Furniture. There are
throughout this settlement as good bricks as any I ever met
with in Europe. All sorts of handicrafts, such as carpenters,
coopers, bricklayers, plasterers, shoemakers, tanners, tailors,
weavers, and most other sorts of tradesmen, may with small
beginnings, and good industry, soon thrive well in this place
and provirle good estates and all manner of necessaries for
their families."

Land and slaves were then, as they continued to be
throughout the South until 1865, the chief form of wealth in
Eastern North Carolina. Consequently the growth of towns
was very slow and life in the colony was seen at its best on the
great estates of the planters scattered along the banks of the
rivers and their tributaries. Many of these planters counted
from 5,000 to 10,000 acres in their estates, while not a few
were lords of princely domains embracing from 30,000 to
50,000 acres, and were masters of as many as 250 slaves. In
1732 Thomas Pollock of Bertie County devised 22,000 acres
of land, besides 10 other plantations, and 75 slaves; Edward
Moseley, in 1749, mentioned in his will tracts embracing 30,-
000 acres, besides three other plantations, and 88 slaves;

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 187

Thomas Pollock of Chowan County, in 1753, left 10,000 acres
and 16 other plantations, and 75 slaves; Governor Gabriel
Johnston's estate included more than 25,000 acres and 103
slaves ; Cullen Pollock mentioned in his will 150 negroes ; while
Roger Moore of New Hanover County in 1750 mentioned 250
slaves. The prices of negroes of course varied according to
time and the individual negro. In 1694 James Phillpotts of
Albemarle County left 6,000 pounds of pork for the purchase
of a negro. In 1680 the estate of Valentine Bird included 12
negroes valued at £310 sterling; in 1695 a negro man and his
wife belonging to Seth Sothel's estate sold for £10; in 17-45 an
old negro woman belonging to James Winwright of Carteret
County sold for £100, a negro boy for £150, a negro man for
£200, and another for £250, these prices probably being reck-
oned in proclamation money.

The river courses afforded the best sites for plantations
not only because of the greater fertility of the bottom lands,
but also because of the greater ease of transportation. Brick-
ell tells us that "Both Sexes are very dexterous in paddling
and managing their Canoes, both Men, Women, Boys, and
Girls, being bred to it from Infancy." At the planter's wharf
sloops, schooners, and brigantines were loaded with cargoes
of skins, salt pork and beef, tallow, staves, naval stores, lum-
ber, tobacco, corn, rice, and other products of the plantation
to be carried away to the West Indies and exchanged for rum,
molasses, sugar, and coffee, or to Boston where the proceeds
were invested in clothing, household goods, books, and ne-
groes. In 1734, Edward Salter of Bath, in his will, directs his
executors to load his brigantine with tar and send it to Boston
to be exchanged for young negroes. In 1753 the exports from
North Carolina plantations were 61,528 barrels of tar; 12,052
barrels of pitch ; 10,429 barrels of turpentine ; 762,000 staves ;
61,580 bushels of corn ; 100 hogsheads of tobacco, and 30,000
deer skins, besides lumber and other commodities.

On an elevated site overlooking some river and generally
approached through a long avenue of oaks, cedars, or poplars,
stood the "Manor House," or as the negroes called it the
"Big House." Brickell says that in their houses "the most
substantial Planters generally use Brick, and Lime, which is
made of Oyster-shells ; * the meaner Sort erect with

Timber, the outside with Clap-boards, the Roofs of both sorts
of Houses are made with Shingles, and they generally have
Sash Windows, and affect large and decent Rooms with good
Closets, as they do a most beautiful Prospect by some noble

188 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

River or Creek." These residences were often characterized
by the huge white columns, broad verandas, wide halls, large
and spacious rooms, which have become famous as the " colo-
nial" style. Whether of wood or brick all were the seats of
unbounded hospitality. John Lawson tells us that ' ' the plant-
ers [are] hospitable to all that come to visit them; there being
very few housekeepers but what live very nobly and give away
more provisions to coasters and guests who come to see them
than they expend among their own families." Hospitality
to strangers and travellers was regarded as a social duty
which the wealthy planters, owing to the absence of inns and
comfortable taverns, felt impelled to exercise for the honor
of the province. Indeed, upon a lonely plantation, a gar-
rulous traveller or a genial sea-captain who brought news of
the outside world, was ever an honored and a welcome guest,
for whom the housekeeper brought out her finest silver and
china ware, her best linen and her most tempting morsels,
while the planter regaled him with the choicest liquid re-
freshments which his cellar afforded, for as Brickell assures
us, "the better Sort, or those of good (Economy" kept "plenty
of Wine, Rum, and other Liquors at their own Houses, which
they generally make use of amongst their Friends and Ac-
quaintance, after a most decent and discreet Manner. ' '

Every great plantation was almost a complete community
in itself. Each had its own shops, mills, distillery, tannery,
spinning wheels and looms, and among the slaves were to be
found excellent blacksmiths, carpenters, millers, shoemakers,
spinners, and weavers, and other artisans. "The Cloathings
used by the Men," Brickell tells us, "are English Cloaths,
Druggets, Durois, Green Linen, etc. The Women have their
Silks, Calicoes, Stamp-Linen, Calimanchoes, and all kinds of
Stuffs, some whereof are Manufactured in the Province. They
make few Hats, though they have the best Furrs in plenty,
but with this Article, they are commonly supplied from New-
England, and sometimes from Europe." In their homes the
planters were supplied not only with all the necessities of a
pioneer community, but enjoyed many of the comforts and
luxuries usually found only in a long established society. An
examination of their wills, inventories, and other documents
shows among their household furniture an ample supply of
those fine old mahogany tables, sideboards, bedsteads, couches,
chairs, and desks which excite the envy of modern housekeep-
ers and deplete the purses of modern husbands. That the
Carolina housekeeper was prepared to play the hospitable

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 189

hostess to the most particular guest or the most pompous
colonial potentate who might chance to honor her board, is
well attested by the excellent silver, china, and glassware
which adorned her sideboard. The diamond rings, earrings,
necklaces, and other jewelry which the colonial dame passed
down as heirlooms to her children and grandchildren show
clearly enough from whom the twentieth century dame in-
herited her love of finery and personal ornaments; while a
goodly sprinkling of silver and gold kneebuckles, shoebuckles,
and other such trinkets betrays the vanity with which the
colonial planter displayed his silk-stockinged calf and shapely
foot.

Much of what has been written above applies only to the
older communities in Eastern Carolina;, some modifications
are necessary in describing conditions in the back country.
There farms were smaller, agriculture was less dependent
upon slave labor, and the land, therefore, was better tilled.
Industrial enterprises were more important. With the Scotch-
Irish and German settlers industries which the eastern plant-
ers usually left to negro slaves were conducted by skilled
laborers. Among the most prosperous settlers in those com-
munities were the weavers, joiners, coopers, wheelwrights,
wagon-makers, tailors, blacksmiths, hatters, rope-makers, and
fullers. The Germans in Wachovia early set up "a number
of useful and lucrative manufactures, particularly a very ex-
tensive one of earthenware, which they have brought to a
great perfection, and supply the whole country with it for
some hundred miles around. ' ' 4 What Doctor McKelway says
of the Scotch-Irish applies also to the Germans in Carolina.
Their chief wealth was "in their own capacity to manufacture
what they needed. When the goods brought with them began
to wear out, the blacksmith built his forge, the weaver set up
his loom, and the tailor brought out his goose. A tannery was
built on the nearest stream and mills for grinding the wheat
and corn were erected on the swift water courses. Saw mills
were set up, and logs were turned into plank. The women not
only made their own dresses but the material as well, spinning
the wool and afterwards the cotton into lindsey and checks
and dying it according to the individual taste. * In

other words the people were an industrial as well as an indus-
trious people." 5

4 Smyth: A Tour in the United States of America, Vol. T, p. 214.

5 The Scotch-Irish in North Carolina. (X. C. Booklet, Vol. TV.
No. 11, pp. 15-16.)

190 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

They were all farmers who owned few slaves and as a rule
tilled the soil themselves. A traveller who had traversed the
entire length of the State from Edenton to Wachovia makes
this interesting observation: "The moment I touched the
boundary of the Moravians, I noticed a marked and most fa-
vorable change in the appearance of buildings and farms ; and
even the cattle seemed larger, and in better condition. Here,
in combined and well-directed effort, all put shoulders to the
wheel, which apparently moves on oily springs. We passed in
our ride New Garden, a settlement of Quakers from Nan-
tucket. They, too, were exemplary and industrious. The gen-
erality of the planters in this State depend upon negro labor
and live scantily in a region of affluence. In the possessions
of the Moravians and Quakers all labor is performed by the
whites. Every farm looks neat and cheerful; the dwellings
are tidy and well furnished, abounding in plenty."0

As a rule the English planters of the East called them-
selves Churchmen. In 1765 Trvon wrote, "Everv sect of
religion abounds here except the Roman Catholic, *
though the Church of England I reckon at present to have
the majority of all other sects." Its numerical superiority,
however, was not the measure of its influence. The Church
in North Carolina paid the penalty of all organizations which
enjoy the legal support and patronage of government. Be-
sides those who were Churchmen from religious convictions,
the rolls of the Church included others, perhaps even more
numerous, who called themselves Churchmen from political,
business, or social reasons. Nominally members of the Estab-
lishment, they were without serious religious convictions of
any sort, and contributed nothing to the real welfare of the
Church, to which their membership was rather a hindrance
than an aid. On the other hand, those who became members
of the dissenting denominations did so from genuine religious
convictions and were fired with fervor and zeal in the propa-
gation of their faith. Consequently the rejigious history of
North Carolina in colonial times is of interest and significance
less on account of the Established Church than for the growth
and contributions of the dissenting denominations.

The royal authorities were even more determined upon a
legal establishment than the proprietary authorities had been.
It was, indeed, difficult for statesmen of the eighteenth century
to think of a monarchy without an established church; the

0 Watson, Elkanah : Men and Times of the Revolution, p. 293.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 191

epigram of James I, "No bishop, no king," seemed to them
to express the true relation between the Church and the State.
Consequently we find that under the royal administration
emphatic instructions were issued to each governor command-
ing him to secure the necessary legislation for the support of
the Church. Burrington failed in his efforts, not because of
the influence of the dissenting interests, which were small at
that time, but because of his utter inability to act harmoni-
ously on any public matter with the representatives of the
people. His successor, Johnston, was more successful. In
1 739, Johnston reported that there were but two places in the
province at which divine services were regularly held, and as
a zealous Churchman he lamented "the deplorable and almost
total want of divine worship throughout the province," which
he thought was "really scandalous" and a reproach which the
Assembly "ought to remove without loss of time." The As-
sembly in 1741, therefore, passed a vestry act which proved,
however, to be ineffective. In 1748 Governor Johnston wrote
that "a Multitude of children are unbaptized" along the Cape
Fear for "the want of a Minister [which] is very sensibly
felt in that large District;" while about the same time Rev.
James Moir declared that many people were becoming
Baptists for lack of clergymen of the Church of England to
minister to their religious needs.

In 1754 Governor Dobbs secured a more satisfactory act,
but the Crown repealed it by proclamation because it con-
ferred the right of presentation upon the vestries. "This was
the beginning," says Doctor Weeks, "of a triangular fight
between Dissenters, democratic Churchmen, and supporters
of the rights of the Crown. The ecclesiastical history of the
next ten years is of interest chiefly because of the stubborn
resistance to the enforcement of church laws by the Dissent-
ers, the stubborn determination of the Churchmen to have
an establishment with the right of presentation, and the steady
opposition of the Crown to both parties."7 The Crown re-
pealed vestry acts passed in 1758, 1760, 1761 and 1762 on the
ground that the right of presentation by vestries was "incom-
patible with the rights of the Crown and the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction." These quarrels were of course injurious to the
real interest of the Church. They left the clergy without sup-
port, and their number began to decrease. In 1764 Dobbs
stated that there were only six orthodox clergymen in the

7 Church and State in North Carolina, pp. 32-33.

192 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

colony, "four of which," he added, "are pious and perform
their duty." Under Try on and Martin the situation showed
a marked improvement. The number of clergymen increased
to eighteen ; the vestry act passed in 1764 for five years was
renewed in 1768 for another five, and in 1774 for ten years,
' ' the longest existence that ever was allowed to any vestry act
in this province. ' ' Commenting on this renewal, Eev. James
Reed, the missionary of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel at New Bern, said : ' ' I sincerely wish the period
had been shorter, or indefinite for there is the greatest prob-
ability that in ten years the dissenting interest will be strong
enough to carry everything in the Assembly, and that the
Vestry Act will then receive its quietus. ' ' But the vestry act,
and with it the Established Church, was not to receive its
"quietus" from the dissenting interests in the Assembly.
Both went down along with other monarchical institutions,
before the revolutionary movement of 1776, for when the con-
vention of that year came to adopt a constitution for the
newly independent State, Churchmen joined with Dissenters
in inserting a section prohibiting the "Establishment of any
one religious Church or Denomination in this State in Prefer-
ence to any other. ' '

In 1760, Rev. James Reed lamented the fact that a ' ' great
number of Dissenters of all denominations" had settled in
North Carolina, mentioning especially Quakers, Presby-
terians, Baptists and Methodists. First in point of time were
the Quakers. Since the visits of Edmundson and Fox to North
Carolina, the Quakers had grown rapidly in numbers. Prior
to 1700 their efforts were directed chiefly to securing a foot-
hold ; their growth came after that date. In the eastern sec-
tion of the colony it was the result of expansion among the
native population, in the back country it was due to immigra-
tion. In 1729 Governor Everard attributed the growth of
Quakerism to the absence of clergymen of the Established
Church. Four years later, Governor Burrington gave another
reason, — "the regularity of their lives, hospitality to
strangers, and kind offices to new settlers," he wrote, "induc-
ing many to be of their persuasion." To these causes maybe
added the zeal of their missionaries who in 1729, wrote
Everard, were "very busy making Proselytes and holding
meetings daily in every Part of this Government." Doctor
Weeks records the visits to North Carolina between 1700 and
1729 of seventeen missionaries, three of whom were women.

In 1700 the Society was confined largely to Perquimans and

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 193

Pasquotank precincts. It began to cross the Albemarle Sound
about 1703 and by the middle of the century had planted itself
in many of the precincts of Bath County. When the colony
was transferred to the Crown, the Quakers were "consider-
able for their numbers, and substance." Under the royal
government the Society continued to grow in Eastern Caro-
lina, but not very rapidly. Missionaries came in, held meet-
ings wherever they could secure a group of people, and or-
ganized several monthly meetings. Monthly meetings were
established in Carteret in 1733, in Dobbs in 1748, and in North-
ampton in 1760. In Northampton and other counties border-
ing on Virginia the growth was due chiefly to the overflow
from Virginia, but in the other counties it was the natural
expansion of the native element. "For as this country was at
first settled in a great measure by Baptists and Quakers,"
wrote William Orr, a missionary of the Society for the Propa-
gation of the Gospel, in 1742, "so their descendants (though
they come to church now and then) yet they still retain, and
are more or less under the influence of their Fathers' Prin-
ciples."

The planting and growth of Quakerism in the back coun-
try was due not to expansion from within but to immigration
from without. Quaker immigrants, chiefly from Pennsyl-
vania, began to come about 1740 and soon spread over the
territory now embraced in Alamance, Chatham, Guilford,
Randolph, and Surry counties-. They were a strong and
healthy race and their presence added to the population of the
colony a stable element characterized by thrift, industry and
energv. In 1751 the Cane Creek Monthly Meeting was organ-
ized in what is now Alamance County. Three years later the
famous New Garden Monthly Meeting, the mother of many
others, was organized. From New Garden most of the meet-
ings in that section of the State took their rise. Although
the Quakers increased in numbers after the transfer of the
colony to the Crown, comparatively they lost ground. Says
their leading historian, Doctor Weeks: "The promise of an
aggressive and rapid growth in the youth of Quakerism was
not fulfilled in its maturer years. This promise was particu-
larly clear in North Carolina. During the seventeenth century
the records show that the Society in that colony was quietly
but steadily extending its outposts and was being strength-
ened by immigration and conversion. To such an extent was
this true, that in 1716 Eev. Giles Rainsford writes to the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel that the 'poor

Vol. 1—13

194 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

colony of North Carolina will soon be overrun with Quakerism
and infidelity if not timely prevented by your sending over
able and sober missionaries as well as schoolmasters to reside
among them.' But this almost phenomenal growth of the
native element ceased soon after the Established Church be-
came well organized. Quakers never played in North Caro-
lina under royal government the part they had played under
the government of the Proprietors. The Revolu-

tion, like the Civil War, was a time of suffering to the Quakers.
Many left their ranks and were disowned to take part in the
struggle for liberty, and the Society was much depleted."8
"The Presbyterians," wrote Tryon in 1765, "are settled
mostly in the back or westward counties," that is to say in
the sections of the colony settled by the Scotch-Irish and
Scotch-Highlanders. Presbyterianism as an organized reli-
gion was introduced into North Carolina by the Scotch and a
brief account of its introduction has been given elsewhere in
this volume. The earliest Presbyterian settlements in North
Carolina were those made in 1736 on the McCulloh grants
in Duplin and Newr Hanover counties. More than twenty
years passed before a Presbyterian clergyman was regularly
settled in the colony, but Presbyterian missionaries began
to make periodical visits as early as 1742, and in 1744 sup-
plications were sent from North Carolina to the Synod of
Philadelphia. In 1755 came Hugh McAden, a truly great mis-
sionary, who did more, perhaps, than any other person to
establish Presbyterianism on a firm foundation in North
Carolina. Traversing almost the entire length and breadth of
the province, from the Catawba on the west to the Neuse and
the Pamlico on the east, from the Roanoke on the north to the
Cape Fear on the south, he visited places on the extreme fron-
tier where not only "never any of our missionaries have
been," but where the voice of a Christian minister had never
before been heard, and preached in private houses, in court-
houses, in churches and chapels, under the trees of the forest,
wherever, indeed, he could gather twro or three together.
Scotch, Germans and English, Presbyterians, Lutherans,
Quakers and Churchmen, and "irregular" people who knew7
"but little about the principles of any religion," all flocked
eagerly to hear him. He beP'an his great missionary tour in
North Carolina on April 3, 1755 and brought it to a close on

8 Southern Quakers and Slavery, pp. 124-25.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 195

May 6, 1756, and all along his route left Presbyterian com-
munities firmly established.

As a result of McAden's labors many supplications went
up from North Carolina to the Synod of Philadelphia, In
1757 came Rev. James Campbell, the first Presbyterian min-
ister to serve a regular pastorate in North Carolina. He set-
tled on the Cape Fear, a few miles above Cross Creek, where
for a decade or more he served three churches. In 1758, Rev.
Alexander Craighead, the first Presbyterian minister in West-
ern North Carolina, accepted a call to Sugar Creek Church in
what is now Mecklenburg County, and from 1758 to 1766, was
the only minister in all the region between the Yadkin and the
Catawba. Following McAden, Campbell and Craighead, came
Henry Patillo, who in 1765 accepted a call to Hawfields, Eno,
and Little River churches in Orange County; David Caldwell,
more famous as a teacher than as a preacher, who in 1765
became pastor of Alamance and Buffalo churches in Guilford
County ; and others scarcely less distinguished in the religious
history of North Carolina. In 1776 the Presbyterian churches
of the Carolinas had been organized into the Orange Pres-
bytery, with eight members in North Carolina and four in
South Carolina. Foote records the names of eight ministers
who were then regular pastors of Presbyterian congregations
in North Carolina.

Perhaps the most aggressive of the colonial missionaries
were those of the Baptist faith. Individual Baptists were
found in North Carolina as early as 1695, but whence they
came, or in what numbers is not known. The first Baptist
congregation organized in the colony was at Shiloh in what
is now Camden County. It was organized by Paul Palmer in
1727. Governor Everard writing in 17129, says : " Quakers and
Baptists flourish amongst the No. Carolinians ow-

ing to the want of Clergymen amongst us. Both

Quakers and Baptists in this vacancy are very busy making
Proselytes and holding meetings daily in every Part of this
Government. when I first came here, there was no

Dissenters but Quakers in the Government and now by the
means of one Paul Palmer the Baptist Teacher, he has gained
hundreds. " By this time too Joseph and William Parker had
organized the Meherrin Church. Fired with missionary zeal
and finding a fertile field for their work, the Baptists pushed
it with vigor and success. In 1742 William Sojourner or-
ganized the Kehukee Association in Halifax County, and
from this center radiated influences which were quickly ex-

196 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

tended into all the counties along the Roanoke from Bertie
and Hertford on the east to Granville on the west, and as far
south as Bladen Countv. In 1775 came Shubal Steam of Bos-
ton, who erected a meeting-house on Sandy Creek in Guilford
County. Under Steam's pastorship the congregation flour-
ished, great crowds coming for many miles and from all direc-
tions to hear him preach. Within less than three years the
membership of his congregation had grown to more than nine
hundred. By 1776 the Baptists had become a power in the
colony, having established at least one church in every county.
It is estimated that they then had forty congregations with
many branches which afterwards developed into independent
churches.

The introduction of the German Reformed, the Lutheran,
and the Moravian churches into North Carolina was coinci-
dent with the coming of German settlers. It is strange that,
except the Moravians, none of these German immigrants,
although of a deeply religious nature, brought regular pastors
with them, and that many years passed before congregations
were regularly organized and pastors installed. The Re-
formed and Lutheran churches were closely allied and many
of their early churches were union churches. Missionaries of
course came and went, but it was not until 1768 that a regular
German Reformed pastor came and not until 1773 that the
Lutherans had a regular pastor. In 1768, Rev. Samuel Suther,
a Reformed preacher, settled in Mecklenburg County. He was
an indefatigable worker and to him is chiefly due the organiza-
tion of most of the Reformed congregations prior to 1776.
The mother churches of the North Carolina Lutherans are
St. John's, established in 1768 at Salisbury, Zion, commonly
called ''Organ Church," on Second Creek in Rowan County,
and St. John's, founded in 1771, on Buffalo Creek in what is
now Cabarrus County. "The pioneer minister of the Luth-
eran Church in the province of North Carolina" was Adolphus
Nussman, who came thither from Germany in 1773. Nuss-
man was accompanied by J. Gottlieb Arndt who came as a
schoolmaster, but on August 22, 1775, at "Organ Church,"
was ordained to the ministry. He was "the first Lutheran
minister ever ordained in North Carolina." Suther, Nussman
and Arndt worked in practically the same territory, from
Mecklenburg and Rowan on the west to Orange on the east,
ministering to Reformed and Lutherans alike. Unlike the
other German settlers the Moravians brought ministers with
them. First in the list of the twelve brethren who came in

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 197

1753 to lay the foundations of the colony was Rev. Bernliard
Adam Grube. The great obstacle of language, added to their
position on the extreme frontier surrounded by the more ag-
gressive Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, prevented the German
churches from making any progress in North Carolina beyond
the German settlements, so that they never became the force
in the province to which their numbers and the character and
intelligence of their membership might be thought to entitle
them.

The last of the great Protestant denominations to seek a
foothold in North Carolina, prior to the Revolution, was the
Methodist Church. "The Methodist preacher came not to rep-
resent and build up a denomination, because at that time he
belonged only to a society in the Church of England, but his
mission was to preach the gospel to a lost and dying race."11
The most eminent of this type of the early preachers of Meth-
odism to visit North Carolina was Rev. George Whitfield who
came to the colony as early as 1739. Writing from Bath in
1739 he said, "I am here, hunting in the woods, these ungospel-
ized wilds, for sinners." Whitfield made several visits to
North Carolina meeting always with a cordial reception from
people, clergy and officials. When he preached at New Bern,
in 1765, according to Rev. James Reed, who wrote eulogisti-
cally of his sermon, people "came a great many miles to hear
him:" while Governor Trvon declared that his sermon at
Wilmington "would have done him honour had he delivered it
at St. James' allowing some little alteration of circumstances
between a discourse adapted for the Royal Chapel and the
Court House at Wilmington." Whitfield, however, was still
a communicant of the Church of England, and made no effort
to establish a new organization. As early as 1760 there were
people in the colony calling themselves Methodists, to whom
the missionaries of the Established Church always refer with
great bitterness; but Whitfield, during his visit in 1764, de-
clared that they were improperly so called as they were fol-
lowers neither of himself nor of John Wesley, and none except
their followers were properly called Methodists. This view
seems to be accepted by the best authorities on the history of
Methodism.

The first Methodist preacher to come to North Carolina
was Rev. Joseph Pilmoor who had been sent to America by
John Wesley. Pilmoor came in 1772 and at Currituck Court-

9 Grissom: History of .Methodism in North Carolina, Vol. T, p. 24.

198 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

House, September 28, 1772, had "the honor of preaching the
first Methodist sermon in the colony." On his tour through
North Carolina he frequently preached in the chapels of the
Established Church; and at Brunswick in January, 1773, he
preached in St. Philip's Church to "a fine congregation."
Pilmoor was followed by Rev. John Williams who, in 1773,
organized the first Methodist Society in North Carolina. The
following year he organized societies in "a six weeks circuit
which extended from Petersburg (Va.) to the south over
Roanoke River some distance into North Carolina." The
early Methodist pioneers in North Carolina met with remark-
able success. In 1775 as a result of their preaching a great
revival swept over the northern section of the colony from
Bute County eastward. A participant, writing about it, says :
"My pen cannot describe the one-half of what I saw, heard,
and felt. I might fill a volume on this subject, and then leave
the greater part untold. " As a result of this revival 683 new
members in North Carolina were reported to the Fourth Con-
ference which was held at Baltimore, May 21, 1776, and a
North Carolina circuit was established with Edward Drom-
goole, Francis Poythress, and Isham Tatum as preachers.
As their field of labor was unlimited, they penetrated great
portions of the colony, and laid firmly the foundations of
Methodism in North Carolina.

By 1775 Churchmen were outnumbered by Dissenters who
were a unit in opposition to the Establishment. Besides the
principle of the Establishment itself, there were three features
which accompanied it in North Carolina that were especially
offensive to the dissenting denominations. They were the ap-
plication of the principles of the Schism Act to North Caro-
lina, the militia laws as they affected ministers of the Gospel,
and the marriage law. Although the Schism Act had been
repealed in England in 1719, Burrington was instructed to
enforce it in North Carolina, and similar instructions were
sent to his successors under the royal administration. The gov-
ernor was to allow no person to come from England "to keep
school" in North Carolina "without the license of the Lord
Bishop of London," and to see that "no person now there or
that shall come from other parts shall be admitted to keep
school in North Carolina without your license first obtained."
The militia laws exempted clergymen of the Established
Church from militia duty, but not the ministers of any of the
dissenting denominations until 1764 when exemption was ex-
tended to Presbyterian clergymen who were "regularly called

HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA 199

to any congregation." Both the Schism Act and the exemption
features of the militia laws were offensive to Dissenters rather
in what they implied than in their actual application. Only
three instances are on record of efforts to enforce the former
and while these are three too many, it should not be forgotten
in estimating the importance of the Schism Act in our educa-
tional history that they were the exceptions and not the rules.
The militia laws, too, were too feebly enforced generally to
work any hardship in practice on the dissenting clergy.

The case of the marriage law, however, was different. It
was a real grievance against which the dissenting clergy justly
protested. By an act of 1666 magistrates were permitted to
perform the marriage ceremony. The vestry act of 1715 con-
tinued this authority to magistrates in parishes where there
weremo ministers. In 1741 a special marriage law was passed
which confined the right to perform the marriage ceremony
to clergy of the Established Church, and where no such clergy-
men were accessible to magistrates. This act chiefly affected
the Presbyterians. It appears that in colonial times it was
not the practice of Baptist ministers to perforin the marriage
ceremony. Quakers followed their own customs. The Meth-
odists came too late to be much affected by the act. The Pres-
byterian clergy proteste;! against the injustice of it, refused
to obey it, and performed the marriage ceremony without
license or publication of the banns. By 1766 they had grown
strong enough to secure a modification of the law. A new act
was passed which legalized all marriages performed by Pres-
byterian clergymen and permitting those who were ''regu-
larly called to any congregation" to perform the ceremony.
But even this act fell far short of justice, for it required that
all fees should be paid to the minister of the Established
Church in the parish in which the marriage occurred unless he
had refused to act. Bitter protests arose from all dissenting
denominations and petitions especially from the Presbyterian
congregations, poured in upon the Assembly. In 1770, there-
fore, the Assembly passed an act granting relief to the Pres-
byterian clergy only, but the king disallowed it. Relief finally
came from the people themselves. One of the ordinances
adopted by the Convention of 1776 provided "That all regular
ministers of the Gospel of every Denomination having the
Cure of Souls shall be empowered to celebrate Matrimony ac-
cording to the rites and ceremonies of their respective
churches. ' '

The history of education is really a part of the history of

200 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

religion in colonial North Carolina. Among Churchmen
and Dissenters alike education was considered one of the func-
tions of the church and most of the early teachers were either
preachers or candidates for the ministry. The first attempts
to establish schools in North Carolina were made under the
patronage of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel;
its missionaries "brought with them the first parish or public
libraries and its lay readers were the first teachers.'1 Brickell
whose work was published in 1737 says that the lack of ortho-
dox clergymen in the colony was "generally supply 'd by some
School-masters, who read the Lithurgy, and then a Sermon
out of Doctor Tillitson, or some good practical Divine, every
Sunday. These are the most numerous, and are dispersed
through the whole Province." After the purchase of the pro-
prietary interests b)T the Crown an effort was made, as has
already been pointed out, to confine the privilege of teaching
to communicants of the Established Church, but fortunately
without success. The most recent of the historians of educa-
tion in North Carolina holds the opinion that in spite of the
attempts to apply the Schism Act, "the intellectual and educa-
tional life of the colony was somewhat encouraged and as-
sisted" by the establishment of the Church, and there is ample
evidence to sustain his view.10 The clergy of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel were the first missionaries of
education to North Carolina, and their letters to the Society
are filled with earnest and persistent appeals for teachers as
well as for preachers.

There were probably schoolmasters in North Carolina prior
to 1700, but the first professional teacher here of whom we
have any record was Charles Griffin, a lay reader of the Estab-
lished Church, who came from the West Indies in 1705 and
opened a school in Pasquotank County. In 1708 his school
was transferred to Rev. James Adams and Griffin removed to
Chowan County where he opened a school. Governor William
Glover bore testimony to Griffin's "industry" and "unblem-
ished life. ' ' Even the Quakers patronized his school ; indeed,
his association with them was so intimate that he became
"tainted" with their principles and finally joined their Soci-
ety. For this reason, probably, he lost his school in Chowan
County; at any rate Rev. William Gordon reported that in
1709 he "settled a schoolmaster [in Chowan], and gave some
books for the use of the scholars, which the church-wardens

10 Knight: Public School Education in North Carolina, p. 5.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 201

were to see left for that use, in case the master should re-
move." Another of the early colonial teachers whose name
has come down to us was "one Mr. Mashburn who," wrote
Rev. Giles Rainsford in 1712, "keeps a school at Sarum on
the frontiers of Virginia between the two Governments.
What children he has under his care can both write
and read very distinctly and gave before me an account of
the grounds and principles of the Christian religion that
strangely surprised me to hear it." We have abundant evi-
dence that there were other schoolmasters in North Carolina
contemporaneously with Griffin and Mashburn but unfortu-
nately their names are unknown.

Although teachers were scarce it would be an error to infer
from that fact that the planters were either ignorant or illit-
erate themselves, or indifferent to the education of their chil-
dren. In 1716 Governor Eden was of the opinion that if the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel would furnish the
teachers "the Inhabitants would willingly pay them the great-
est part of their salaries. " Evidence in support of his opinion
is found in the provisions made by the planters in their wills
for the education of their children. "I will," declared Alex-
ander Lillington, in 1697, "that my Executors carry on my
Son, John, in his learnings as I have begun, and that All my
Children be brought up in Learning, as conveniently can bee. ':
Thomas Bell, in 1733, desired that the profits from his estate
be devoted to the education of a niece and nephew, "in as
handsome and good a matter as may be." It was Edward
Salter's wish, in 1734, that his son should "have a thorough
education to make him a compleat merchant, let the expense
be what it will. ' '

In infancy children were taught at home, or in the ele-
mentary schools in North Carolina, but for their higher educa-
tion they were sent to Virginia, New England, and to the Eng-
lish and Scotch Universities. In 1730 George Durant directed
that his son "should have as good Learing [learning] as can be
had in this Government." Edward Moseley, in 1745, provided
for the higher education of his children when it should become
time for them to have "Other Education than is to be had
from the Common Masters in this Province" adding, "for I
would have my Children well Educated.' Stephen Lee di-
rected that his son be educated either in Philadelphia or
Boston, while John Skinner provided for the education of his
son in North Carolina, "or other parts." John Pfifer of
Mecklenburg County wished his children "to have a reason-

202 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

able Education and in particular my said son Paul to be
put through a liberal Education and Colleged." When Gov-
ernor Gabriel Johnston died, in 1752, he left a legacy to a
nephew "now at school in Newhaven in the Colony of Connec-
ticut."

In 1721 John Heeklefield desired that his son be e lucated
"after the best thought manner this country will admit,"
There is ample evidence to show what was "the best thought
manner" of education of that day. One of its outstanding fea-
tures was religious instruction; boys and girls were trained
in the teachings of Christianity. On the secular side emphasis
was laid on practical or vocational education. William Standid
desired his son to be taught "to read, rite, and cifer as far as
the rule of three." Joshua Porter directed his executor to "see
yl my Son and Daughter may be Carefully learnt to read and
write and Cypher, and yl they may be duly Educated." Spe-
cific directions were often given for the education of boys
in the professions, commerce, and the trades, and girls in
household duties. Thus John Baptista Ashe, in 1734, says :
"I will that my Slaves be kept at work on my lands, and that
my Estate may be managed to the best advantage, so as my
sons may have as liberal an Education as the profits thereof
will afford; and in their Education I pray my Executors to
observe this method : Let them be taught to read and write,
and be introduced into the practical part of Arithmetick, not
too hastily hurrying them to Latin or Grammar, but after
they are pretty well versed in these let them be taught Latin
and Greek. I propose this may be done in Virginia; After
which let them learn French, perhaps Some French man at
Santee will undertake this; when they are arrived to years
of discretion Let them study the Mathematicks. To my Sons
when they arrive at age I recommend the pursuit and study
of Some profession or business (I could wish one to ye Law,
the other to Merchandize,) in which Let them follow their own
inclinations. I will that my daughter be taught to write and
read and some feminine accomplishments which may render
her agreable ; And that she be not kept ignorant of what ap-
pertains to a good house wife in the management of household
affairs. "

There were, of course, no free public schools, but the edu-
cation of the poor, and especially of orphans was provided
for in the apprenticeship system which the colonies inherited
from England. Masters and guardians were required to give
their wards the "rudiments of learning," and to teach them a

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 203

trade or occupation. In 1695 the General Court of Albemarle
County bound an orphan, "being left destitute," to Thomas
Harvey, "the said Thomas Harvey to teach him to read;" and
in 1698 another orphan was bound to Harvey and his heirs
"they Ingagen to Learn him to Reed." The minutes of the
court are full of such entries. The guardian, or master, was
required to enter into bond for the faithful performance of
his duty. There are also instances of legacies being left for
the education of the poor. In 1710 John Bennett of Currituck
directed "that forty Shillings be taken out of my whole Estate
before any devesion be made to pay for ye Schooling of two
poor Children for one whole year;" and that if he should fail
of heirs, his estate ' ' to remaine and bee for ye use and bennefitt
of poor Children to pay for their Schooling and to remaine
unto ye world's End. " Since, however, there was no failure of
heirs, the legacy never became available for educational pur-
poses. Two more famous legacies to education were those of
James Winwright of Carteret County, 1744, and James limes
of New Hanover, 1754. Winwright left the "yearly Rents and
profits of all the Town land and Houses in Beaufort Town,"
after the death of his wife, to be used "for the encouragement
of a Sober discreet Quallifyed Man to teach a School at least
Reading Writing Vulgar and Decimal Arithmetick " in the
town of Beaufort, and set aside £50 sterling "to be applyed
for the Building and finishing of a Creditable House for a
School and Dwelling house for the Master." Unfortunately
so far as known no school was ever established on the Win-
wright foundation. Better use was made of the Innes legacy.
Colonel Innes left his plantation called Pleasant Point, "Two
negero Young Woomen, One Negero Young Man and there
Increase," a large number of hogs, cattle and horses, his
books, and £100 sterling "For the Use of a Free School for the
benefite of the Youth of North Carolina." The legacy did
not become available for educational purposes until after the
Revolution. In 1783 the Assembly chartered the Times Acad-
emy in Wilmington.

A marked impulse was given to education by the coming of
the Scotch-Irish and Germans. In every community where
they settled a church and a schoolhouse sprang up almost
simultaneously with the settlement. The German schools
were taught by teachers who came from Germany and in the
German language. Among the Scotch-Irish the influence of
Princeton College was strong. Many of their religious lead-
ers, and such lay leaders as Alexander Martin, Waightstill
Avery, Samuel Spencer, Ephraim Brevard, Adlai Osborne,

204 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

and William R. Davie, were Princeton graduates. To the
Scotch North Carolina owes the establishment of her first
classical schools, the development of which was so marked a
feature of the educational history of the State during the first
half of the nineteenth century. In 1760, Rev. James Tate, a
Presbyterian clergyman, opened at Wilmington Tate's Acad-
emy, the first classical school in North Carolina. During the
same year, Crowfield Academy, said to have been the begin-
ning of Davidson College, was founded in Mecklenburg
County. The most noted of this class of schools was Rev.
David Caldwell's school, founded near the present site of
Greensboro in 1767. For many years, this famous "log col-
lege," with an average annual enrollment of between fifty and
sixty students, was the most important institution of learning
in North Carolina, serving, as has been said, "as an academy,
a college, and a theological seminary."

It was in connection with the establishment of an insti-
tution of higher learning, under the auspices of the Presby-
terians, that occurred the most notable of the efforts to en-
force the Schism Act in North Carolina, In January, 1771,
the Assembly, acting upon the recommendation of Governor
Try on, incorporated at Charlotte a school for higher learning
called Queen's College. It was designed to enable such of
the youth of the colony who had "acquired at a Grammar
School a competent knowledge of the Greek, Hebrew, and
Latin Languages, to imbibe the principles of Science and
virtue, and to obtain under learned, pious and exemplary
teachers in a collegiate or academic mode of instruction a
regular or finished education in order to qualify them for
the service of their friends and Country." The college was
authorized to confer degrees. For its endowment a tax was
levied on all spirituous liquors sold in Mecklenburg County
for ten years. Since its patronage and support would come
chiefly from Presbyterians, all of the incorporators, except
two, were of that faith, but to forestall anticipated opposition
in England, the president was required to be a member of
the Church of England. In return for the timely aid he had
received from the Presbyterian clergy and laity alike in the
War of the Regulation, Tryon earnestly urged the king's ap-
proval of the act; but the Board of Trade, while commending
the principle of religious toleration, questioned whether the
king ought "to add Incouragement to toleration by giving the
Royal Assent to an Establishment, which in its consequences,
promises great and permanent Advantages to a sect of Dis-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 205

senters from the Established Church who have already ex-
tended themselves over that Province in very considerable
numbers." The Board, therefore, advised that the act be dis-
allowed, and the king vetoed it April 22, 1772. A year
passed, however, before his action was certified to the gov-
ernor, Josiah Martin, who had succeeded Tryon, and in the
meantime Queen's College had opened its doors to students.
In spite of the royal disallowance, it continued its work with-
out a charter until the king's approval to acts of the North
Carolina legislature was no longer necessary. In 1777 the
General Assembly granted another charter in which the insti-
tution's name was changed from Queen's College to Liberty
Hall.

Almost without exception these efforts to promote educa-
tion wTere made by the church. Except its efforts through
the Established Church, the colonial government did prac-
tically nothing for education. Governor Gabriel Johnston and
Governor Arthur Dobbs both urged upon the Assembly the im-
portance and duty of making "provision for the education
of youth," but the Assembly did nothing until 1745 when it
passed an act for the erection of a schoolhouse at Edenton
which, however, was never built. Bills for the establishment
of free schools introduced in 1749 and in 1752 failed of pas-
sage. Finally in 1754 the Assembly appropriated £6,000 for
the purpose of building a school, but afterwards used the
money for the support of the French and Indian War. In
1759, and again in 1764, Governor Dobbs petitioned the Board
of Trade to permit an issue of paper money to replace this
fund, and the Assembly, in 1759, requested that some of the
money appropriated by Parliament to reimburse the colony
for its expenditures in the war might be used for establishing
free schools, but both requests were refused. The only legisla-
tion that, bore any practical results were acts passed in 1766
incorporating an academy at New Bern and in 1770 incorpora-
ting an academy at Edenton. However, the agitation of these
years in behalf of education had good results. Its fruit is seen
in Section XLI of the Constitution of 1776, the foundation of
our public school system of today, which provides: "That
a school or schools be established by the Legislature, for the
convenient Instruction of youth, with such Salaries to the
Masters, paid by the Public as may enable them to instruct
at low prices ; and all useful Learning shall be duly encouraged
and promoted in one or more Universities."

Two other indications of the intellectual standards of the

206 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

people were the extent and character of their libraries and
the position of the press among them. The first libraries were
brought to the colony by the missionaries of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel. They consisted chiefly of
religious and doctrinal books, intended primarily for the in-
struction of the people in the orthodox faith. About 1705,
Rev. Thomas Bray established a. free public library at Bath.
The books were so carelessly kept that in 1715 the Assembly
passed an act "for the more effectual preservation of the
same.,; In 1728 Edward Moseley offered the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel a free public library for Edenton,
but no evidence exists that his offer was accepted, and the
books probably remained in his private library. James Innes
left his library to the free school which he had endowed under
his will. In the home of nearly every planter were to be found
small libraries of good books. Their wills and inventories
from early times show the existence of many such libraries
numbering from 25 and 50 volumes to more than 500. Edward
Moselev's library inventoried 400 volumes, Jeremiah Vail's
230, Dr. John Eustace's 292, Rev. James Reed's 266, James
Milner's 621. There wTere many others similar to these. The
library begun by Governor Gabriel Johnston and continued
by his nephew Samuel Johnston at "Hayes" was probably
the largest and most important library in the colony, con-
taining more than 1,000 volumes. Most of the books in these
libraries were treatises on theology, moral philosophy, law,
history, and medicine and were in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Ger-
man and French, as well as in English. In them were Xeno-
phon, Homer, Ovid, Horace, Virgil, Sallust, Juvenal, Caesar,
Puffendorf, Grotius, Coke, Blackstone, Montesquieu, Shakes-
peare, Milton, Pope, Dryden, Gray, Voltaire, Bacon, Swift,
Steele, Addison, Bunyan, Plutarch's "Lives," "The Complete
Angler," Locke "On the Human Understanding," "Anti-
dote Against Popery," "Tristram Shandy," "Tom Jones,"
"Letters of Abilard," Raleigh's "History of the World,"
The Spectator, The Tatler, The Annual Register, and many
other similar works, all testifying to "a degree of culture not
often believed to have existed in North Carolina in the eight-
eenth century. " 1 1

The press was late in coming to North Carolina and until
long after the Revolution its influence was negligible ; indeed,
except Georgia, North Carolina was the last of the thirteen

"Knight: Public School Education in North Carolina, p. 11.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 207

colonies to receive the printing press. The absence of towns,
the diffusion of the population over a vast territory, the lack
of a regular post and means of communication, and, finally,
the small demand for books and periodicals among the people
generally made the maintenance of a press too precarious to
invite capital. There was no popular demand for newspapers
and except for the public printing there was not enough busi-
ness in the colony to support a printing establishment. The
first press in the colony, therefore, was set up and sustained
by the patronage of the General Assembly. In 1749, in order
to secure the printing of a revision of the laws, the Assembly
chose James Davis public printer at an annual salary of £160
proclamation money, and gave him a copyright on all govern-
ment publications. Accordingly Davis set up his press at New
Bern and began work June 24, 1749. In 1751 he issued
Swann's Revisal, so called because Samuel Swann was chair-
man of the commission which prepared it, the first book pub-
lished in North Carolina. Because of the yellowish hue of
the parchment in which it was bound it became popularly
known as ''The Yellow Jacket." During his career as public
printer, which extended over a period of thirty-three years,
Davis issued several other revisions of the laws. In 1753
he published Clement Hall's "Collection of Christian Experi-
ences," which is "the first book or pamphlet so far as known
to be compiled by a native of North Carolina." 12

Davis was also the father of journalism in North Carolina.
There was, of course, no popular demand for newspapers in the
colony. Among the planters along the Cape Fear, The South
Carolina Gazette, which had a correspondent at Brunswick,
had a small circulation, while The Virginia Gazette served
those along the Roanoke. In 1755 appeared the first issue of
The North Carolina Gazette. It was published on Thursdays
and bore the imprint: "Newbern: Printed by James Davis,
at the Printing-Office in Front-street; where all persons may
be supplied with this paper at Sixteen shillings per Annum:
And where Advertisements of moderate length are inserted
for Three Shillings the first week, and Two shillings for every
week after. And where also Book-binding is done reason-
ably." The Gazette was published for six years when it was
suspended. In 1764 Davis began to issue the North Carolina
Magazine, or Universal Intelligencer. How long this new

12 Weeks: The Pre-Revolutionary Printers of North Carolina (A.
C. Booklet, Vol. XV, No. 2. p. 112)'.

208 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

venture continued is not known. In 1768 The Gazette was re-
vived and continued for a decade. It was again suspended
in 1778 because the printer's son, who was his chief reliance
in the business, had been drafted into the army.

The right of appointment of a public printer was one of the
political issues in dispute between the governor and the
Assembly. In 1761, on account of charges of neglect of duty
brought by Dobbs against Davis, the Assembly appointed a
committee to secure another public printer, and this com-
mittee induced Andrew Steuart of Philadelphia to come to
North Carolina. But the bill to appoint a public printer was
defeated in the Council, whereupon Governor Dobbs ap-
pointed Steuart "his Majesty's printer." The House of Com-
mons took umbrage at this exercise of prerogative, declared
that it knew of "no such office as his Majesty's printer," and
denounced the appointment of Steuart as an act "of a new and
unusual nature unknown to our laws" and "a violent stretcvh
of power." It accordingly voted £100 to Steuart as compen-
sation for his trouble and expense in coming to North Caro-
lina and re-appointed Davis public printer. Steuart, who was
the second printer in the province, settled at Wilmington
where in September, 1761, he began the publication of The
North Carolina Gazette and Weekly Post Boy. It had but a
brief existence being suspended in 1767. The chief incident of
interest in its history occurred during the resistance to the
Stamp Act on the Cape Fear when the Cape Fear patriots
compelled Steuart to issue his paper without the stamps re-
quired by the law, a skull and bones appearing in the margin
with the legend, "This is the Place to affix the Stamp."

In 1769 Steuart was drowned in the Cape Fear River and
his press was purchased by Adam Boyd. This "third and last
of the pre-Revolutionary printers," says Doctor Weeks, "was
not a printer at all. He was what we should call in this day
a publisher." 13 In 1769 Boyd began the publication of The
Cape Fear Mercury which he continued to issue until well
into the year 1775. The Mercury is perhaps the most famous
of the pre-Revolutionary papers of North Carolina because of
its connection with the famous Mecklenburg Declaration con-
trove l-sy. On August 8, 1775, Governor Josiah Martin de-
clared in his "Fiery Proclamation" that he had "seen a most
infamous publication in The Cape Fear Mercury importing to

13 Pre-Revolutionary Printers of North Carolina (X. C. Booklet,
Vol. XV. No. 2. p. 116).

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 209

be resolves of a set of people stiling themselves a Committee
for the County of Mecklenburg most traiterously declaring the
entire dissolution of the Laws Government and Constitution
of this country," and it was long thought that if a copy of
this issue of The Mercury could be found it would settle the
controversy by proving the authenticity of the Declaration of
May 20th ; but when a copy was finally discovered it was found
to contain the Eesolves of May 31st. The Mercury suspended
publication soon after this issue.

Vol. 1—14

CHAPTER XIII

POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONTRO-
VERSIES

The transfer of Carolina from the Lords Proprietors to
the Crown worked no important changes in the outward form
of the machinery of government. Governor, Council, and As-
sembly, as well as the systems for the administration of land,
finance, defense, and justice, remained as they were. The
Crown merely took the place of the Lords Proprietors as
the immediate source of power. This meant that a single
executive, capable of a sustained policy, had succeeded a
many-headed executive, of constantly varying personnel and
ever-changing policy ; that a tried and proven plan of admin-
istration had displaced an experiment which had failed. The
change made possible a stability of purpose, promptness of
action, and vigor of administration of which the proprietary
government was incapable. But while there was no change
in the outward form of government, there' was a marked
change in its purpose and spirit. The interests of the Lords
Proprietors centered in dividends, those of the Crown in the
development of the British Empire. Financial returns, there-
fore, inspired the spirit of the one, imperial interests that of
the other. Imperial interests required the subordination of
local interests; the Crown, accordingly, as the source of the
former, acted upon the theory that its authority in colonial
affairs rested solely upon the royal prerogative, and under-
took to conduct the colonial government through instructions
which it held to be binding upon both governor and Assembly.
Such, however, was not the view of the colonists. They held
that the purchase by the Crown carried with it only such pow-
ers as the Lords Proprietors had enjoyed ; that these powers
were defined and limited by the charter of 1665 which guar-
anteed to the people certain rights and privileges of which
they could not be legally deprived ; and that the Crown was
bound to administer the affairs of the colony in accordance
with those guarantees.

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These conflicting theories, together with conflicting im-
perial and local interests, made harmony impossible. The
Crown, on the one hand, intent upon the larger affairs of the
Empire, was too prone to ignore the rights and interests of
the colony; the colony, on the other hand, with its own af-
fairs uppermost in its consideration, never really sought to
understand and sympathize with the policy of the Crown.
The result was inevitable. Controversies between the execu-
tive department, which upheld the prerogative of the Crown,
and the legislative department, which championed the rights
and privileges of the people, characterize the political history
of N^.rth Carolina as a crown colony. Was it the preroga-
tive (i ^the Crown, or the right of the Assembly to determine
how q, M rents should be paid? To fix the fees of public of-
ficials? To control the expenditures of public funds? To
erect precincts with the privilege of representation? To as-
certain the quorum of the House of Commons? To determine
the jurisdiction of the courts? Many of the controversies
growing out of these questions were trivial in themselves,
but behind them all lay the vital issue whether the colonial
Assembly was to be a real legislative body, representative of
the people, with the power of independent judgment and
action, or whether it was to be reduced to a mere vehicle
for registering the royal will, expressed through instructions
to the governor, and unless these controversies are studied
with this fundamental fact in view they lose most of their
interest and all of their significance.

The Crown purchased Carolina in July, 1729, but sent out
no governor until February, 1731. During this year and a
half, Sir Richard Everard continued to hold office by author-
ity of his commission from the Lords Proprietors. But a
commission from the Lords Proprietors had lost most of its
virtue in North Carolina and Sir Richard himself no longer
commanded that personal respect which might have proved a
substitute for it. Consequently during that period a condi-
tion bordering upon anarchy prevailed in the colony. The
governor was utterly discredited. The Assembly held but
one session and the Crown afterwards declared that to be
illegal. The Council was suspended. The General Court
was suppressed. Many of the precinct courts ceased to func-
tion. The Admiralty Court — a crown court — having no re-
straint on its actions, took advantage of the situation "to
draw all manner of Business" to it, proceeding "in such an
Extraordinary Manner as occasioned a General Discontent

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 213

an,l Ferment among the People." Laws were unenforced.
The public revenues were not collected. Corruption was rife
in official circles. The governor, who had no other notions of
government, it was said, than as it gave him power to act as
he pleased, openly declared his contempt for the laws of
the colony, enforced his will by arbitrary arrests and im-
prisonments, demanded and took exorbitant fees, and ac-
cepted from the Assembly "a present" of £500 for signing a
bill emitting £40,000 of paper currency contrary to his in-
structions. Nobody paid quit rents. Blank patents covering
thousands of acres were issued and located for which no
purchase money was paid. In a word, "the Province [was]
in the greatest Confusion, [and] the Government had sunk so
low that neither Peace nor Order subsisted." The Lords
Proprietors complained of the Crown's delay in setting up
an efficient government, declaring that not only their own
personal affairs, but also those of the people "greatly suffer
from the present unsettled conditions," and begged that either
the transfer be expedited or else they themselves be restored
to "the full and free exercise of all the powers granted" them
by King Charles II. The people, too, grew impatient; they
urged the recall of Governor Everard and the prompt settle-
ment of the government upon a firmer basis.

In seeking the removal of Governor Everard the people
of North Carolina enacted the fable of the frogs who prayed
for a king. They exchanged Sir Richard Everard for George
Burrington. Burrington, it will be recalled, lost his place
under the Lords Proprietors in 1725 because the Proprietors
were persuaded that he contemplated stirring up a revolu-
tion to compel them to transfer their property to the king.
Where then should he be, when the transfer was actually
made, but in London pressing upon the crown officials his
claims to consideration. Success crowned his efforts. In
January, 1730, he was notified of his appointment as first
royal governor of North Carolina and a few days later re-
ceived his commission. His commission was signed January
25, 1730, but Burrington remained in England awaiting his
instructions which were not completed until December 30th.
In January, 1731, he sailed for North Carolina, arrived at
Edenton February 25th, summoned such of his councillors
as were within reach, and in their presence took the oath of

office.

Members of the popular party, with whom he had co-
operated during his former administration, hastened to wel-

214 HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA

come him. Some of them, notably John Baptista Ashe and
Edmund Porter, he had selected as councillors. The Grarjd
Jury "for the whole Province of North Carolina" declared
that they accepted his appointment as "a very great in-
stance" of the king's favor to the colony, and the General
Assembly, in an address to the king, echoed the sentiment,
declaring that they were in duty bound to acknowledge Bur-
rington's appointment "as a particular mark" of the king's
indulgence. Burrington announced to the Assembly that in
him they had a governor "that is entirely your Friend and
Wellwisher;" and the Assembly expressing their "great
pleasure" at his appointment felt "fully assured that we
shall not want your best Endeavours to promote the lasting
happiness of the People of the Province." But the leaders
of the popular party soon found that the Burrington who
needed their support in executing his designs against the
Lords Proprietors was a different person from the Burring-
ton who seeing his hopes fully realized was enjoying the
fruits of his labors ; and the echoes of their exchange of
courtesies were almost immediately drowned in an explosion
produced by irreconcilable differences.

The match to the powder was the governor's 19th instruc-
tion, in which the Crown offered, upon two conditions, to re-
mit to the people the back rents for which in the purchase
of Carolina it had allowed the Lords Proprietors £5,000.
These conditions were, first, that the Assembly pass an act
requiring the registration of all landholdings in the colony,
thus providing an accurate rent roll for the Crown; second,
that all quit rents and officers' fees, which had previously
been paid in "rated commodities," or in provincial currency,
be paid in proclamation money.1 The importance of this pro-
posal will be appreciated when it is remembered that the
people did not hold their lands in fee but as tenants of the
Crown paying annual quit rents for their holdings. Assum-
ing the Assembly's prompt and unquestioning obedience, Bur-
rington had had prepared a bill carrying out the Crown's in-
structions as to quit rents, and with the advice of his Coun-
cil, had already fixed the fees of colonial officials in proclama-
tion money and put them into effect by executive order. But
the Assembly proved unexpectedly independent. It asserted

1 "Current specie of foreiern coinage the value of which was
ascertained and fixed in sterling monev by proclamation of the
Crown."— Ashe. History of North Carolina." Vol. T. p. 229. At a
h.ter date provincial currency was also so called.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 215

that the arrears of quit rents in North Carolina were too small
to be a matter of any importance ; resolved that, since there
was not enough specie in the province with which to pay quit
rents and fees, "all such payments be made in some valuable
commoditys, or in the Bills now currant in this Province at
proper Rates;" and declared that the regulation of officers'
fees was a matter for the legislative, and not the executive
power. "For nearly twenty years," it said, "the Officers'
fees have been paid in Paper Currancy at the Rates mentioned
in the Acts of Assembly." But Burrington insisted that the
king's instructions gave "the Governour and Council Power
to regulate and Settle Fees" in proclamation money, thereby
"repealing all Laws that declare Fees shall be received other-
ways." This direct blow at the legislative power alarmed the
House which resolved that by the charter of Charles II, the
people of North Carolina were to "have, possess [and] en-
joy all Libertys, Franchises, and Privileges" enjoyed by the
people of England, among which was the guarantee "that
they shall not be taxed or made lyable to pay any sum or
sums of money or Fees other than such as are by Law estab-
lished;" it therefore requested the governor to forbid the
payment of fees in proclamation money "until such time as
the Officers' Fees shall be regulated by Authority of As-
sembly." This resolution was as a red flag to a bull. The
Council condemned it as "a great invasion of his Majesties
Prerogative;" Burrington declared it an "unreasonable com-
plaint," and denounced its author as "a Thief that hides
himself in a house to rob it and fearing to be discovered, fires
the house to make his escape in the smoak. "

Burrington attributed the opposition to his course to Eel-
ward Moseley, who was not only speaker of the House but
also public treasurer, and determined to destroy him. For
this purpose, he brought out two more instructions, one for-
bidding the paying out of any public money except upon
warrant of the governor, thus depriving the Assembly of all
control over the public funds, except the privilege of being
"permitted from time to time to view and examine all ac-
counts of money" disposed of "by virtue of laws made by
them;" the other directing that all commissions issued by
the Lords Proprietors be withdrawn and no public office be
held except by a commission from the king. Burrington laid
these instructions before the Assembly accompanied by a
declaration of his purpose to appoint "a fitt person'1 as
public treasurer. The Assembly resented this fresh encroach-

216 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ment upon its rights and privileges, declarer! that no public
money ought to be disbursed except as directed by the Gen-
eral Assembly, i. e., the governor, Council, and House of
Commons, and asserted that in fiscal affairs the Commons,
"in Conjunction with the Governor and Council, hath a larger
right than only to view and Examine Publick Accounts."
Furthermore, it expressed the opinion that the other in-
struction "doth not extend to officers appointed by Act of
Assembly," as was the public treasurer, but only to those who
held commissions from the Lords Proprietors; the governor,
therefore, need not trouble himself to appoint a public treas-
urer because that office was already filled by a person with
whose "ability and integrity" the House was "very well sat-
isfied," one, moreover, "who was appointed to that office in
an Act of Assembly by the Governor, Council and Assembly
and such an officer so appointed is not to be removed but by
the like Power." To this open defiance of the king's instruc-
tions the governor and his supporters in the Council could
think of no better answer than to charge the House with try-
ing "to create animositys and ferment divisions;" nor could
they resist the temptation to take a fling at Moseley. They
admitted that Moseley was "a person of sufficient ability"
to be treasurer, and "heartily wished his integrity was equal
to it." This insult to its leader drew a sharp reply from the
House, which stood loyally by him, and Burrington's attack
resulted merely in widening the breach between the two
branches of the government.

After his first Assembly, the governor determined not to
hold another session until he could secure from his superiors
in England confirmation of his instructions on the questions
at issue. By successive prorogations, therefore, he prevented
a session until July, 1733, when he was able to announce that
the Crown adhered to its original instructions, and especially
forbade his accepting quit rents and fees ' ' in any other specie
but in proclamation money." The Assembly countered with
the rejoinder that they too had consulted their "principals"
who had "recommended nothing more earnestly to us than
that we should not consent to burthen them with such pay-
ments." So the quarrel flared up anew. The Assembly, in
support of their contentions, having appealed to the Great
Deed of Grant, were greatly perturbed to find its validity
denied by the crown officials. But this merely added fuel
to the flames. Neither side would yield. The representatives
of the people would not obey the king's instructions; the rep-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 217

resentative of the Crown would not assent to anything short
of complete submission. Round and round the circle both
sides pursued the old arguments with wearisome iteration and
reiteration, but with no results.

In the ''several hot debates and messages" which passed
between the Assembly and the governor, the Assembly was
firm, but always calm and respectful. Burrington on the
other hand was insolent, dictatorial, and abusive. "If the
Kings Instructions are contrary to some Laws of this Prov-
ince," he said, "the Governor must act in Obedience to the
Kings Commands, therefore you must not be Surprized that
whatever Your Law directs contrary to my Instructions is
not taken Notice of [by] Me." The violence of the language
in which he commanded a like obedience from the Assembly,
and denounced all who opposed him, passed all bounds of
reason and decency. Quit rents and fees, control of the pub-
lic purse, the selection of a treasurer, the character of the
present incumbent, and all other causes of controversy, dwin-
dled into issues of secondary importance; the rights, the
privileges and the dignity of the Assembly as a representa-
tive body were at stake and the House resolved to maintain
them at all costs. When the governor denounced the author
of its resolution against the payment of fees in proclamation
money as a thief, the House replied that the resolution "was
the Unanimous Voice of the whole House, no one member dis-
senting thereto," and resolved that the governor's message
was a "great indignity and contempt put on the whole House,
a Breach of Privilege, and tended to the deterring the mem-
bers from doing their Duty."

At the very beginning of the controversy, the popular
party gained a point by creating a division in the Council.
"I endeavoured all I could to prevent this madness," wrote
Burrington, "but I cannot answer for the Follys and Pas-
sions of Men.". John Baptista Ashe led the way, and by
"false reasoning and fallacious arguments," won over Ed-
mund Porter and William Smith, the chief justice. About
the same time two other councillors, Nathaniel Pice and Jo-
seph Jenoure, were called out of the province. Only Cor-
nelius Harnett1 and Robert Halton were lefl upon whom the
governor could depend. "By this," Burrington complained,
"Ashe, Smith and Porter gained their end for then my own
vote made but an equality in the Council which obliged me
to put an end to the session." This division in the Council
was never cemented ; indeed, it grew wider for Harnett, too,

i Father of the Revolutionary patriot of the same name.

218 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

soon joined the governor's enemies. From that time until
his recall, Burrington poured upon the heads of Ashe, Porter,
Harnett and Smith such a flood of abuse and billingsgate
as probably never before or since disgraced the official dis-
patches of a public officer. Ashe was an "ungrateful" vil-
lain, "altogether bent on mischief;" Porter "a man of most
infamous character;" Harnett "a disgrace to the Council;"
and "Baby" Smith, "a silly, rash boy, a busy fool and egre-
gious sot, to which," continued the irate governor, "I must
add that I know him to be an ungrateful perfidious scoun-
drel." Smith resigned from the Council; Porter was sus-
pen'ed; Harnett was driven out by the governor's abuse;
and Burrington, in clear violation of his instructions, replaced
them with two new councillors, John Lovick and Edmund
Gale, whose votes were at his command.

Burrington 's enemies refused to remain quiet under his
attacks. They poured complaints in rapid succession upon
the Board of Trade. They even raised funds to send Chief
Justice Smith to England to prefer charges against the gov-
ernor. But neither written complaints nor personal appeals
contributed so much to Burrington 's downfall as his own dis-
patches, which revealed but too plainly his unfitness for his
office. The Board of Trade in replying to them, began with
advice and ended with censure. They demanded that he ex-
plain the opprobrious epithet which he had applied to Chief
Justice Smith. They declared that while they would not ven-
ture to pass judgment between him and Porter, they could
not but observe that Porter had been "acquitted by the old
Councillors and only condemned by those whom you have
nominated for new ones." They disapproved his appoint-
ment of the new councillors ; condemned his practice of voting
on bills pending before the upper house, and censured his
domineering attitude toward the Assembly. Smarting under
their strictures, Burrington flung policy to. the winds, and
gave full vent to his temper. More and more bitter grew
his quarrels, more outrageous his conduct. Public business
halted in the face of his private feuds. Three times he con-
vened the Assembly, and three times prorogued it without
securing the passage of a single act. Finally, in the summer
of 1734, the Board of Trade determined to bear with him no
longer, order his recall, and sent Gabriel Johnston to succeed
him.

Johnston took the oath of office at Brunswick, November
2, 1734. He was a Scotchman of good birth and education.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 219

He bad studied at the University of St. Andrews in which
he had afterwards lectured as professor of oriental languages.
Early in life, abandoning literature for politics, he went to
London to seek his fortunes as a political writer. There hf»
attracted the attention of Spencer Compton, Earl of Wil-
mington, and Lord President of the Privy Council, who ex-
tended his patronage to him. It was through Compton 's in-
fluence that Johnston was appointed governor of North Caro-
lina. In learning, culture and character, he was superior to
any of his predecessors. His learning, however, as Chalmers
observes, "degenerated a little into cunning." No breath of
scandal attaches to his personal conduct. He had not the itch-
ing palm like Everard, nor was he given to profanity, vio-
lence and drunkenness like Burrington. Indeed, so little did
he seek to advance his own personal fortune that at his death
his salary was thirteen years in arrears. But as governor,
"he was exceedingly arbitrary, not to say unscrupulous, in
his methods," and the ethics of some of his official acts were
not above criticism. His experiences in British politics seem
to have given him a predilection for sharp practices, or, as
he termed it, "management," in political affairs. To secure
the passage through the Assembly of a bill in which he was
interested, for instance, he "prevailed" upon some of the
"most troublesome" members to absent themselves; and at
another time, with a similar object in view, he purposely
convened the General Assembly when and where he knew his
opponents could not attend. On the whole, he showed less
consideration for the Assembly and a greater regard for the
king's prerogative than Burrington, and was even bolder and
more determined in carrying out his instructions.

Johnston not only maintained all the positions taken by
Burrington in the quit rents controversy, but also insisted that
the king had a right to fix upon the places at which the rents
must be paid. The Assembly, on the contrary, held that rents
were payable on the land, and in support of their position
appealed to "the Ancient Laws and usage" of the province.
The governor's reply to their appeal injected into the con-
troversy a new and startling issue. While in England seek-
ing the removal of Burrington, Chief Justice Smith had dis-
covered the order of the Lords Proprietors requiring that all
acts of the General Assembly be submitted to them for con-
firmation; otherwise they should expire at the end of two
years. His investigations also revealed the fact that so little
had this order been heeded, that of all the laws then in force

220 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

in North Carolina, six only, and those of minor importance,
had been thus confirmed. Bristling with importance at his
discovery, he hastened to submit to the legal advisers of the
Crown the question whether all the unconfirmed laws were
not null and void. These officials had not rendered their de-
cision when Smith returned to North Carolina, but he felt so
certain that they would confirm his opinion, that he persuaded
Governor Johnston and the majority of the Council to adopt
it. Accordingly, when the Assembly appealed to the "Ancient-
Laws" of the province, Johnston an 1 his Council replied that
they could not pay "any regard" to them because having
never been confirmed by the Lords Proprietors, they were all
null and void. This reply brought forth a storm of angry
protests. Passions ran high. In the heat of debate, Moseley
and Chief Justice Smith came to blows. But the stanch old
Scotch governor was undaunted by the tempest which raged
about him. He boldly told the Assembly that the king was
not dependent upon their consent for power to collect his
rents, and "in order to convince the people that his Majesties
just revenue did not depend upon any Acts of their Assem-
bly," he issued a proclamation directing that quit rents be
paid at specified places, and "in gold and silver," or in bills
current at a rate of exchange for sterling to be fixed by the
Council. To show his determination to carry out his policy,
he erected a court of exchequer to collect rents by distress if
necessary, appointed Eleazer Allen receiver-general for North
Carolina, although that office for both Carolinas was already
held by John Hammerton of South Carolina, and put the
militia under the command of officers upon whose obedience
and loyalty to him he could rely. At first the very boldness
of his course resulted in "a general submission" to his orders,
and he was able to report that in the autumn of 1735, the col-
lections amounted to £1,200 sterling, at the same time pre-
dicting that the spring collections would be double that
amount.

But Johnston's optimistic predictions failed to be realized.
"General murmurs" of opposition soon began to be heard.
John Hammerton, indignant at the governor's action, has-
tened into North Carolina, publicly denounced the appoint-
ment of Eleazer Allen as illegal, and "had the impudence"
to issue a proclamation forbidding the payment of rents to
him. Still more potent was the influence of Edward Moseley,
who not only refused to pay his own quit rents, but urged the
people to follow his example. To him Eleazer Allen attrib-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 221

uted "all the difficulty s and obstructions which had attended
the several collections of the quit rents." The murmurs
quickly grew into loud protests and threats of violence. At
a report, fortunately false, that a man had been imprisoned
at Edenton for refusing to pay his rents, 500 men in Bertie
and Edgecombe rose in arms and set out to rescue him by
force, "cursing his Majesty and uttering a great many rebel-
lious speeches." Complaints poured into the General As-
sembly that the collectors were exacting payments in cur-
rency at rates of seven and eight for one of sterling, to which,
when resorting to distress, they added "extravagant
charges." Against these "illegal proceedings," the Assem-
bly protested, but in vain. Thereupon, catching something of
the governor's spirit, they answered his bold challenge with
a challenge even more daring, — they ordered the collectors
of the king's revenue into the custody of their officers!

It was in just such an emergency that Johnston revealed
his superiority to Burrington in statecraft. Burrington
would have met it with bluster accompanied by a volley of
oaths and a torrent of curses ; Johnston, on the contrary, re-
sorted to what he euphemistically called "management." One
of the questions on which he had taken issue with the As-
sembly was the validity of blank patents, i. e., patents for
land in which the date, the name of the patentee, the loca-
tion of the land, the number of acres, and the amount of the
purchase money were all or in part left blank. Many such
patents had been issued after the Lords Proprietors had
closed their Carolina land office, and as Johnston said, were
"hawked about the country" in large numbers, the pur-
chasers locating their lands and filling in the blanks as they
pleased. Johnston held such patents invalid and as thou-
sands of acres, estimated at nearly half a million, were held
under them, his contention aroused intense opposition. Find-
ing himself checkmated in his efforts to collect quit rents, he
proposed to yield his position on blank patents if the Assem-
bly would recede from their position on quit rents. A bargain
was promptly struck. The governor agreed to confirm titles
held under blank patents; the Assembly consented to pre-
pare a rent roll and to limit the number of places at which
quit rents should be payable. Both sides yielded somewhat on
the medium in which rents should be paid, the governor con-
senting to accept certain rated commodities, or their value
in provincial currency, the Assembly consenting that the
value of provincial currency should be fixed by a commission

222 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

consisting of the governor and representatives from the
Council and the House of Commons. In 1739, a bill embody-
ing these provisions passed both houses of Assembly, was
promptly signed by the governor, and both governor and As-
sembly congratulated themselves and each other that the
long dispute was at an end.

But their congratulations were premature. The Crown
vetoed the act on the ground that vesting the power to regu-
late the value of money "in any person whatsoever, might
be of dangerous consequence, and highly prejudicial to the
trade of the nation." At the same time Johnston suffered
another defeat for the law officers of the Crown decided
against him in all of his contentions relative to the Great
Deed, how and where quit rents were payable, and the validity
of the provincial laws which had not been confirmed by the
Lords Proprietors. With his position greatly weakened by
these defeats, he again took up the controversy with the As-
sembly. In 1741 he called the session, as he wrote, "in the
most southern part of the Province on purpose to keep at
home the northern members who were the most numerous
and from whom the greatest opposition was expected," but
to no purpose. Similar failures met him in 1744, 1745, and
1746. Finally, in 1748, he secured the passage of an act
which satisfied him.

By this time questions concerning the king's quit rents
had lost much of their interest and importance by the crea-
tion of the Granville District which transferred half the land
in the province and more than half the revenues arising from
the land, from the king to a private proprietor. It will be
remembered that when the Lords Proprietors surrendered
their charter to the king in 1728, John Lord Carteret, after-
wards Earl of Granville, decided to retain his interest in the
soil. No steps however were; taken to lay off his share until
1742. Acting then upon the advice of the Board of Trade
the king decided that Granville was entitled to one-eighth of
the original grant which embraced nearly all the region be-
tween the northern boundary of North Carolina and the south-
ern boundary of Georgia as far west as the South Sea. In
1742, therefore, he directed that five commissioners represent-
ing the Crown and five representing Granville be appointed
with full authority to locate and set out Granville's claim.

In their work the commissioners seemed to consider Lord
Granville's interests paramount to those of either king or
colony. It was manifestly fair that the burdens incident to

HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA 223

the creation of this immense private estate should be shared
on some just basis by all of the three colonies, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Georgia, which had been erected out of
the original proprietary; nevertheless in order that Lord
Granville might enjoy the advantages of having his estate in
a solid tract the commissioners decided to cut the whole of it
out of North Carolina. An important consideration with
them in making this decision was the fact that by adopting the
North Carolina-Virginia boundary line as the northern line of
the Granville District, they would have to run the southern
line only. Beginning, therefore, on Hatteras Island at 35° 34'
north latitude, they carried the line in 1744 as far west as
Bath. In 1746 it was carried to Haw River, thence twentv

7 *"

years later to Rocky River, and finally, in 1774, to the Blue
Ridge Mountains. It ran through the site of the present town
of Snow Hill, followed what is now the southern boundary of
Chatham, Randolph, Davidson, Rowan, and Iredell counties,
and fell just below the southern line of Catawba and Burke
counties. Between it and Virginia lay an immense region,
sixty miles in width, embracing about 26,000 square miles of
territory, one-half the present state of North Carolina, and
containing in 1744 more than two-thirds of the inhabitants
and an even larger percentage of the wealth of the province.

Throughout this vast region, Lord Granville, though pos-
sessing no political authority, was virtually the irresponsible
ruler over the property rights of the people for the territorial
system which he set up was beyond the control of either Crown
or Assembly. For the administration of his estate he main-
tained a land office at Edenton with a large organization includ-
ing agents, surveyors, entry takers, and numerous subordinate-
officials. The inefficiency and corruption of these officials, un-
restrained by any watchful authority, soon became a public
scandal. Granville himself was a victim of their frauds and
abuses, but the chief victims were his tenants. They suffered
from the exaction of excessive fees, the collection of illegal
quit rents, and the issuance of fraudulent grants. In 1755
the Assembly's committee on propositions and grievances re-
ported such practices of Granville's agents as grievances
which "do retard the Settlement of that part of the Govern-
ment of which his Lordship is proprietor.'1 During the next
few years the abuses grew with such rapidity that in 1758
Granville's tenants petitioned the Assembly for relief. The
Assembly appointed a committee to investigate the charges
and this committee after a thorough investigation made a

224 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

report which attests not only the dishonesty but also the re-
sourcefulness of the agents in devising schemes to defraud the
settlers. Some of their practices were the issuing of grants
for the same tract by the same agent to more than one person ;
the issuing of grants for the same tract by different agents to
different persons ; the bribing of officials to change the names
of grantees in the entry-book and to issue to other parties
deeds for land for which the original grantee had already paid
the entry fees; the issuing of grants improperly signed, and
therefore void, so that later they might issue the same grants
to other persons, of course collecting fees from all of them;
and, finally, the collection of excessive fees and quit rents.
The fees in the Granville District, according to Governor
Dobbs, were double, and sometimes treble, the fees of the
Crown in the rest of the province, and while the king's fees
were paid in paper currency, Granville's agents would accept
no payments except in gold and silver. In spite of these un-
doubted frauds and abuses the Assembly was powerless to
grant the relief sought and could do nothing more than send
a remonstrance to Lord Granville.

It must not be supposed that Granville was privy to these
practices or indifferent to the complaints of his tenants. In
1756 he wrote to his agent, Francis Corbin: "Great and fre-
quent complaints are transmitted to me of those persons you
employ to receive entries and make surveys in the back coun-
ties. It is their extortions and not the regular fees of office
which is the cause of clamor from my tenants. Insinuations
are made, too, as if those extortions were connived at by my
agents ; for otherwise, it is said they could not be committed so
repeatedly or so barefacedly." Of course none of the excess
fees found their way into his coffers ; indeed, he would have
been fortunate if he had received those to which he was legally
entitled. It was said that one of his agents on going out of
office advised his successor to remember the proverb of the new
broom, and not to remit too much to the earl at first as equal
remittances would be expected in the future ; besides, what was
more to the point, such a mistaken policy might lead to investi-
gations that would prove awkward to former agents. The
trouble was not with Lord Granville ; it was with the system
which enabled a private individual to exercise so much control
over the fortunes and happiness of people with whom he had
no sort of sympathetic connection.

Finding the Assembly powerless and despairing of relief
from Lord Granville, the people finally took matters in their

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 225

own hands. One result of their complaints had been an order
from Granville to Corbin to publish his table of fees which re-
vealed abundant evidence of systematic abuses and frauds and
led to demands upon the agents to disgorge their illegal gains.
In the winter of 1759 an armed mob surrounded Corbin 's house
in Edenton, aroused him in the dead of night, compelled him
to go with them to Enfield, seventy miles distant, and there
exacted of him a bond in the sum of £8,000 that he would within
three weeks ' time exhibit his books for inspection and refund
all excess fees. But after his release, instead of complying
with his agreement Corbin inspired prosecutions against four
of his assailants and upon their refusing to give bail had
them thrown into prison at Enfield. This act was the signal
for an explosion. From all the surrounding country armed
settlers rode into Enfield, broke open the jail, overpowered the
jailer, released the prisoners, and inaugurated a reign of law-
lessness throughout a large part of the Granville District.
Corbin abandoning his prosecutions fled in terror. Some of
the sheriffs were openly in sympathy with the mob and the
attorney-general, Robin Jones, was so thoroughly intimidated
that he refused to prosecute the rioters and appealed to the
governor to take action. The Assembly urgently supported
his appeal, but the governor refused to move and in his turn
became a target for the Assembly's denunciation. In defend-
ing himself to the Board of Trade against the strictures of
the Assembly, Dobbs denounced the dishonesty of Granville's
agents, expressed his sympathy with the people, and declared
that their conduct had been grossly misrepresented and exag-
gerated. The riot, therefore, was never suppressed by legal
procedure, the rioters went scot free, and conditions in the
Granville District continued volcanic until the proprietorship
was abolished.

Throughout its history the Granville District was a source
of discord, weakness and division in the colony. For many
of the most important affairs of its inhabitants, it was almost
a province within the province. Its existence was the cause of
numerous controversies over the location and boundaries of
the grants of other large landoAvners, and even of grants issued
by the Crown. With that indifference to former grants so
characteristic of colonial officials, the commissioners had in-
cluded within the Granville District nearly 500,000 acres of
the McCulloh grant, and while Granville and McCulloh them-
selves had little difficulty in adjusting their conflicting claims,
their agreement did not prevent constant friction between

Vol. 1—15

226 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

their agents and surveyors. There were clashes too between
the agents of Granville and those of the Crown. The former
charged Governor Dobbs with issuing grants for land within
the Granville District while Dobbs retorted that Granville's
line encroached for a depth of at least nine miles upon the
king's land. These disputes and conflicts kept the frontier in
a state of continual disorder and tended to discourage the
immigration of substantial settlers. Many less desirable im-
migrants, taking advantage of the situation, squatted on lands
along the border between the king's district and that of Lord
Granville without taking out grants and without paying quit
rents. Under such conditions it was impossible to instill into
them that respect for law which is the foundation of free gov-
ernment. The colony also suffered from the utter indifference
of the second Lord Granville, who succeeded to the title in 1763,
to his Carolina estate. He allowed his land office at Edenton
to remain closed for several years, thus depriving North Caro-
lina of many excellent settlers who would have taken out
grants within his district.

'Financially, too, the Granville District was a great draw-
back to the colony. Quit rents derived from the land in this
immense region went not into the public treasury but into
the pockets of a private individual, or of his corrupt agents.
Thus a large part of the revenues from the richest and most
populous half of the colony were used for other purposes than
support of the government. Consequently the burden fell so
much more heavily upon the poorer half. This fact had no
little to do with the stubbornness of the Assembly in holding
out against the king's instructions relative to a permanent
civil list.

The dual territorial and fiscal system made necessary by
the existence of the Granville District was a source of division
and weakness in North Carolina. The province was neither
an economic nor a political unit. A northern and a southern
treasurer were necessary. There was a northern and a south-
ern party. To these divisions of interests primarily may be
traced the controversy over representation which wrecked
Governor Johnston's administration. These different inter-
ests continued throughout the colonial period. As late as
1773, on the very eve of the Revolution, Governor Martin com-
plained that the Granville District created a division in the
colony which for many years had ''fatally embarrassed its
Politics.'1 Considering the whole historv of the Granville
District, therefore, Martin was fully justified in declaring

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 227

that it was "not only profitless to the Proprietor, but a nui-
sance to this Colony."

Governors, Assembly, and people were all agreed not only
as to its baneful effects, but also as to the proper remedy for
its evils. The remedy was purchase by the Crown. In 1767
Governor Tryon declared that its purchase by the Crown
1 i would more than treble the value of the quit rents : ' ' that it
was "an object so extremely coveted, to a man, by the inhabi-
tants settled there" that it would no doubt result in the pas-
sage of "any law his Majesty would propose lor the better
and more easy collecting his quit rents." "If it could be pur-
chased for sixty thousand pounds sterling," he added, "it
would be cheap ; it is certainly the most rising interest on the
continent of America." To like effect wrote Governor Martin
who in 1771 said, "It seems here an universally acknowledged
principle that this Country will never enjoy perfect peace
until that proprietary which erects a kind of separate inter-
est in its bowels is vested in the Crown." The Assembly too
was of the same mind. In 1773 the House of Commons ap-
pointed a committee, composed of its strongest leaders, "to
take into consideration Lord Granville's Territory in this
Province, with respect to the settlement of the same, and to
propose some plan to quiet the Inhabitants in their posses-
sion." The plan proposed and agreed to by the Assembly
was to request the king to "be graciously pleased to purchase
the same, that the said Lands may be held of him as other
Lands are held of his Majesty in his District in this Colony. ';
But nothing came of these suggestions; the Revolution came
on, independence was declared, and Lord Granville being then
an alien enemy, the Assembly in 1782 solved the problem of
the Granville District by the short and effective method of
confiscation.

The creation of the Granville District in 1744 was an im-
portant element in enabling Governor Johnston to secure the
passage of the quit rent law of 1748, but a more important
element still was the representation quarrel inaugurated by
the Assembly of November, 1746, which threw the quit rent
controversy completely in the shade. The most determined
opposition to the governor in the quit rents controversy had
come from the inhabitants of the old county of Albemarle who
claimed to hold their land under the Great Deed of Grant.
The Great Deed gave them better terms than the Crown was
disposed to allow and they wore determined not to surrender
their advantage. Another advantage which they enjoyed en-

228 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

abled them to sustain their position. This was the- right wiiich
each precinct in Albemarle had of sending to the General As-
sembly five representatives, whereas the other precinct? sent
but two each. This privilege originated early in the propri-
etary period when Albemarle was the only count}' in Carolina,
and was not extended to the precincts which were subsequently
erected in Bath County.

As these new precincts grew in wealth and population they
came to look upon this inequality as a discrimination against
them, while the expansion of the colony southward toward the
Cape Fear gave rise to sectional interests different from the
interests of Albemarle, which served to emphasize it. The
commercial interests of the Cape Fear settlers, who enjoyed
the advantage of direct trade with the mother country, often
conflicted with those of Albemarle, whose trade necessarily-
went through Virginia and the other colonies, and legislation
in the interests of one section was frequently considered ruin-
fous "by the other. Personal ambitions and sectional rivalries
also increased the dissatisfaction of the southern precincts.
New Bern was ambitious to displace Edenton as the seat of
^government, and her pretensions were supported by the pre-
cincts south of Albemarle Sound. The people in the southern
precincts, especially those along the Cape Fear, complained
that it was a hardship to compel them to go to Edenton, in the
extreme northeastern corner of the province, across two wide
sounds, in order to consult the public records in the secretary's
^office, to transact business in the General Court, and to attend
isessions of the General Assembly. But all their efforts to
move the capital to a more central place were defeated be-
cause the counties north of Albemarle Sound had a majority
in the Assembly. The controversy came to a head in June,
1746, when the proposal to make New Bern the capital was
again defeated, and the session closed with a sectional quarrel
that split the popular party in two. In this division, the
shrewd politician at the head of the government saw his op-
portunity and hastened to make the most of it.

Making common cause with the southern members, John-
ston prorogued the Assembly to meet in November at ^Wil-
mington, expecting that so many northern members would re-
fuse to attend at that season and at such a distance, that the
southern members would control the House. In fact, the for-
mer had openly declared that, because of the inclemency of the
season and the difficulties of travel, they would not attend a
winter session at Wilmington. Since they composed a ma-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 225

jority of the House, they of course expected that no session-
could be held without them. But in this they reckoned with-
out their host, for they could not foresee that Samuel Swann,.
John Starkey, and other southern leaders, for the sake of a
petty sectional advantage and at the behest of a royal gov-
ernor, would surrender one of the most cherished principles
of the popular party, namely, that no number less than a ma-
jority should be considered a quorum of the House of Com-
mons. Yet this is just what they did. With only fifteen mem-
bers in attendance, out of a total membership of fifty-four.
Speaker Swann declared a quorum present and notified the
governor that the House was ready for business. The busi-
ness of the session was cut and dried. But two bills were con-
sidered, one making New Bern the capital and regulating
circuit courts, the other reducing the representation of the
Albemarle counties 2 from five to two members each. Johnston
hastened to dispatch the two acts to England for approval,
saying: "I have got a law passed for fixing the seat of Gov-
ernment at Newbern, and a tax laid for Public Buildings.
There was only one other law passed then, viz., an Act for
ascertaining the number of representatives for each County,
the inequality of which has been one great source of the Dis-
orders of this Colony. ': Not a word about the revolutionary
method by which the two bills were passed through the As-
sembly !

But the northern counties were not so reticent. They pro-
tested loudly against the trick of which they were the victims,
denounced the whole proceedings as a fraud, and solemnly
agreed that they would not recognize the validity of the pre-
tended acts of the rump Assembly. Accordingly, when the
governor issued writs for a new Assembly to meet in Febru-
ary, 1747, and directed the northern counties to return but
two members each, the people refused obedience and in each
county chose five as usual. The House, of course, promptly
declared the elections null and void, threw out the returns,
and directed that new elections be held. Thereupon the north-
ern counties appealed to the king. A long and bitter contro-
versy followed. Three issues were presented, viz. : the right
of the northern counties to five members each ; the number of
representatives necessary to constitute a quorum of the
House ; and the validity of the act complained of. The gov-
ernor, assisted by certain of his councillors, presented the case

2 In March, 1739, Albemarle and Bath counties were abolished and
their subdivisions, theretofore known as precincts, became counties.

230 HISTORY OK xORTH CAROLINA

for the southern counties; Wyriott Oraiond and Thomas
Barker, prominent attorneys, represented the northern coun-
ties. Both sides argued their contentions with skill and abil-
ity. The governor contended that the only basis for the claims
of the northern counties was the Biennial Act of 1715 which
the king had repealed in 1737. The northern counties, on the
other hand, traced their claim back to the Fundamental Con-
stitutions and the unbroken practice of the colony under the
Lords Proprietors. By careful searching of the records, by
numerous depositions as to what practice had been followed,
and by hearing long and tedious arguments, the crown offi-
cials sought diligently and impartially to arrive at a correct
decision. The main point, i. e., the right of the northern coun-
ties to five members each, they decided in favor of the north-
ern counties; they thought, however, that a majority was not
necessary for a quorum, saying that "such a constitution is
very extraordinary and liable to great inconvenience"; never-
theless, as the act in question had been "passed by manage-
ment, precipitation and surprise," they advised the king to
veto it.

Eight years passed between the appeal and the decision,
years of confusion, rebellion and almost of anarchy through-
out the northern half of the province. The first election held
under the act of 1746 had given the governor an Assembly
amenable to his will and he determined to hold it together as
long as possible. Elected in 1747, it held thirteen sessions,
and was not dissolved until 1754, after Johnston's death.
During these years the northern counties refused to send rep-
resentatives to the Assembly. They denied the constitutional
authority of an Assembly in which they were not allowed
their full representation. They held its acts to be null and
void. They would not use the currency emitted by its author-
ity. They refused to pay taxes. They declined to serve as
jurors in the General Court organized under the act of 1746,
or to submit to its judgments. In a word, as Bishop Spang-
enberg wrote in 1752, throughout the northern counties there
existed "a perfect anarchy. As a result, crimes are of fre-
quent occurrence, such as murder [and] robbery. But the
criminals cannot be brought to justice. The citizens do not
appear as jurors, and if court is held to decide such criminal
matters no one is present. If any one is imprisoned the prison
is broken open and no justice administered. In short, most
matters are decided by blows. Still the county courts are
held regularly and what belongs to their jurisdiction receives

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 231

customary attention." The last statement throws a flood of
light on this curious situation. The people would not submit
to the jurisdiction of the General Court because it was held
under authority of an act passed by the rump Assembly of
November, 1746, nevertheless they maintained their county
courts in full vigor and cheerfully submitted to their decrees
because they were held under the long established laws of the
province.

Governor Johnston, dying in 1752, did not live to see the
end of the controversy which his "management" had fast-
ened on the province. After a brief interval, during which
first Nathaniel Rice and then Matthew Rowan, as presidents
of the Council, administered the government, Arthur Dobbs
was appointed governor. Dobbs was the head of an ancient
family in Carrickfergus, Ireland. He had had a varied and
not undistinguished career, having served as high sheriff of
County Antrim, as representative of Carrickfergus in Parlia-
ment, and as surveyor-general of Ireland. But he was best
known for his interest in Arctic explorations ; he had even
made an attempt to discover the Northwest Passage, and had
written treatises on the subject. His interest in North Car-
olina began with the purchase of the colony by the Crown.
As early as 1733 he was a member of a syndicate which pur-
chased 60,000 acres in New Hanover precinct upon which the
companv settled a colonv of Irish Protestants. He also had
other landed interests in North Carolina. It was doubtless
this connection with the colony that suggested his appoint-
ment as governor.

It was an unfortunate selection. Without the energy and
ability of Burrington, lacking Johnston's force of character
and political shrewdness, Dobbs entertained more exaggerated
ideas of the prerogative of the Crown and less tolerance for
the constitutional claims of the Assembly than either. At
sixty-five years of age, he was too old to adapt himself to the
strange conditions of a new country and too infirm to grapple
successfully with the difficult problems of colonial administra-
tion. During the decade covered bv his administration, these
difficulties increased as year by year his capacity to cope with
them diminished. Says Saunders in his admirable analysis
of Dobbs' character, "his mental faculties, probably never
very great, weakened and finally gave way under the strain
* * * and in December, 1762, a stroke of palsy, that de-
prived him of the use of his lower limbs, all the winter, put an
end to all hope, for the time, at least, of his future usefulness.

232 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

He rallied, however, and if he did, indeed, escape the drivel-
ling imbecility of old age, he committed its supreme folly by
marrying a very young girl. Complimented in 1755 for his
vigor and intelligence, in 1762 he was told by the lords of
the Board of Trade that his dispatches were so very incorrect,
vague and incoherent that it was almost impossible to dis-
cover his meaning, and that as far as they could be under-
stood, they contained little more than repetitions of proposi-
tions he had made to them before, and upon which he had
received their sentiments fully and clearly expressed."3 To
which it must be added that as his mental faculties decreased,
his irritability, his dictatorialness, and his egotism increased,
rendering co-operation with him impossible. Such was the
man which the British colonial system of the eighteenth
century selected to administer the public affairs of a sensitive
and highly excitable people at a time when the fate of the
British Empire hung upon the vigor, intelligence and harmony
with which all its parts co-operated in its defense.

Dobbs arrived at a conjuncture favorable for a successful
administration. The people were tired of internal strife. The
French and Indian War was then in progress and imperial
interests for the first time in the history of the colony ab-
sorbed the attention of the people. Dobbs, too, was the bearer
of the decisions of the Crown in the issues raised by Governor
Johnston and these decisions were on the whole favorable to
the colony. Furthermore he brought instructions to dissolve
the old rump Assembly elected in 1747, which half the colony
regarded as illegal, and to call a new Assembly in which rep-
resentation should be distributed as it had been prior to 1746.
This Assembly met in New Bern, December 12, 1754. It was
the first Assembly since June, 1746, in which all the counties
were represented. Evidence of the seriousness of the division
in the popular party was seen in the contest for the speaker-
ship. For the first time in fourteen years a candidate for the
speakership appeared against Samuel Swann, who had long
been the leader of the popular party and was now the leader
of the southern faction. After a sharp contest, he was de-
feated by John Campbell, leader of the northern faction.
The morning after the election, Dobbs wrote to the Board of
Trade, "Although there may be some little sparring betwixt
the parties, yet both have assured me it shall have no effect
upon public affairs or make my administration uneasy

5 5

3 Prefatory Notes to Colonial Records of North Carolina, Vol.
V, p. viii.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 233

In spite of his sanguine anticipations, Dobbs soon found
himself involved in controversies with the Assembly over a
greater variety of issues than any of his predecessors. Some
of the less important of these concerned the right of the As-
sembly to elect the public treasurer, to name an agent to rep-
resent the colony before the various boards in England, to
appoint a public printer, and to fix the fees of provincial offi-
cials. On these issues the Board of Trade generally sustained
the Assembly even to the point of rebuking the governor for
the persistence of his opposition. When Dobbs, for instance,
rejected an aid bill because it contained a clause naming an
agent in England, in whose choice he claimed a right to be
consulted, the Board of Trade wrote to him that it was none
of his business "either in point of Right or Propriety to inter-
fere in the nomination of an Agent so far" as regards the
Choice of the person" for "in this respect the Eepresentatives
of the people are and ought to be free to chuse whom they
think proper to act," and that while the method of appoint-
ment in this particular case was irregular, "yet when we
consider the necessity there was of some supply to answer the
exigency of the Service in the present calamitous State of his
Majesty's Southern Provinces, we cannot but think it was too
trivial an Objection to have been admitted as a reason for
rejecting that Supply.'1 But on the more important issues,
such as the number of members necessary to constitute a
quorum of the House of Commons, the right of the Assembly
to determine the qualifications and tenure of judges, and its
right to control the expenditure of public funds, the Board
of Trade fully sustained the governor.

The quorum controversy Dobbs inherited from the John-
ston administration. The popular party, contending for the
principle of the Biennial Act of 1715, that "the quorum of
the House of Burgesses for voting and passing of Bills shall
not be less than one full half of the House," based its conten-
tion upon "the Constitution and constant usage and practice"
'of the colony. Such a constitution, on the other hand, the
crown officials, calling to mind the practice of the British
Parliament in which 40 members out of a total of 556 were a
quorum, considered "very extraordinary and liable to great
inconvenience," so they instructed Dobbs to consider fifteen
members a quorum of the Assembly. This instruction the
Assembly resolutely refused to obey. In October, 1760, in
April, 1762, in December, 1763, and in February, 1764, the
members declined to obey the governor's commands that they

234 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

form a House with less than a majority, "denying His Maj-
esty's right of constituting fifteen to be a quorum." The
governor blustered and scolded and the Board of Trade de-
nounced the Assembly's course as "an indecent opposition to
the just authority of the Crown," but to no purpose; the As-
sembly refused to yield and the issue remained to vex the
administration of Dobbs' latest successor under the Crown.
It was not finally settled until the people took the government
into their own hands in 1776.

In the quorum controversy the Assembly held a stronger
legal position than it did in the controversy over the qualifica-
tions and tenure of judges, though perhaps not a more just
one. It was conceded that the appointment of a chief justice,
with a tenure during the king's pleasure, was a prerogative
of the Crown. For this great office attorneys were usually
sent out from England whose personal character and legal
learning did not always measure up to the dignity and re-
sponsibility of their position. Owing their appointment and
their tenure to the will of the governor they were perhaps
too often amenable to executive influence. To curtail this in-
fluence as much as possible, as well as to provide for the
increasing needs of the growing colony, the Assembly passed
an act which provided for associate, or assistant justices upon
whom, in the absence or disability of the chief justice, it con-
ferred full jurisdiction, at the same time so arranging the
circuits that the chief justice could not possibly attend more
than half the courts. These associate justices were to be
appointed by the governor, but the Assembly was careful to
limit his choice by fixing such qualifications as practically to
exclude all non-resident attorneys, and to secure their inde-
pendence by giving them a tenure during good behavior.

These "new and unprecedented" features, crown officials
considered violations of the king's prerogative, and upon their
advice the king vetoed the act and instructed Dobbs not to
consent to any such provisions in the future. Thus again did
Prerogative challenge Privilege, undo what the Assembly had
declared to be necessary for the "ease" of the people and
the "due and regular administration of justice," and ride
roughshod over the personal ambitions of numerous aspiring
attorneys. Here then were all the elements for a pretty
quarrel. It flared up at once bringing withjt as Dobbs said,
"a stagnation of Justice." The controversy reached its
crisis in 1760. Called into special session to vote an aid to
the king for war purposes, the Assembly obstinately refused

HrSTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 235

even to consider an aid bill unless the governor would con-
sent to its court bill. The contest raged with great bitterness.
The governor lashed the members fiercely and the Assemblv
retorted by holding a secret session in which it brought an
arraignment against Dobbs "without an equal until that
brought against King George at Philadelphia by the United
Colonies on the 4th of July, 1776." 4 It declared that "by the
injudicious and partial appointment of Justices not quali-
fied for such trust and the abrupt removal of Others whose
Characters have been liable to no objection, Magistracy has
fallen into Contempt and Courts have lost their Influence and
dignity." These explosions, however, cleared the atmosphere
and led the way to a compromise. In return for a supply,
the governor agreed to sign the court bill provided a clause
was inserted limiting its duration to two years unless ap-
proved by the king. Needless to say this approval was never
given, and the only reward Dobbs received for his pains was
a stinging rebuke from his official superiors. The Assembly
fared better for the incident showed it a way to accomplish
its purpose by adopting the simple expedient of passing
court laws containing the desired provisions and limited in
their operation for two years. This practice was followed
for more than a decade.

Most of the controversies which have been discussed, es-
pecially those over the election of the public treasurer, the
appointment of the colonial agent, and the qualifications and
tenure of judges, were involved in the great controversy over
finances, and were, in fact, subsidiary to it; that is to say,
the Assembly used its* power over the public purse to force
from the executive concessions on these other questions. The
French and Indian War which continued through most of
Dobbs' administration brought unprecedented demands for
money and gave to financial affairs greater importance than
they had ever had before. No man was more British in his
enmity to the French, or more Protestant in his hostility to
their religion, than Dobbs, and he made the wringing of money
out of the province for the prosecution of the war the para-
mount object of his administration. The Assembly met his
demands as liberally as it thought the circumstances of the
colony justified, but it could not satisfy the governor. Greater
demands urged in impolitic language brought on numerous

4 Saunders: Prefatory Notes to Colonial Records of North Caro-
lina, Vol. VI, p. xxi.

236 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

sharp controversies over the prerogatives of the Crown and
the privileges of the Assembly in fiscal affairs.

These controversies involved two classes of funds. First,
there was North Carolina's share of the appropriation made
by the British Parliament to reimburse the colonies for their
large expenditures in prosecuting the war ; and, second, money
appropriated directly by the General Assembly. Dobbs
claimed the right to dispose of the first by executive order,
and at times drew upon it for the equipment and pay of
troops. His right to do this the Assembly disputed, and its
position was sustained by the Board of Trade. Much more
significant was the controversy over appropriations. The
governor complained of the habit of the Assembly of tacking
onto supply bills extraneous matters, such as the appointment
of a colonial agent, and of using its control over such bills
to force concessions in other matters, as it did in the court law
controversy. But these phases of the dispute involved no
principle; the chief issue was the claim of the Assembly to
the sole right to frame supply bills. In 1754, the Council
having proposed an amendment to an appropriation bill, the
Assembly promptly rejected it and unanimously resolved
"that the Councill in taking upon them to make several mate-
rial Alterations to the said Bill whereby the manner of raising
as well as Application of the Aid thereby granted to his
Majesty is directed in a different Manner than by that said
Bill proposed have acted contrary to Custom and Usage of
Parliament and that the same tends to Infringe the Bight
and Liberties of the Assembly who have always enjoyed un-
interrupted the Privilege of Framing and modelling all Bills
by Virtue of which Money has been Levied on the Subject
for an Aid for his Majesty." Having made good this princi-
ple, the Assembly voted money for support of the war with
a liberality which even Dobbs acknowledge 1. After 1758,
however, the governor made a total failure in his efforts to
direct the Assembly. More zealous than judicious, he allowed
himself to become involved in a silly quarrel over what the
Board of Trade called a "trivial" matter, in which he imag-
ined the king's prerogative was affected, and rather than
yield a little where resistance could do no good, he foolishly
threw away the supplies which a burdened people reluctantly
offered. Quarrel followed quarrel; the sessions were con-
sumed with quarrels. The Assembly refused to frame sup-
ply bills at the governor's dictation, and in an outburst of
wrath, he wrote to the Board of Trade that the members were

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 237

"as obstinate as mules" and appealed to the king to strength-
en his authority for "supporting his Majesty's prerogative"
in the colonv.

In these controversies with Dobbs, one's sympathies are
naturally with the Assembly. Nevertheless when one con-
siders the threat which the vast designs of France held out
against the very existence of the British Empire in America,
the danger which hung over the colonists themselves from the
hostility of the savage and relentless allies of the French, and
the urgent necessity for unity and harmony in all the English-
speaking colonies, one cannot altogether escape the feeling
that the Board of Trade was justified in rebuking the As-
sembly for its "unfortunate and ill-timed disputes
at a time when the united efforts of all his Majesty's subjects
are so essentially necessary to their own security and to the
promoting the general interest of the Community."

The Assembly's justification must be sought in its con-
viction that it was fighting the battles of constitutional and
representative government. Its appeal was constantly to
the "Constitution" and the "usage and practice" of the col-
ony. By "Constitution" it meant the Carolina charter and
the practices which had grown up under it. Among its
provisions was a guarantee that the people of Carolina should
"freely and quietly have, possess and enjoy" as fully as if
they were residents of England, "all liberties, franchises,
and privileges, of this our kingdom, without the

molestation, vexation, trouble, or grievance, of us, our heirs,
and successors; any act, statute, ordinance, or provision, to
the contrary notwithstanding." Furthermore, the charter
contained certain provisions which, though not among those
"liberties, franchises and privileges" which the people en-
joyed as Englishmen, were yet equally as binding upon both
ruler and subject. In the quorum controversy, for instance,
the Assembly based its contention on that clause of the char-
ter which provided for the making of laws by and with the
advice and consent of the freemen, "or the greater part of
them, or their delegates or deputies," and asserted that "the
King had no right to lessen the Quorum by his Instructions."
These chartered rights, the Assembly held, had not been af-
fected by the transfer of the colony to the Crown, and could
be neither abridged nor abrogated without the consent of the
people. As late as 1761, Dobbs wrote that the Assembly con-
' tended that the charter "still subsisted" and that it bound
the king as well as the people. The Assembly felt, there-

238 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

fore, that it was fighting the battles of representative gov-
ernment, which the royal governors had set themselves to
destroy. Dobbs summed up the situation when he wrote,
''The Assembly think themselves entitled to all the Privileges
of a British House of Commons and therefore ought not to
submit to His Majesty's honorable Privy Council further than
the Commons do in England, or submit to His Majesty's in-
structions to His Governor and Council here," and appealed
to the king to strengthen his hands that he might more effec-
tually "oppose and suppress a republican spirit of Independ-
ency rising in this Colony. ' '

CHAPTER XIV
INTER-COLONIAL AND IMPERIAL RELATIONS

The change from a proprietary to a crown colony swept
North Carolina more fully than ever into the current of inter-
colonial and imperial affairs. Its administration now passed
under the immediate supervision of a committee of the Privy
Council officially entitled the Lords Commissioners for Trade
and Plantations, but better* known as the Board of Trade. To
enable this board, to which was committed the general super-
vision of colonial affairs, to carry out its task, power was
given it to recommend to the king in Council suitable persons
for governor, councillors, judges and other colonial officials;
to draft instructions to governors, and to correspond with
them ; to examine laws passed by colonial assemblies and to
recommend to the king in Council those which ought to be
approved and those which ought to be vetoed ; to hear com-
plaints of oppression and mal-administration in the colonies
and to report its findings to the king in Council; to require
accountings of public funds voted by colonial assemblies;
to "execute and perform all other things necessary or proper
for answering our royal intentions in the premises;" and,
finally, in order to make its power effective, to send for per-
sons and papers, and to examine persons under oath. Al-
though it had no executive power of its own, nevertheless its
advice was sought and generally adopted by the Privy Coun-
cil which had ultimate authority in colonial affairs. The
Board of Trade, writes Andrews, "developed fairly definite
ideas as to what the British policy towards the colonies should
be; it maintained in the Plantation Office a permanent staff
of secretaries and clerks who became the guardians of the
traditions of the office; and upheld, during periods of political
manipulation and frequent change, a more or less fixed colo-
nial program." *

The Board of Trade displayed remarkable consistency in

1 Andrews, Charles McLean: The Colonial Period, p. 136.

239

240 HISTOEY OF NORTH CAROLINA

its colonial program and held tenaciously to certain principles
of imperial government. It sought to make the governments
of the colonies, as far as possible, conform to a single adminis-
trative type and by retaining control of the executive and
judiciary to preserve and strengthen their dependence upon
the home government. North Carolina felt the influence of
these policies even before the purchase by the Crown. We
have already seen how the Board of Trade sought to bring
North Carolina under its administrative control, first through
action by Parliament, then through quo warranto proceedings ;
and how, when both of these methods failed, through gradual
encroachments upon the chartered rights and privileges of the
Lords Proprietors, it finally forced them to surrender their
charter. Similar proceedings, at times even more arbitrary
ones, were taken with other proprietary colonies. Closely
allied with this policy were the efforts of the board to
strengthen its authority over the colonies through undivided
control over their executive and judiciary officers. Even in
the proprietary governments, an act of Parliament required
nominees of the Proprietors for governor to be approved
by the king before they could qualify. In the royal colonies
the board undertook to establish permanent civil lists in
order that the governors, judges and other officials might be
independent of the assemblies for their salaries and hence be
free to carry out imperial policies unhampered by local inter-
ests. With the same object in view it required judges to be
commissioned during the king's pleasure only.

These policies met with intense opposition in the colonies.
In North Carolina Burrington and Johnston, in obedience to
their instructions, called upon the Assembly to provide per-
manently "a competent salary" for the governor, but the
Assembly replied that if the king wished the governor's salary
to be so fixed, he could pay it out of his quit rents. The Board
of Trade accordingly adopted the suggestion, but the col-
lection of quit rents depended upon legislation by the Assem-
bly, and the Assembly, as we have seen, refused to obey in-
structions relating to them. Quit rents, therefore, were so
seldom collected in North Carolina that Burrington 's salary
was never paid, while Johnston's, at the time of his death,
was thirteen years in arrears. In its instructions to Dobbs, the
Board of Trade introduced an additional clause, common to
its instructions to governors of other colonies, that the Assem-
bly should fix a civil list "without limitation in point of time."
But the Assembly steadfastly refused. "I can see no prospect

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 241

of getting a fixed salary to the Governor or his successors,"
wrote Dobbs to the Board of Trade. " * * * There seems
to be an established maxim fixed in the several Assemblies of
the colonies to keep the Governors and Government as much
in their power as they can." Like his predecessors, Dobbs
was compelled to look elsewhere for his compensation.

Control of the judiciary in the imperial interests turned
less upon the question of salary than upon the tenure of
the judges. The colonies insisted that judges be commissioned
during good behavior, but the Board of Trade instructed the
governors to issue no commissions except during the king's
pleasure. In 1754 Governor Dobbs was compelled to break
through his instructions on this point and consent to an act
which provided for judges during good behavior, but the king,
upon the advice of the Board of Trade, promptly repudiated
his action. In 1761 the Board of Trade assumed an inflexible
attitude on this point. It removed the governor of New Jersey
from office for failure to enforce this policy. In the same year
it reported adversely upon two judiciary acts of the North
Carolina Assembly largely because they provided for judges
during good behavior, for it confessed that in other respects,
the acts were "not only regular and uniform" in themselves,
but were also "consonant to the principles and Constitution
of the Mother Country" and "properly adapted to the situa-
tion and circumstances" of the colony. Thus in one colony
after another the judiciary was brought under the control of
the Crown and after 1762 all judges held office during pleasure
only. The colonies never became reconciled to this policy and
when they came in 1776 to declare their independence of the
mother country, they listed it among those things which
justified their action.

The Board of Trade kept constantly in view not only the
relations of the colonies to the empire, but their relations
to each other and to the savage nations with which
they came in contact. Many of its most important activities
concerned inter-colonial relations and Indian affairs. Under
its supervision came such problems as boundary line contro-
versies, inter-colonial trade policies, and the relations of the
several Indian nations to each other as well as to the whites.

Prior to 1700 few of the colonies had such well defined
boundaries as to be free from boundary disputes which always
involved questions that could not be settled by those directly
interested in them. In those between crown colonies and pro-
prietary colonies, as illustrated in the North Carolina-Vir-

Vol. 1—16

242 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ginia boundary dispute, both king and proprietors had inter-
ests to be considered. The colonies themselves were deeply
concerned as the controversies frequently involved the en-
forcement of criminal laws, the execution of judicial processes,
the collection of taxes, service in the militia, Indian affairs, and
other governmental problems. Private interests too were
numerous and complicated. Titles to land along the contested
lines rested upon the right of the government under which
they were claimed to issue the grants, and conflicting claims
often led to disorders, riots, and bloodshed.

No better illustration of conditions growing out of a dis-
puted boundary can be found than those which arose along
the North Carolina-South Carolina border from 1753 to 1764.
As early as 1735 commissioners representing the two prov-
inces had agreed upon the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude as
the boundary but many years passed before it was located by
survey. In 1753 complaint was made to the North Carolina
Council that South Carolina surveyors had entered the Wax-
haw settlement north of the thirty-fifth parallel and were
surveying under grants from South Carolina tracts of land
which were "the property of several persons with-

in this Province to the great Disturbance of their Peace and
Quiet. ': The Council thereupon advised the governor to
issue orders to both the civil and military authorities to arrest
all such surveyors and bring them to trial. Two years later
Governor Dobbs charged that Governor Glen of South Caro-
lina had "spirited up some of the settlers" on his lands, which
had been patented under the laws of North Carolina in 1746,
"to take out warrants of survey from him and he would sup-
port them," adding, "When Mr. Glen would begin with me,
it may be presumed no private person could escape him."
But the chief sufferer in these disputes was Henry McCulloh
whose grants lay along the border. In 1756 it was charged
that Governor Glen was "daily granting warrants of survey"
within McCulloh 's tract. Conflicts between rival survey-
ors, and between those claiming under their surveys, were
often attended with fatal results. Anarchy and lawlessness
prevailed in many border communities for the region in dis-
pute became "a kind of sanctuary to Criminals and Vagabonds
by their pretending as it served their purpose that they be-
longed to either Province. ' '

But there were other actions of the South Carolina authori-
ties which were even more irritating to North Carolina officials
than the surveys. The governor of South Carolina, for in-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 243

stance, required settlers north of the thirty-fifth parallel to
attend his militia musters and undertook to impose fines
upon those who refuse 1 to obey his summons, commissioned
justices of the peace north' of that line, encouraged settlers
there to refuse to pay taxes to the North Carolina govern-
ment, and warned Governor Dobbs himself "not to molest
them. ' ' Encouraged by his support, a band of settlers in An-
son County fell upon the sheriff while he was collecting taxes
and imprisoned him, and Dobbs, "to prevent further con-
fusion, was obliged to overlook it." At times officials of
the twTo provinces actually came into armed conflict. In 1755,
in a letter to Dobbs, Glen denounced "several outrages" by
citizens of North Carolina upon inhabitants of South Carolina,
"which," he added, "having been committed under the colour
of authority by persons pretending to be officers of your
Government, the offense was the more intolerable." To which
Dobbs replied that the North Carolina officials had "only re-
pelled an invasive force" sent from South Carolina to sur-
vey land, collect taxes, and impose fines within the jurisdic-
tion of North Carolina.

These charges and counter-charges finally led to an open
breach between the two governors. They were in truth too
much alike to get along together harmoniously. What Dobbs
said of Glen applies with equal truth to himself, that he was
"too opinionated and self-sufficient to have any dealings with
him." Glen's air of superiority and condescension ruffled
his adversary's sense of dignity. Your letter, wrote Dobbs,
in reply to a letter just received from Glen, was written "in
a very extraordinary style, I may say dictatorial, not as one
Governor to another having equal powers from his Majesty,
and independent of each other, but as if I was dependent
upon you, and obliged to give you an account of my behaviour
in transacting affairs of this Government." Throwing aside
all pretense of diplomacy Dobbs wrote to the Board of Trade
that he would have no further dealings with Glen, and in this
position the board seems to have sustained him for, greatly
to Dobbs' satisfaction, it removed Glen from office.

Such incidents showed the necessity for an impartial tri-
bunal with power to settle controversies between colonies. This
tribunal was found in the Board of Trade. One of its first
problems concerning the Carol inas after their transfer to the
Crown was the settlement of their boundary. At the time the
transfer was completed both George Burrington and Robert
Johnson, the newly appointed royal governors, were in Lon-

244 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

don awaiting their instructions, and since both had been offi-
cials under the Lords Proprietors and were supposed to be
familiar with colonial conditions, the Board of Trade directed
them to agree on a boundary line between their provinces.
After a conference, in which they were joined by "some other
gentlemen belonging to those provinces," they reached an
agreement which the Board of Trade approved. Accordingly
it issued instructions directing the two governors to appoint
commissioners to run a line to begin at the sea thirty miles
southwest of the mouth of Cape Fear River, and keeping that
distance from the river, to run parallel with it to its source,
thence due west as far as the South Sea. Afterwards at the
suggestion of Governor Johnson, and without consulting Bur-
rington, the board added as an alternative, that if the Wac-
camaw River lay within thirty miles of Cape Fear River,
then it should be the line from the sea to its source ; from which
the line should continue parallel with the Cape Fear River at a
distance of thirty miles to its source, thence due west to the
South Sea.

Disputes of course arose over the meaning of these instruc-
tions. The source of the Waccamaw was found to be within
thirty miles of the Cape Fear and this fact gave Burrington
basis for claiming the Waccamaw as the boundary; its mouth,
on the contrary, was at least ninety miles from Cape Fear, and
Johnson insisted that the word "mouth" should be read into
the instructions as its omission "was only a Mistake in the
wording of it." Burrington in a public proclamation warned
all persons against taking out warrants from the South Car-
olina authorities for land north of Waccamaw River, and
Johnson in a similar proclamation replied to him. The two
governors could not agree and were compelled to call in the
Board of Trade to decide between them. Governor Johnson
declared that Burrington 's interpretation "would bring his
boundary into the bowels of our present settlements," and
urged a "speedy running" of the line according to the claims
of South Carolina. But North Carolina was not satisfied
with the Cape Fear River as her western boundary, as such a
line would cut her off from any westward development. Bur-
rington, therefore, urged upon the board reasons for changing
the line from the Cape Fear River to the Pee Dee River, saying
that the former line was "intricate and difficult," and that the
expense of running it would be £2,000 sterling, while the Pee
Dee was a natural boundary open to neither of these objec-
tions. If the whole region between the Cape Fear and the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 245

Pee Dee were sold, lie added, probably with a sardonic grin,
"it wonld not prove sufficient to pay commissioners, chains,
carriers, and labourers," necessary to run the Cape Fear line.
The North Carolina Council endorsed Burrington 's sugges-
tion and advised him not to appoint commissioners until the
Board of Trade had passed upon it. But the board promptly
rejected it, saying that it would not think of altering its instruc-
tion "upon hearing one party only" and directed Burrington
to "put that instruction in execution. ' ' But George Burrington
was determined that the line should not be so run and he never
lacked expedients for carrying his purposes into effect. By
prolonging the debate on the advantages of the Pee Dee line,
and when defeated in that, by referring to the Board of Trade
the problem of paying for the survey, he managed to postpone
the running of the line for three years, so that when he was
recalled in 1734, nothing had, been done. Whatever one may
think of the ethics of his tactics, their success is not open to
criticism for they saved to North Carolina that vast region
west of Cape Fear River and between the thirty-fifth and
thirty-sixth parallels of north latitude, now the richest section
of the commonwealth.

In 1734 Gabriel Johnston succeeded Burrington. Upon his
arrival at Cape Fear, he was asked by Governor Johnson
whether he "had not brought over a more plain instruction
about the dividing line," to which he replied in the negative, at
the same time stating his intention of carrying the old instruc-
tion into execution. Further interchange of views led to an
agreement to appoint commissioners to adjust the differences
between the two governments. In 1735, therefore, Governor
Johnson appointed Alexander Skene, James Abercrombie,
and William Walters to represent South Carolina, and Gov-
ernor Johnston appointed Robert Halton, Eleazer Allen,
Matthew Rowan, Edward Moseley, and Roger Moore to rep-
resent North Carolina. The commissioners met at Lilliput,
the home of Eleazer Allen on the Cape Fear, in March, 1735,
and remained in session six weeks. A spirit of compromise
pervaded their deliberations. The South Carolina commis-
sioners, wrote Governor Johnston, "desired that without ad-
hering with too much rigour to the words of the instruction,
which favoured our pretensions very much, we would agree
to such reasonable propositions as they designed to make us,
and then join our endeavours to get this agreement ratified at
home." The North Carolina commissioners met this sug-
gestion in the spirit in which it was offered, the governor

246 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

himself setting the example. "After many conferences held
during the space of six weeks," wrote the South Carolina com-
missioners, "by the kindly interposition of Gabriel Johnston
[we] had the happiness to remove a difference which
had long subsisted between the two provinces and finally to
settle and adjust the limits to the mutual satisfaction of both."

The line agreed upon was to begin at the sea, thirty miles
southwest of the mouth of Cape Fear River, to run thence
in a northwest course to the thirty-fifth parallel of north lati-
tude, thence due west to the South Sea ; if before reaching the
thirty-fifth parallel, it came within five miles of the Pee Dee
River, it should then run parallel with the Pee Dee at a dis-
tance of five miles to the thirty-fifth degree, thence due west
to the South Sea ; provided that at no point should it approach
nearer than thirty miles to the Cape Fear River ; and pro-
vided, further, that when it reached the reservation of the
Catawba Indians, it should be so ran as to throw those Indi-
ans into South Carolina. This agreement, which the South
Carolinians "consented to with great joy," was signed by all
the commissioners, April 23, 1735, and later was approved by
the Board of Trade which wrote, "We shall always have a
proper regard to so solemn a determination agreed to by
persons properly empowered by each of the Provinces." The
commissioners hastened to carry their agreement into effect.
They began their survey May 1, 1735, and during the summer
and fall ran the line something over 100 miles from the coast.
A deputy surveyor afterwards took the latitude of Pee Dee
River at the thirty-fifth parallel and set up a marker there
which for several years was considered to be the boundary
at that place. In their work, the commissioners "endured
vast fatigue.' ; Most of the line ran through uninhabited
woods in many places impassable until they had cleared the
way. There were, too, several large and rapid rivers which
were crossed only with great danger and difficulty. In spite of
these hardships and difficulties, testified Governor Johnston,
they "performed their business with great diligence and
exactness." Although their work did not put an end to the
controversies between the two provinces, it fixed the line
from which no substantial deviations were afterwards made.
Surveys in 1737, in 1764, and in 1772 carried it as far west
as Tryon Mountain where' it stopped until after North Caro-
lina and South Carolina had ceased to be British colonies.

The boundary dispute between the two provinces was in-
timatelv connected with their trade relations. For commercial

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 247

reasons the settlers along the upper waters of the Pee Dee
and Catawba rivers wanted the line to be so run as either to
throw them into South Carolina, or to leave the Pee Dee River
wholly in North Carolina. The explanation of their wishes is
found in the fact that Charleston was their chief market. An
inhabitant of Mecklenburg County, writing in 1768 about the
building of a palace for the governor at New Bern, declared
that i i not one man in twenty of the four most populous coun-
ties will ever see this famous house when built, as their con-
nections and trade do, and ever will, more naturally centre
in South Carolina. ' : It was much easier for them to float their
produce down the Pee Dee and Catawba rivers to Charleston
than to carry them overland to Wilmington and New Bern.

Instead of encouraging this trade, South Carolina in the
supposed interest of her own merchants, laid heavy duties on
products imported from North Carolina. In 1762 the Council
petitioned the king to order the southern boundary of the
province to be carried farther south to Winyaw where the
Pee Dee River enters the Atlantic Ocean "as by our having
one side of Winyaw we should have a free navigation to the
Sea and enjoy the Benefit of the inland Navigation of the
Yadkin, Rocky, Great and Little Pee Dee Rivers, which though
they all run through the Heart of this province enter the Sea
at Winyaw, and as there are heavy Dutys laid in South
Carolina upon the produce of this province we [they] are
from that reason rendered totally useless to both provinces
as the Boundary now stands." Thus the North Carolina
settlers were caught between the devil of geographical
obstacles to trade on the one side and the deep blue sea of
artificial restrictions on the other. The Board of Trade to
which they appealed, admitted that South Carolina's policy
"must in its consequence destruct the Commerce of His Maj-
esty's subjects in North Carolina," and promised relief. But
nothing came of this promise, and North Carolina began to
seek measures of retaliation and relief on her own account.
In 1751 the Assembly levied heavy duties on spirituous liquors
imported into Anson County from South Carolina, and later
forbade the ranging of South Carolina cattle within the bounds
of North Carolina.

But retaliatory measures and vain petitions to the Crown
were less effective than the constructive measures which ac-
companied them. Such a measure was the act, passed in 1762,
for the incorporation of a market town called Campbellton at
the head of navigation of the Cape Fear River. One of the

248 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

reasons cited for the passage of this act was the hope that
"the trade of the counties of Anson and Rowan which at
present centers in Charlestown, South Carolina, to the great
prejudice of this Province, will be drawn down to the said
town." To promote this result acts were also passed for the
building of roads from the Dan River on the Virginia line and
from Shallow Ford on the Yadkin to Campbellton. These
wise measures ultimately turned much of the trade of the back
country from Charleston to Campbellton, thence down the
Cape Fear to Wilmington, brought the West into closer rela-
tions with the East, and checked the tendency of the western
counties of North Carolina to become mere outlying districts of
South Carolina.

Between the Albemarle section of North Carolina and Vir-
ginia existed trade relations similar to those between the back
country and South Carolina. Those relations and Virginia's
hostile policy based on them have already been discussed. But
while North Carolina remained a proprietary colony no trib-
bunal existed sufficiently interested in its welfare with power to
grant relief. Its transfer to the Crown, however, placed it in a
much more favorable position with respect to its more power-
ful northern neighbor. The Albemarle planters were quick to
understand their new status, and in 1731 sought relief by
appealing to the Board of Trade to repeal the Virginia statute
of 1726, originally passed in 1679, which prohibited the ship-
ment of North Carolina tobacco through Virginia ports. The
petitioners declared that tobacco was the chief product by
which they "subsisted and provided their families with all
kinds of European goods," that they could not export it
through their own ports because of the shallow inlets along
the North Carolina coast, and that unless the relief they sought
was granted they would either be reduced to poverty or be
compelled to "fall upon such usefull Manufactorys" as would
render unnecessary the importation of European goods "and
consequently be prejudicial to the Trade of Great Britain."
Suggestions that the colonies might establish manufacturing
enterprises always frightened British statesmen, and the hint
of the Albemarle planters had the desired effect. The Board
of Trade adopted their view of the Virginia statute, and upon
its recommendation the king repealed the obnoxious act, No-
vember 25, 1731.

The repeal of this statute and the settlement of their boun-
dary line removed the chief causes of controversy between
the two colonies. Another source of ill feeling was removed

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 249

when North Carolina assumed the dignity of a crown colony,
a change which made necessary the adoption by the Virginia
government of a more respectful official attitude toward the
younger colony. But perhaps the most important element
in drawing the two colonies together was the influence of the
German and Scotch-Irish settlers who, after 1735, poured into
the back country of both provinces. Coining in search of
good land, these settlers cared little whether they found it
on the headwaters of the James or on the headwaters of the
Yadkin. They brought with them none of the ancient preju-
dices that existed in the older communities of both provinces.
Members of the same family setting out together from Phil-
adelphia would often separate, some finding the object of
their search in Virginia, others passing on into North Caro-
lina. Their church organizations, too, Presbyterian, Lutheran,
German Reformed, and Moravian, existing independently of
vestry laws, took no account of provincial boundary lines.
Finally, the presence on their frontier of powerful savage na-
tions which struggled desperately to stay their advance, was
an ever-present common danger which drew them into the
bonds of a common defence. Under the stimulus of these
influences ancient prejudices and feelings of hostility between
the two colonies gradually gave way to sentiments of genuine
respect and mutual good will.

The presence of powerful Indian tribes on their western
frontier gave the governments of Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina and Georgia many common problems which
drew them into closer relations with each other. Unfortun-
ately these relations were not always of a friendly character.
Speaking broadly, and with respect only to their relations to
the English colonies, there were two classes of Indian nations.
First there were those who had been reduced to the position
of tributaries to the whites; secondly, those whose territory
had not yet been violated by the feet of white settlers and
who were still sufficiently numerous and powerful to main-
tain their independence. Each of the colonies had taken cer-
tain of the former class under its protection, was keenly
jealous of its authority over them, eager to engross their
trade, and quick to resent any encroachments upon their rights
and interests. Indian affairs in general, however, came within
the activities of the Board of Trade which exercised a general
supervision over them and determined the broad • lines of
policy to be followed.

In 1730 the board instructed Burrington to make a report

250 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

on the several tribes in North Carolina and their numbers. In
Eastern North Carolina he found representatives of six na-
tions. One of these had formerly been tributary to Virginia
but had recently, by the running of the Carolina- Virginia
boundary line, been brought within the jurisdiction of North
Carolina. The other tribes were the Hatteras, the Mattamus-
keets, the Pottasketes, the Chowanocs, and the Tuscarora.
None of them, except the Tuscarora, exceeded twenty fam-
ilies. They were indeed but miserable remnants of the once
powerful tribes of the ancient lords of the forest. The greater
part of the Tuscarora had been driven out of the province as a
result of the wars of 1711-1713, and that nation, formerly so
formidable and warlike, whose power had been all but suffi-
cient to destroy the English colony, was now reduced to about
200 fighting men who had been preserved only through the
timid and treacherous policy of their chief, Tom Blunt. In
1730 these nations all lived within the English settlements on
reservations set apart for them by the provincial government.
After the Tuscarora War the Assembly, in 1715, passed an
"Act for Restraining the Indyans from molesting or Injureing
the Inhabitants of this Government and for Secureing to the
Indyans the right and property of their lands." Commenting
on this act after fifteen years of trial, Burrington said, "This
Law has proved very convenient to prevent any irregularities
and misunderstandings with the Tributary Indians that live
among us who have ever since behaved peaceably and are now
excepting the Tuscaroras decayed and grown very inconsid-
erable."

Over the affairs of these tributary nations, in their rela-
tions with the whites and with each other, the provincial gov-
ernment exercised complete control. The Indians could sell no
land without the approval of the governor in Council ; they
were forbidden to hunt beyond the bounds of their reserva-
tions without special license; their commercial dealings with
white traders were subjected to rigid supervision. These re-
strictions were imposed upon them less to restrain their free-
dom than to protect them against injustice from their white
neighbors. In 1741 the Council took the precaution to have the
bounds of the Tuscarora reservation surveyed and recorded in
the secretary's office "to prevent any Incroachments or dis-
putes with the white people who live round about them." If a
tribe wanted to sell any of its land, its chiefs were called into
the presence of the governor and Council, the deed was read
and explained to them, and upon their acknowledgment that

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 251

they had received the money and were satisfied, the governor
approved the sale. To protect them from the machinations of
unscrupulous traders, the Council in 1731 appointed five com-
missioners of Indian affairs to supervise their commercial
dealings with the whites. An illustration of the care with
which the Council guarded these commercial transactions oc-
curred at its session on October 14, 1736, when a petition was
presented on behalf of Susanna Everard, executrix of Sir
Eichard Everard, "setting forth that the Tuskarrora Indians
are indebted to the said Susanna £203 in Drest Deer Skins and
praying that they may be compelled to discharge the same.''
The Council refused to act on the petition but referred it to
the commissioners for Indian affairs and to prevent frauds
from being practiced upon the Indians passed an order that
"for the future the Indians Traders do not presume to trust
or give any credit to the Indians and that the aforesaid Com-
missioners take care to see this Order observed. ': How com-
plete was the government's authority over these tributary
tribes appears from the act of the Tuscarora in 1739 in peti-
tioning the governor for permission to choose a "king." The
governor granted the petition, fixed the time and place of elec-
tion, and directed that the Indians "present to his Excellency
for his approbation such Person as they shall agree upon and
make choice for their King. ' '

The government's control over the Indians' inter-tribal
relations was necessary to the preservation of peace in the set-
tlements, for while these tributary tribes were subdued by the
whites they still nourished their hereditary enmities among
themselves which might at any time involve the whites as well
as the red men. The Tuscarora were particularly hard to
hold in the leash. They could not forget that in the days <>f
their power they had domineered over the surrounding tribes,
nor altogether forego that pleasure in the days of their de-
cline. In 1730 they fell upon "the Saponins and other petty
Nations associated with them," in Virginia, and drove them to
seek refuge among the Catawba. For the Catawba they cher
ished a consuming hatred. In their life-and-death struggle
against European civilization in 1711-1713, Catawba warriors
had gone to the aid of their enemies, and half a century later,
when Bishop Spangenberg passed through their reservation
on his way to the Catawba country they sent by him a message
of defiance to their enemies asking him to tell them "that there
were enough young men among them who knew the way to the
Catawba Town." In 1732 Burrington wrote that "there ha])-

252 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

pens small acts of Hostility now and then in hunting on the
upper parts of Cape Fear River between our Indians and the
Cataubes of South Carolina, which we look to be for our ad-
vantage, thinking Indians love and will be doing a little mis-
chief, therefore had rather they should act it upon their own
tawny race than the English. ' '

But Burrington overlooked the danger of this policy to the
whites, arising from the jealousy with which each colony
guarded the interests of its tributary tribes. In 1730 the Vir-
ginia government protested vigorously to the North Carolina
government against the attacks of the Tuscarora on the Sapo-
nies and trouble between the two colonies was averted onlv
by Burrington 's prompt action in demanding redress from the
Carolina Indians. The mutual hostility between the Tusca-
rora and the Catawba continually stirred up ill feeling between
the two Carolinas. The Catawba dwelt along the waters of
the Catawba River and were well known to the Carolinians as
allies in the Tuscarora War and as enemies in the Yamassee
War. When John Lawson passed through their country in
1701 he found them a "powerful nation." They then num-
bered perhaps 7,000 people, were able to call 1,500 warriors
to battle, and dwelt in numerous towns scattered over an ex-
tensive territory. Thirty years later continuous warfare with
the more powerful Tuscarora and Cherokee nations, small-
pox, and various forms of debauchery introduced by white
traders had decreased their number to less than 500 warriors,
reduced their towns to six miserable villages, and contracted
their territory to a narrow strip along the Catawba River not
more than twenty miles in length. Except in 1715, when they
joined the Yamassee conspiracy, they had been constant and
loyal friends of the English. South Carolina asserted juris-
diction over them and, as we have seen, in her boundary line
agreement with North Carolina, stipulated that the line should
be so run as to throw their reservation wholly within her ter-
ritory.

The Catawba wore hereditary enemies of the Tusca-
rora, who constantly raided their possessions in South
Carolina. Unfortunately in these raids they were often
joined by warriors from the Five Nations who seized or
destroyed horses, cattle, slaves, and other property with-
out inquiring whether they belonged to their enemies or
to the whites. These raids finally became so numerous and so
destructive that in 1730 the settlers complained to Governor
Johnson and Johnson sent William Wattis as his agent to the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 253

Tuscarora to demand satisfaction for their past conduct and
guarantees for the future. At his request Burrington sum-
moned the Tuscarora chiefs to a conference with himself and
the Council and in their presence Wattis presented South
Carolina 's complaints and demands. He sought to frighten the
Tuscarora chiefs into compliance by telling them that if they
refused ''our Governor would look on them as Enemys and
send the Cherokees and Catawbos to cut them off." His
charges they met with denial of guilt, and his threat they re-
ceived with scorn. The only interest they showed in it was
to ask whether any "white men would come with the Catawbos
to war," and to demand "why could we not let them that
were Indians alone make war against Indians without med-
dling with it. "

South Carolina's threat alarmed Burrington much more
than it did the Tuscarora. The latter, having received as-
surances of support from the Five Nations, told Burrington
that while they desired to keep the peace with the whites, yet
if South Carolina sent white men against them "it may bring
on a Warr with the English in General, and may be a matter
of consequence to the Country." Burrington knew this was
no idle threat but was unable to impress the seriousness of
the situation on Governor Johnson. He therefore turned to
the Board of Trade to which he wrote: "We expect our In-
dians will be attackt by those of South Carolina. The North-
ern Indians called the Five Nations are in Alliance and Amity
with ours and have promised to assist them with a Thousand
men part of which are already come into this Province." The
Board of Trade fully appreciated the gravity of the matter
and wrote at once to both Burrington and Johnson to hold
their Indians in check and directed Governor William Cosby
of New York "to interpose his authority with the five Indian
Nations" to keep them quiet, It thought the situation so
grave that it appealed to the queen, then acting as regent in
the absence of the king, to use her personal authority with
the governors of the Carolinas to prevent a war that would
certainly "be of the most fatal Consequences to both these
Colonies."

South Carolina therefore did not carry out her threat, but
the situation strained her relations with North Carolina for a
lon^ time. Although the Catawba were allies of the English,
and tributaries to a sister colony, they offered every obstacle
in their power to the settlement of the region in North Caro-
lina along the upper Pee Dee and Catawba rivers which the

254 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

governors of South Carolina, particularly Governor Glen, in-
sisted ought to be given to that colony. About 300,000 acres
of the McCulloh grant were within this region and were
''claimed by the Catauboe Indians and which they will by
no means permit any white Settlers thereon." Again, in 1749,
''several wicked and evil disposed Persons in Anson County
had the boldness and Insolence to declare that the
present Settlers in that County had no right to the Lands by
them possessed and that even his Majesty had no right to
those Lands. Which declaration was made to and in presence
of the Catawba Indians to the apparent disturbance of the
said settlement of Anson County and tending to breed and
foment a misunderstanding between his Majesty's said sub-
jects and the said Catawba Indians." The North Carolinians
believed — and during the administration of Governor Glen,
1743-1756, had grounds for their belief — that these activities
were instigated and supported by officials of the South Caro-
lina government.

To the west of the Catawba dwelt their powerful and in-
veterate enemies, the Cherokee. With the exception of the
Five Nations, the Cherokee were historically the most im-
portant Indian nation in American history. They were, as
already stated, "the mountaineers of the South, holding the
entire Allegheny region from the interlocking headstreams of
the Kanawha and Tennessee southward almost to the site of
Atlanta, and from the Blue Ridge on the east to the Cumber-
land Range on the west, a territory embracing an area of
about 40,000 square miles, now included in the states of Vir-
ginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
and Alabama."2 Those who dwelt in the Keowee Valley in
South Carolina were known as the Lower Cherokee, those on
the Little Tennessee as the Middle Cherokee, and those on
the Holston as the Upper Cherokee. According to the best
authorities they had in 1735 "sixty-four towns and villages,
populous and full of children," with a total population of not
less than 17,000 of whom 6,000 were fighting men. Four years
later an epidemic of small-pox, brought to Carolina in a slave
ship, swept away nearly half their number. The awful mor-
tality was due largely to their ignorance of this new and
strange disease. Knowing no proper remedy for it, the poor
savages sought relief in the Indian's universal panacea for

2 Moonev, James: Myths of the Cherokee. (Nineteenth Annual
Report of American Bureau of Ethnology, Part I, p. 14.)

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 255

all "strong" sickness, viz., cold plunge baths in the running
streams. No worse treatment could have been devised. The
pestilence swept unchecked from town to town. Despair fell
upon the nation. The priests, losing faith in their ancient
ordinances, threw away their sacred paraphernalia. Hundreds
of warriors on beholding their frightful disfigurement com-
mitted suicide. In spite of these losses, however, the Chero-
kee remained strong in numbers and in geographical position.
Before 1730 they treated with the white man on terms of
equality and had never bowed to his yoke ; while both French
and English eagerly sought alliance with them in their strug-
gle for the mastery in North America.

The French, after planting their first permanent settle-
ment in the South at Biloxi Bay, in 1699, had made rapid
advances upon the back country of the Carolinas. By 1714
they had reached the Coosa Eiver on which, a few miles above
the site of Montgomery, they had built Fort Toulouse, known
to the English as "the fort at the Albamas." They were so
much more successful in their dealings with the Indians than
the English that by 1730 most of the tribes between the settle-
ments of the European rivals were either in active alliance
with them or strongly disposed in their favor. In 1721 the
Board of Trade in a report to the king described the situa-
tion as follows: "The Indian Nations lying between Carolina
and the French settlements on the Mississippi are about 9,200
fighting men of which number 3,400 whom we formerly Traded
with are entirely debauched to the French Interest by their
new settlement and Fort at the Albamas. About 2,000 more
* Trade at present indifferently with both, but it is
to be feared that these likewise will be debauched by the
French unless proper means be used to keep them in your
Majesty's Interest. The remaining 3,800 'Indians are the
Cherokees, a Warlike Nation Inhabiting the Apalatche Moun-
tains, these being still at enmity with the French might with
less difficulty be secured, and it certainly is of the highest
consequence that they should be engaged in your Majestys In-
terest, for should they once take another part not only Caro-
lina but Virginia likewise would be exposed to their Excur-
sions."

Eecognizing the wisdom of this advice, the royal govern-
ment immediately after the transfer of the Carolinas to the
Crown, dispatched Sir Alexander Gumming on a secret mis-
sion to the Cherokee. The king's envoy met the Cherokee
chiefs and warriors at their ancient town of Nequassee, the

256 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

present Franklin, North Carolina, in April, 1730. His bold
bearing so impressed the red men that they conceded all of
his demands and agreed to an alliance with the English. In
order to cement this alliance, Gumming persuaded them to
send a delegation of seven chiefs to England. At Whitehall
these grim savages of the New World were received by the
king with great solemnity, and there in the name of their
people, did homage to him by laying at his feet the "crown"
of their nation which consisted of four scalps of enemies and
five eagle tails, the "feathers of peace." On September 9,
1730, they concluded with the Board of Trade a treaty in which
they stipulated: To live together with the English "as the
children of one Family whereof the Great King is a kind and
loving Father;" to be "always ready at the Governor's com-
mand to fight against any Nation whether they be white men
or Indians who shall dare to molest or hurt the English;" to
"take care to keep the trading path clean and that there be
no blood in the path where the English white men tread;"
not "to trade with the white men of any other Nation but the
English nor permit white men of any other Nation to build
any Forts, Cabins, or plant corn amongst them;" to appre-
hend and deliver "any Negro slaves [who] shall run away
into the woods from their English masters;" to leave to
punishment by due process of English law any Indian who
should kill an Englishman, and any Englishman who should
kill an Indian. This treaty was confirmed with solemn cere-
mony by both the contracting parties. The English as a
token of friendship gave the red men a substantial supply of
guns, ammunition, and red paint, while Chief Scalilasken Ket-
augusta, in behalf of his colleagues, concluded an eloquent
harangue by "laying down his Feathers upon the table," and
saying, "This is our way of talking which is the same to us
as your letters in the Book are to you, and to you Beloved
Men we deliver these feathers in confirmation of all we have
said and of our Agreement to your Articles." Soon after this
ceremony the chiefs took ship for Carolina where they ar-
rived, wrote Governor Johnson, "in good health and mightily
well satisfied with His Majesty's bounty to them."

The relations of the colonies with the great Indian nations,
such as the Iroquois, the Cherokee, and the Creeks, grew in
importance as the rivalry between the French and the English
grew in intensity. These tribes occupied such vast stretches
of territory which touched upon so many colonies, that it soon
became apparent that questions growing out of their rela-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 257

tions could not be 'considered merely as provincial questions.
In 1757, the North Carolina Assembly declared that the "many
flagrant Frauds and Abuses" committed by white traders in
their commercial relations with the Indians, "cannot but tend
to alienate their Affections, and give the French the greater
opportunity of insinuating themselves and carrying on their
destructive Schemes against the British Colonies." Both the
mother country and the colonies, therefore, came to see that
all such Indian affairs were really imperial questions, and the
king acting upon the advice of the Board of Trade decided
to take them, under the immediate supervision of the Crown.
In 1757, therefore, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Georgia were erected into a southern department for
Indian affairs and Edmund Atkins was commissioned by the
Crown "Agent for and Superintendent of the Affairs of the
several Nations or Tribes of Indians inhabiting the Frontiers
of [those provinces] and their Confederates." The object
aimed at, as Governor Dobbs said, was "to connect all our
Indian Allies in one Interest in Conjunction with the other
provinces in which the Indians reside." Its success of course
depended upon the sympathetic co-operation of the several
colonies. In December, 1757, therefore, the North Carolina
Assembly passed an act which placed trade with the Catawba,
Cherokee and other "Western Indians within the limits of
this Province" completely under the supervision of Atkins
and his successors, and clothed them with ample power to en-
force their authority. In 1763 Atkins was succeeded by Cap-
tain John Stuart who continued in office until after the Revo-
lution had removed the British government as a factor in In-
dian affairs.

Vol. 1 — 17

CHAPTER XV
COLONIAL WARS

In their political and commercial affairs the colonies felt
their connection with the mother country chiefly in its bur-
dens and restrictions, but they found some compensation in
the protection which their connection with the British Empire
assured them. Their peace and safety were constantly threat-
ened from three allied sources. First there were enemy In-
dians whose presence was an ever threatening danger. Then
the southern colonies in particular were never free from the
menace of the Spaniards in Florida for, as Fiske graphically
puts it, Carolina was "the border region where English and
Spanish America marched upon each other." But greater
than the danger from either Indians or Spaniards was the
danger from the French. In 1608, one j^ear after the found-
ing of Jamestown, Champlain founded Quebec and secured
for France the region drained by the St. Lawrence ; in 1682
La Salle, inspired by dreams of a great continental empire,
seized the mouth of the Mississippi and established the su-
premacy of France over all the region drained by the Father
of Waters. Between these two distant heads, stretched the
vast empire of New France. The interests of New France
clashed with those of New England everywhere along their
far-flung frontiers, and these clashing interests brought the
two colonial empires into a century-long life-and-death strug-
gle for supremacy in North America. The several stages of
this contest were marked by four wars known in American
history as King William's War (1689-1697), Queen Anne's
War (1702-1713), King George's War (1744-1748), and the
French and Indian War (1754-1763).

For North Carolina and South Carolina, the proximity
of the Spanish and French settlements held a three-fold dan-
ger. There were, first, the danger of a direct attack upon their
unprotected coast towns ; second, the danger of an indirect at-
tack through the Indians ; and, third, the danger of being cut

258

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 259

off entirely from farther westward expansion. The two colo-
nies were fully alive to the seriousness of their situation and
as we have seen freely assisted each other in meeting- it. But
they also realized that the menace was not to them alone, but
to the whole of British- America and they long sought in vain
to impress the home government with this view. St. Augus-
tine afforded the enemy an excellent base for operations
against the Carolinas both by land and by sea. In 1686 a
Spanish force from St. Augustine invaded South Carolina and
destroyed the colony at Port Royal. In 1702, upon the out-
break of Queen Anne's War, South Carolina sent an expedi-
tion against St. Augustine, but it ended in disaster. Pour
years later a combined French and Spanish squadron attacked
Charleston, but was beaten off with heavy losses. During
these wars, according to Governor Burrington. parties from
French and Spanish privateers and men-of-war "frequently
landed and plundered" the coast of North Carolina, and the
colony was put to "great expenses" in "establishing a force
to repell them." Two of the Lords Proprietors declared,
"That in 1707 when Carolina was attacked by the French it
cost the Province twenty thousand pounds and that neither
His Majesty nor any of his predecessors had been at any
charge from the first grant to defend the said Province against
the French or other enemies. ' '

It was, however, by their indirect attacks through the In-
dians that the Spaniards and the French inflicted the greatest
losses upon the Carolinas. In 1715 they organized the great
Indian conspiracy that resulted in the Yamassee War. These
rival and generally hostile tribes, said a group of South Caro-
lina merchants in a petition to the king for aid, "never yet
had policy enough to form themselves into Alliances, and
would not in all Probability have proceeded so far at this
time had they not been incouraged, directed and supplied by
the Spaniards at St. Augustine and the French at Moville
[Mobile] and their other Neighbouring Settlements. " In a let-
ter to Lord Townsend, the king's principle secretary of state,
Governor Craven declared that if South Carolina were de-
stroyed, as at one time seemed not improbable, "the French
from Moville, or from Canada, or front old France" would
take possession and "threaten the whole British Settlements."
The Carolina officials could not make the home government
understand that the attack was not merely a local Indian out-
break, aimed at South Carolina alone, but that it was a phase
of the general policy of the French in their struggle for su-

260 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

premacy in America and was aimed at all the British Amer-
ican dominions.

Even more serious than these wars, because if successful
more permanent in their results, were the French plans in
the Mississippi Valley. In a memorial to the Board of Trade,
in 1716, Richard Beresford, of South Carolina, called atten-
tion to the fact that the French along the Mississippi River
had already encroached "very far within the bounds of the
Charter of Carolina" and had "settled themselves on the
back of the improved part of that Province." If permitted
to remain there they would become a permanent obstacle to
the westward march of English settlements, confining them to
the narrow region between the Atlantic and the Alleghanies.
Yet all efforts to arouse the home authorities to a realization
of the danger were vain. The Lords Proprietors could not,
and as long as the Carolinas remained proprietary colonies,
the Crown would not lift a hand in their defence. It was not
until after South Carolina, in 1719, had thrown off the rule
of the Lords Proprietors, largely because of their inability
to aid in the defence of the colony, that the Board of Trade
manifested any interest in the situation. In 1720 it advised
(.he king that considering that the people of South Carolina
"have lately shaken off the Proprietors Government, as in-
capable of affording them protection, [and] that the In-
habitants are exposed to incursions of the Barbarous Indians,
[and] to the encroachments of their European neighbours,"
he should forthwith send a force for the defence of that
colony. But this advice, like the repeated appeals of the
colonies, went unheeded and the Carolinas were left to their
own resources.

The home government, however, finally awaked to a reali-
zation of the stakes at issue and in the third of the series of
wars for supremacy in America undertook to co-operate with
the colonies on a large scale. The war really began in 1739
when England declared war on Spain, though France did not
formally enter the struggle until five years later. In attack-
ing Spain, England's purpose was to break down the Spanish
colonial system and open Spanish-American ports to English
commerce. The government accordingly planned to strike a
blow at some vital point in Spain's American colonies with a
combined force of British and American troops. In the sum-
mer of 1740, therefore, the king called upon the colonies for
their contingents of men and money. This was the first call
ever made upon them as a whole for co-operation in an im-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 261

perial enterprise, and the colonies responded with enthusiasm.
Throughout the summer preparations were actively pushed
forward both in England and in America, and in October a
fleet of thirty ships of the line and ninety transports, carry-
ing 15,000 sailors and 12,000 soldiers sailed from Spithead,
England, for Jamaica, where they were joined by American
troops from all the colonies except New Hampshire, Delaware,
South Carolina, and Georgia. Delaware's contingent was
probably counted in that of Pennsylvania, while those from
South Carolina and Georgia were probably kept at home to
protect their frontiers from attack by the Spaniards of Flor-
ida. The other nine colonies sent thirty-six companies of 100
men each. Of these Massachusetts contributed six, Rhode
Island two, Connecticut two, New York five, New Jersey two,
Pennsylvania eight, Maryland three, Virginia four, and North
Carolina four.

In July, 1740, Governor Gabriel Johnston received in-
structions from the king directing him to convene the. Assem-
bly and inform it of the government's plans. The king de-
clared that he "had not thought fit to fix any particular quota"
for the colony as he did not want to place any limitation on
its zeal, but he expected it to exert itself in the common cause
as much as its circumstances would allow. In reply to the
governor's message, the Assembly promised to "contribute
to the utmost" of its power and assured him that "no Colony
hath with more chearfullness contributed than we shall to
forward the intended descent upon some of the Spanish Colo-
nies." This promise was promptly made good. The Assem-
bly passed an act levying a tax of three shillings on each poll
in the colony, payable, owing to the scarcity of money among
the people, in "commodities of the country" at fixed rates,
provided adequate machinery for its prompt collection, and
directed that warehouses be erected for storing the proceeds.
The governor expressed the "highest satisfaction" at the As-
sembly 's action, saying : ' ' You have now given evident proof
of your unfeigned zeal for his Majesty's service and consider-
ing the circumstances of the country contributed as liberally
as any of our neighbouring colonies." He estimated the levy
authorized by the Assembly at £1,200 sterling, which was suffi-
cient to equip and subsist four companies of 100 men each until
they could join the army at Jamaica when they would be put
on the payroll of the Crown.

The governor's call for recruits brought a prompt re-
sponse. Four companies containing a total of 400 men, a force

262 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

in proportion to population equivalent to 25,000 at the pres-
ent time, were quickly enrolled. "I have good reason to be-
lieve," wrote the governor to the Duke of Newcastle, "that
we could easily have raised 200 more if it had been possible to
negotiate the bills of exchange in this part of the continent;
but as that was impracticable, we were obliged to rest sat-
isfied with four companies." Three of these companies were
recruited in the Albemarle section, the other at Cape Fear.
The Albemarle companies were under command of Captains
Halton, Coletrain, and Pratt, the Cape Fear company under
Captain James Innes. The former embarked at Edenton early
in November, 1740, and sailed for Wilmington where they
were joined by Captain Innes' company. Says the Wilmington
correspondent of the South Carolina Gazette, November 24,
1740: "The 15th Inst. Capt. James Innes, with his compleat
Company of Men, went on board the Transport to proceed
for the General Rendezvous. They were in general brisk and
hearty, and long for Nothing so much as a favorable Wind,
that they may be among the first in Action. Capt. Innes has
taken out Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and if any Spanish
Ship is to be met with, he doubts not of giving a proper ac-
count of them. The Governor and Assembly of
this Province proceeded with great Spirit on this Occasion,
the lower House chearfully granted an Aid to his Majesty
of £1500 Sterling, to assist in Victualling and Transporting
their Quota of Troops. When so poor a Province gives such
Testimony of their Zeal and Spirit against our haughty En-
emy, it is to be hoped the Ministry at Home will be convinced
that it is the Voice of all his Majesty's Subjects, both at home
and abroad, Humble the proud Spaniard, bring down his
haughty Looks."

From Wilmington the North Carolina companies sailed
directly for Jamaica where they joined the united British
and colonial forces. The squadron was under the command
of Admiral Edward Vernon; the army was first under Lord
Cathcart, and after his death under General Wentworth. Sir
William Gooch, then governor of Virginia, was in immediate
command of the "American Regiments." In February, 1741,
the fleet sailed to attack Cartagena on the coast of Venezuela.
From the first the expedition was doomed to failure. Ill-feel-
ing and rivalry between the land forces and the naval forces
thwarted every movement. The only successful effort made
throughout the campaign was the assault on Boca-Chica (little
mouth), the entrance to the harbor of Cartagena. North Caro-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 263

Una troops participated in this attack. The forts were car-
ried, the fleet entered the harbor, and troops were landed to
attack the forts defending the town. This attack on the forts
was repulsed with severe losses, heavy rains set in, an epi-
demic of fever broke out among the troops, and within less
than two days half of them were dead or otherwise incapaci-
tated for service. Nothing was left but acknowledgment of
defeat, re-embarkation and return to Jamaica. The lives of
20,000 men had been sacrificed to the incompetency and jeal-
ousy of the commanding officers. Of the North Carolina con-
tingent but few survived. The Cape Fear company, originally
100 strong, reached Wilmington in January, 1743, reduced
to 25 men.

North Carolina's losses on this expedition, however, were
not comparable to those she suffered at home. For eight years
Spanish and French privateers infested her waters, captured
her ships, ravaged her coasts, plundered her towns, and levied
tribute upon her inhabitants almost with impunity. In May,
1741, they captured two merchantmen out of Edenton "be-
fore they had been half an hour at sea," while the owner of
one of them "had the Mortification to see his Vessel and
Cargo taken before his face as he stood on the shore." With-
in the next ten days, four other ships fell victims to the same
privateers. On May 12th, a sloop bound from North Caro-
lina to Hull, England, was captured off Cape Fear. In July
another merchantman was taken "within the Bar of Ocra-
coke;" the owner estimated his loss at £700 sterling. The
same privateer had already taken six other prizes. In August
reports from Wilmington mentioned the capture of a schooner
and a sloop besides "many other vessels" bound for that port.
The Indian Queen, North Carolina to Bristol, was taken in
October. Similar reports run through the succeeding years.
In June, 1747, it was reported "that there are now no less
than 9 Spanish Privateers cruizing on this coast," The
Molly, from Cape Fear to Barbados; the Rebecca, from
Charleston to 'Cape Fear; the John and Mary, from Cape
Fear to Bristol, "with a Cargo of Pitch, Tar and Turpen-
tine;" and an unnamed vessel from London to Cape Fear,
were but a few of their prizes. In July, 1 748, three ships were
"cut out of Ocracoke Inlet" by Spanish privateers. Of the
great majority of captures no reports arc now available, but
some idea of the havoc wrought in colonial commerce may be
gathered from the shipping reports of the South Carolina
Gazette. That periodical reported as clearing between Charles-

264 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ton and North Carolina ports during the five years before the
declaration of war, 1735-1739, inclusive, eighty vessels ; dur-
ing the five years, 1744 to 1748 inclusive, the same paper re-
ported as clearing between the same ports only twenty-one
vessels.

It is not without interest to note that as the privateersmen
revived memories of the deeds of "Blackbeard," so also they
made skillful use of the same inlets and harbors that had so
often sheltered the famous pirate. "The Spaniards," it was
reported, in 1741, "have built themselves Tents on Ocracoke
Island; Two of the Sloops lie in Teache's Hole," where they
found shelter from the British men-of-war. After cruising
about Chesapeake Bay and ravaging the Virginia coast, says
a report in July, 1741, they sought safety from the Hector,
a 40-gun man-of-war, "in Teache's Hole in North Carolina
where they landed, killed as many Cattle as they wanted, and
tallowed their Vessels' Bottoms." Another favorite rendez-
vous was Lookout harbor "where they wood, water, kill Cat-
tle, and carry their Prizes till they are ready to go (with
them) to their respective Homes. ' ' Men-of-war were afraid to
seek them in Lookout harbor because of their "Want of
Knowledge of it. ' '

Eesistance to the Spaniards was feeble and spasmodic.
The Assembly made appropriations for the erection of forts
at Ocracoke, Core Sound, Bear Inlet, and Cape Fear, but
none of them proved of any service. Fort Johnston, named
in honor of the governor, afterwards played an important
part in the history of the Cape Fear region, but during the
Spanish "War was ineffective as a defence against the enemy.
In June, 1739, before the declaration of war and in anticipa-
tion of it, the king authorized Governor Johnston to issue
letters of marque and reprisal against Spanish shipping, and
a few privateers were fitted out at Wilmington, but the results
of their work were negligible. For instance, in July, 1741,
Wilmington merchants fitted out two privateers, one of twen-
ty-four guns, Captain George Walker, the other a small
sloop, Captain Daniel Dunbibin, "to go in quest of the Span-
ish Privateers which infest this Coast," but as late as Sep-
tember no news had been received of them. British men-of-
war also patrolled the coast. There were the Hector, forty
guns, Captain Sir Yelverton Peyton, the Tartar, Captain
George Townsend, the Swift, Captain Bladwell, the Cruizer,
and another, name not mentioned, under command of Cap-
tain Peacock. But the merchants found grounds for

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 265

complaining of the lack of vigilance even among the men-of-
war, and it was openly charged that "the Spaniards were so

encouraged by the Indolence, if not the C ce [cowardice ]

of Sir Y — — n " [Yelverton], that they ravaged the coast with
impunity. Other British commanders, however, were more
active. In July, 1741, Captain Peacock compelled the Span-
iards to abandon their shelter at Ocraeoke and to burn "the
Tents they had built on Ocraeoke Island." May 26, 1742, the
Swift after an all day chase overtook a privateer off Ocra-
eoke Inlet and engaged her in battle. The privateer, however,
got the best of the fight, shot away the mainstays and fore-
stays of the Swift, compelling her to put back into Wil-
mington for repairs, and then escaped in the darkness. A few
months later the Swift had better luck, capturing a large
Spanish sloop which she brought into Wilmington and con-
verted into a British privateer.

Emboldened by their successes, the Spaniards became am-
bitious. In 1 747 they attacked and captured the town of Beau-
fort which they held for several days and plundered before
being driven out. The next year their audacity reached its
climax in an attack on Brunswick. September 3, 1748, three
Spanish privateers, the Fortune, a sloop of 130 tons, car-
rying ten 6-pounders and fourteen swivels, Captain Vincent
Lopez, the Loretta, carrying four 4-pounders, four 6-pound-
ers. and twelve swivels, Captain Joseph Leon Munroe,
and a converted merchantman, appeared off the Cape Fear
bar. Two days later they dropped anchor off Brunswick and
opened fire upon the shipping there. At the same time a force
which they had landed below the town attacked from the land
side. Taken by surprise, the inhabitants fled in confusion.
The enemy thereupon seized five ships "and several small
craft" that were in the harbor, captured the collector of the
port and several other men, and "plundered and destroyed
everything without fear of being disturbed."

But the inhabitants quickly recovering from their surprise
organized a force of eighty men, under command of Captain
William Dry, and returned to the attack. They in turn sur-
prised their enemy in the midst of their plundering, killed or
captured many of them, drove the others to the shelter of
their ships, and were vigorously "pursuing their good for-
tunes till they were saluted with a very hot fire from the com-
modore sloop's great guns, which, however, did not
prevent their killing or taking all the stragglers." The For-
tune continued the bombardment till suddenly "to our great

266 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

amazement and (it may be believed) joy, she blew up." Most
of her crew, including her commander and all of his officers,
perished in the explosion or were drowned. Thereupon, the
Loretta, which had gone up the river in pursuit of a prize,
''hoisted bloody colours," dropped down the river again, and
opened fire "pretty smartly" on the town. But this turned
out to be mere bluster. Soon lowering her "bloody colours,"
she "hoisted white in her shroud" and sent a flag of truce
ashore "desiring to have liberty to go off with all the vessels,
and promising on that condition to do no further damage."
But Captain Dry boldly replied "that they might think them-
selves well off to get away with their own vessel, that he could
not consent to their carrying away any other, and would take
care they should do no more damage; but he proposed to let
them go without interruption if they would deliver up all the
English prisoners they had, with everything belonging to the
place." The Spaniard's only answer to this defiance was to
abandon all of his prizes except the Nancy, which he had
armed and manned with a Spanish crew, and to slip quietly
down the river under a white flag. He anchored off Bald-Head
and let it be known that he was ready to negotiate for an ex-
change of prisoners. This was soon effected through a com-
mission sent by Major John Swann who had arrived from
Wilmington with 130 men and taken command. The Span-
iard then put to sea and disappeared.

In this attack, the Carolinians escaped without the loss
of a man. They had two slightly wounded, none killed.
Their property losses, however, were heavy for what
the Spaniards "did not carry away they broke or cut to
pieces." Nevertheless the Carolinians won a great triumph,
for as they justly boasted, "notwithstanding our ignorance in
military affairs, our want of arms and ammunition (having
but 3 charges per man when we attacked them), the delay of
our friends in coming to our assistance, and the small num-
ber [we] were composed of (many of which were negroes),"
they had beaten off a much superior enemy consisting of 220
men and three armed ships, compelling them to abandon their
prizes, and causing them a loss of 140 men, more than one-
half of their force, including their commanding officer.

The attack on Brunswick was made more than two months
after peace had been declared. On June 17, 1748, the Board
of Trade wrote Governor Johnston, "Preliminaries for a
Peace have been signed at Aix-la-Chapelle by the Ministers
of all the Powers engaged in the war." This treaty, however,

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 267

settled none of the questions at issue between the rivals in
America; it merely afforded them a breathing spell in which
to prepare for a greater struggle yet to come. The French,
much more alive to the situation than their rivals, began at
once to take advantage of this lull in the contest. Realizing
that something more than mere assertion of title was neces-
sary to secure to them the territory along the Ohio and the
Mississippi, which formed so large a part of New France,
they built a series of strong forts to connect the two distant
heads of their empire. By the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury, therefore, the long frontier between Montreal and New
Orleans was defended by more than sixty forts. Many of these
forts stood on land claimed by New York, Pennsylvania, Vir-
ginia, and the Carolinas, yet in these colonies, only a few
people clearly appreciated the significance of the French move-
ments, or understood how to check them. The most significant
of the English counter-movements was the organization in
London and Virginia of the Ohio Land Company for planting
English settlements on the east bank of the Ohio River. But
this region was also claimed by the French and it was here
that the first clash came. In 1753 Governor Robert Dinwiddie
of Virginia learning that the French were encroaching upon
this territory sent Major George Washington on his famous
mission to demand their withdrawal. Upon their refusal, Din-
widdie ordered Washington to seize and fortify the point
where the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers unite to form
the Ohio. But Washington had scarcely begun his work when
a superior force of Frenchmen appeared, drove him away and
erected on the site he had chosen a strong fortress which they
called Fort Duquesne. Thus began the great war which was
to decide the mastery of North America.

In this contest the English had the advantage of numerical
strength and interior lines, but these advantages were fully
offset by the unity of command and purpose which prevailed
with the French. From Quebec to New Orleans, all New
France moved in obedience to a single autocratic will. The
English on the other hand were divided into thirteen separate
governments, politically independent of each other, and
largely self-governing. Not a soldier could be enrolled, not
a shilling levied in any English colony until a popular as-
sembly had been persuaded of its wisdom; and no concerted
movement could be undertaken until many different executives
had been consulted and many different legislative bodies, jeal-
ous of their authority and hostile to every suggestion that

268 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

conflicted with their local interests, had given consent. The
French of course were aware of this situation and counted it
as one of the strong elements in their favor. "The French,"
observed Governor Dinwiddie, in 1754, "too justly observe this
want of connection in the Colonies, and from thence conclude
(as they declare without reserve) that although we are vastly
superior to them in Numbers, yet they can take and secure the
Country before we can agree to hinder them." He thought
that an act of Parliament might be necessary to cure the evil.
The necessity for co-operation was clearly understood in Eng-
land and the government urged it upon the colonies in almost
every dispatch that crossed the Atlantic. In July, 1754, Presi-
dent Rowan of North Carolina received a rebuke from the
government because of his "total Silence upon that part of
His Majesty's orders which relate to a concert with the other
Colonies." But except among a few far-sighted leaders no
sentiment existed in any of the English colonies in favor of
a closer union. In 1754, at the beginning of the great war, the
colonies rejected with scant ceremony the Albany Plan of
Union which, especially as a war measure, had many excellent
features to recommend it.

The attitude of North Carolina toward the Albany Plan
was typical of the attitude of the other colonies. Governor
Dobbs laid it before the Assembly at its December session in
1754 and asked for its consideration saying that the king had
instructed him "to promote a happy union among the prov-
inces for their General Union and Defence." But the Assem-
bly was not interested in it. It merely ordered the plan to
be printed and distributed among its members "for their
Mature Consideration," but postponed discussion to the next
session and then forgot it. Other colonies gave it even less
consideration. The colonies had to drink deep of the cup of
bitter experience, of suffering and disaster, before they were
ready for a real union.

In another respect, too, the French had an advantage over
the English. The French settlements were little more than
military outposts, garrisoned by trained soldiers, fully
equipped with the best arms, and commanded by experienced
officers. The English colonies on the other hand were indus-
trial and agricultural communities, thoroughly non-militaris-
tic and almost wholly unprepared for war. Here again the situ-
ation in North Carolina was typical. Although that colony
had just gone through the Spanish War in which its troops
had been defeated, its coasts ravaged and its towns plundered,

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 269

the lessons of that experience had been lost upon both gov-
ernor and people. Not a fort protected its long frontier, and
the money appropriated for defences along the coast had been
largely unspent. No fortifications had been erected at Ocra-
coke, Lookout, or Topsail Inlet. At Cape Fear, Fort Johnston
was still unfinished and almost totally unmanned. Though the
plan called for sixteen 9-pounders and thirty swivels, the fort
contained only five 6-ponnders and four 2-ponnders, and had
no regular garrison.

Preparations for offense were no better. On paper the
militia numbered more than 15,000 infantry and 400 cavalry,
but long neglect had destroyed its organization. President
Rowan complained in 1753, that from the indolence of Gover-
nor Johnston, the militia had fallen into decay. One of the
first acts of Governor Dobbs upon assuming the administra-
tion in 1754 was to call for a militia return. The result was
alarming. There were twenty-two counties each of which was
supposed to have a fully organized regiment. The returns
showed that in most of them there were organizations
in name only, and in many not even that. Beaufort had no
colonel. In Bertie County eight companies were "without offi-
cers." Five of Edgecombe's fourteen companies reported
their captains "removed, laid down, or dead." Every one
of Granville's eight companies was without a captain. In New
Hanover the major had "thrown up" his commission. In
Orange the colonel had resigned, five captains had left the
county or refused to serve, fourteen lieutenancies and ensign-
cies were vacant. Tyrrell reported: "The Coll. dead, the
Lieut. Coll. and Major have neglected to act." Four counties
made no returns.

The disorganization was bad, the equipment worse. Gov-
ernor Dobbs stated that the militia were "not half armed"
and that such arms as they had were "very bad." Great was
his alarm upon finding "that there is not one pound of [pub-
lic] gunpowder or shot in store in the Province, nor any
arms;" nor were there "twelve barrels of gunpowder in the
Province in Traders hands. " He felt compelled to appeal to the
king for ammunition because "at present we have no credit
and must pay double price if any is imported by merchants."
He afterwards learned that Beaufort County had on hand fifty
pounds of public gunpowder. Beaufort also reported 150
pounds of large shot, but "no arms in the publick store."
Chowan had 400 pounds of bullets and swan shot, but no pow-
der and no arms. The militia of Johnston Countv were "in-

270

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

differently armed," and without ammunition. Bladen, Car-
teret, Duplin, Edgecombe, Granville, New Hanover, North-
ampton, Onslow, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell, all re-
ported "no arms," or "no arms or ammunition." Six coun-
ties made no report on arms and ammunition, probably be-
cause they had none. In Granville County the men were drilled
with wooden clubs ! The situation was somewhat relieved by
a gift from the king, in 1754, of 1,000 stand of arms which
were distributed to the exposed counties on the western fron-
tier, to the counties on the coast, and to the companies raised
for service in Virginia. But even this relief was largely mil-

viii d Eight Pence.

WW

£^J/

Currency Issued During French and Indian War

lined by the conduct of the troops in Virginia, who, after Brad-
dock's defeat, "deserted in great numbers," taking their arms
and equipment away with them.

Anticipating hostilities with the French, the king in Au-
gust, 1753, instructed the governors of all the English colo-
nies "in case of Invasion" to co-operate with each other to
the fullest extent. Immediately after the attack on Washing-
ton, therefore, Governor Dinwiddie hastened to call upon the
governors of Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland. New Jer-
sey, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and North Carolina for
assistance in driving the French from Fort Duquesne. Presi-
dent Rowan, then acting-governor of North Carolina, met his
Assembly February 19, 1754, and laid the situation before it.
He felt sure, he said, that the people of North Carolina would
not "sitt still and tamely see a formidable forreign Power"

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 271

dispossess the English of their western territory, and he asked
the Assembly to exert itself ''to the utmost in the common
cause" by voting at once "a good and seasonable supply" for
the support of a military force to assist in the expulsion of
the French and their allies. His appeal found a ready re-
sponse. The Assembly declared that the action of the French
"must fire the Breast of every true Lover of his Country with
the warmest Resentments" and "certainly Calls for a speedy
Remedy." It promised "to furnish as many forces as we can
conveniently spare towards this so necessary an Expedition"
and "to consider of such ways and means Immediately to
supply the Treasury as the Circumstances of our Constituants
will admitt" for their maintenance.

The Assembly acted promptly and liberally. Without a
dissenting vote it appropriated £12,000 "for raising and pro-
viding for a regiment of 750 effective Men to be sent to the
Assistance of Virginia.' ; President Rowan did not expect
the maintenance of these men to fall upon North Carolina
after their arrival in Virginia, so when he ascertained later
that each province must maintain its own soldiers, he realized
that the £12,000 would be insufficient to support 750 men. Ac-
cordingly he was compelled to reduce the force to 450 men.
But even this number was 150 more than Virginia raised for
the same expedition although it was for the defence of her own
soil. The regiment was placed under command of Colonel
James Innes who had commanded the Cape Fear company in
the Cartagena expedition. Governor Dinwiddie hailed his
appointment with great satisfaction, saying to President
Rowan, "I am glad Your Regiment comes under the Command
of Colo. Innes, whose Capacity, Judgment and cool Conduct,
I have great Regard for." He testified to the sincerity of
his sentiments by appointing Innes commander-in-chief of
the expedition. Colonel Innes hastened at once to the front,
leaving his regiment to follow. He arrived at Winchester,
Virginia, July 5th, two days after the defeat of Washington's
Virginians at Great Meadows; thence he hurried on to Wills
Creek, where he afterwards built Fort Cumberland, 140 miles
from Fort Duquesne, and there took formal command of the
colonial forces.

North Carolina's response to Virginia's appeal for aid was
liberal, but her liberality was nullified by extravagance and
bad management. President Rowan fixed the pay of privates
at three shillings a day and that of officers in proportion, an

272 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

extravagance of which Dinwiddie very justly complained be-
cause of its effect on the Virginia troops who received only
eight pence a day. Rowan also invested large sums in pork
and beef to be sent to Virginia and sold for Virginia currency
with which to pay the troops after their arrival in that col-
onv, and on most of these transactions he lost heavily. The
organization of the regiment proceeded slowly and this delay
too added to the expense. Consequently the £12,000 appro-
priated by the Assembly was entirely expended before the
troops ever reached the front, and when they arrived at Win-
chester, the place of rendezvous, they found that no provisions
and no ammunition had been collected there for them. Their
pay, too, was in arrears. Colonel Innes appealed to Governor
Dinwiddie for advances, but Dinwiddie had no funds which
he could use for this purpose. "I can give no orders for en-
tertaining your regiment," he replied, "as this Dominion will
maintain none but their own forces." Consequently the North
Carolina regiment had scarcely reached Winchester before it
was disbanded and sent home without having struck a blow at
the enemy.

That the struggle had opened so unfavorably for the Eng-
lish was due primarily to their lack of preparation and co-
operation. In October, 1754, therefore, Governor Dinwiddie,
Governor Horatio Sharpe of Maryland, and Governor Dobbs
held a conference at Williamsburg to formulate plans for a
joint attack on Fort Duquesne. Dobbs laid these plans before
his Assembly in December and asked for men and money to
carry them into execution. The Assembly responded by au-
thorizing a company of 100 men for service in Virginia and
another of fifty men for service on the North Carolina fron-
tier, and by voting £8,000 for their subsistence. The company
destined for Virginia was placed under the command of the
governor's son, Captain Edward Brice Dobbs, formerly a
lieutenant in the English army. But before the plans of the
Williamsburg conference could be carried out, they were su-
perseded by others on a much larger scale, arranged in April,
1755, at a conference held at Alexandria, Virginia, between
several of the colonial governors and General Edward Brad-
dock, who had been sent from England to take command of the
forces in Virginia for the reduction of Fort Duquesne. These
new plans called for simultaneous campaigns against the
French on the Ohio, on the Niagara, and on Lake Champlain.
Although North Carolina was not represented at this meet-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 273

ing, both governor and Assembly entered heartily into the
arrangements. Captain Dobbs was ordered to move his com-
pany at once to Alexandria where Braddock was assembling
a force for the expedition against Fort Duquesne. Three
months later all British America was thrown into consterna-
tion by the disastrous ending of this expedition. Dobbs ' North
Carolinians, being absent at the time from the main army on
a scouting expedition, escaped destruction, but many of them,
sharing the general demoralization of the British forces, de-
serted and made their way back home. With what remained
Captain Dobbs joined Colonel Innes at Fort Cumberland,
where he continued for nearly a year helping to guard the Vir-
ginia frontier.

Immediately after Braddock 's defeat, Governor Dobbs con-
vened the Assembly in special session and in a sensible, well-
written address pointed out the seriousness of the situation
and suggested that "a proper sum cheerfully granted at once
will accomplish what a very great sum may not do hereafter."
The Assembly promptly voted a supply of £10,000 and author-
ized the governor to raise three new companies "to protect
the Frontier of this Province and to assist the other Colonies
in Defence of his Majesty's Territories." To command these
companies, the governor commissioned Caleb Grainger, Thom-
as Arbuthnot, and Thomas McManus captains and sent them
to New York to aid in the operations against the French at
Niagara and Crown Point. At the same time he ordered
Captain Dobbs to withdraw his company from Fort Cumber-
land and join the other North Carolina companies in New
York. Captain Dobbs, promoted to the rank of major, was
appointed to command the battalion. The governor declared
that he took this action because he found that if Captain
Dobbs ' company remained in Virginia it would only do guard
duty on the frontier, without making any attempt against
Fort Duquesne, since the English there had no officers com-
petent to make a plan of operations, nor any artillery; nor
was there any likelihood of any assistance from either Mary-
land or Pennsylvania, "as they don't seem Zealous for the
Common Cause of the Colonies." The North Carolina troops
arrived at New York May 31st, and shared in the disasters
which resulted in the loss of Oswego and the failure to wrest
Crown Point from the French. Since the capture of Oswego
threw open to the enemy the entire English frontier from
New York to Georgia, problems of home defence so strained

Vol. I— If

274 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the resources of the colony that North Carolina was unable to
continue to support her troops in New York ; the governor ac-
cordingly directed their officers to try to induce the men to
enlist either in the Loyal American Regiment, or in the regu-
lars. Those who took neither course were allowed to return
to North Carolina.

After the loss of Oswego, the Earl of Loudoun, comman-
der-in-chief of the British forces in America, notified the
southern governors to prepare for the defence of their fron-
tiers since the French then had free access by the Great Lakes
to send troops to the Ohio, and also to attack them through
their Indian allies. The situation was so serious that he called
a conference at Philadelphia, March 15, 1757, of Dobbs, Din-
widdie, Sharpe, and Denny of Pennsylvania, that he might
"concert in Conjunction with them a Plan for the Defence of
the Southern Provinces." He informed the governors that
since the greater part of the British troops in America would
be needed in the northern campaign, he could give the southern
colonies only 1,200 regulars, for the rest they would have to
shift for themselves. It was agreed, therefore, that they
should raise 3,800 men, distributed as follows : Pennsylvania
1,400, Maryland 500, Virginia 1,000, North Carolina 400, and
South Carolina 500, making with the regulars, 5,000 men.
Of these, 2,000 were to be used in defence of South Carolina
and Georgia which were threatened with attack by sea as well
as by land. Returning from this conference, Dobbs imme-
diately convened the Assembly, and in a brief and pointed mes-
sage explained the agreement he had made for the province
and asked for the means to carry it out. The Assembly prom-
ised, in spite of the large debt already contracted in the com-
mon cause, to vote the necessary supplies. An act was
accordingly passed appropriating £5,300 and providing for 200
men "to be imployed for the service of South Carolina or at
home in case not demanded or wanted there." These troops
were speedily raised and ordered to South Carolina under
command of Colonel Henry Bouquet, the British officer as-
signed to command in the southern colonies. At the same
time, Governor Dobbs ordered the militia in the counties along
the South Carolina border to be ready to join Colonel Bouquet
at his command without waiting for further orders from him.
However, they were never called upon for active service.

The summer of 1757 was one of the gloomiest in the annals

HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA 275

of the British Empire. Success everywhere crowned the arms
of France. In Europe disasters followed each other so rap-
idly, and some of them were so disgraceful, that Lord Ches-
terfield exclaimed in despair, "We are no longer a nation!"
In America, Braddock's army had been destroyed; Oswego
had fallen; the Crown Point expedition had failed; Fort
William Henry had been captured. New France "stretched
without a break over the vast territory from Louisiana to the
St. Lawrence, ' ' 1 and not an English fort or an English hamlet
remained in the basin of the St. Lawrence, or in all the valley
of the Ohio. In the wigwams of the red men the prestige of
the British arms had been so utterly destroyed that the Indians
called Montcalm, "the famous man who tramples the English
under his feet." 2 But a change was at hand. In July, a new
force came into the contest which was destined in a few brief
months to wrest from France every foot of her American em-
pire and assure to men of the English-speaking race complete
supremacy on the continent of North America. This force was
the genius of William Pitt, "the greatest war minister and
organizer of victory that the world has seen."3 Under his
leadership the year 1758 was as glorious as that of 1757 had
been gloomy. In every quarter of the globe the arms of Eng-
land were victorious. In Europe and in Asia victory followed
victory with dazzling rapidity. In America Louisburg fell,
Fort Frontenac surrendered, and Fort Duquesne was cap-
tured. ' ' We are forced to ask every morning, ' ' wrote Horace
Walpole, "what new victory there is, for fear of missing one."
The Assembly of North Carolina had quarreled with Dobbs,
but the words and spirit of Pitt inspired it, "notwithstanding
the indigency of the country, ' ' to renewed efforts in support of
the war. On December 30, 1757, Pitt called upon the province,
together with other southern colonies, for a force to reduce
Fort Duquesne. He appealed to their pride and patriotism by
declaring that he would not ' ' limit the Zeal and Ardor of any
of His Majesty's Provinces" by suggesting the number of
troops for it to raise, but asked each for "as large a Body
of Men * as the Number of its Inhabitants may

1 Green : Short History of the English People. Revised edition,
p. 748.

2 Parkman : Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. I, p. 489.

3 Fiske : New France and New England, p. 315.

276 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

allow. ' ' The North Carolina Assembly, pleading as its excuse
for not doing more that the colony's debts incurred in defence
not of itself alone, but also of Virginia, New York, and South
Carolina, amounted "to above forty Shillings each Taxable,"
which was "more than the Currency at present circulating
among us," voted an aid of £7,000 and 300 men. It requested
that these troops be sent to General John Forbes, whom Pitt
had sent to Virginia to command the expedition, ' ' without loss
of time." Governor Dobbs placed this battalion under the
command of Major Hugh Waddell, a young officer whose serv-
ices on the North Carolina frontier had already attracted wide
attention. Waddell raised, organized, and equipped his battal-
ion with dispatch, and marched them to join the forces of
General Forbes.

Very different was Forbes' course from that of Braddock,
No foolish boastings of the superior prowess of British reg-
ulars, no equally foolish contempt for the prowess of his foe,
no scorn of his provincial troops and their officers, no neglect
of the principles of frontier warfare, betrayed him to his ruin.
Among his colonial troops Hugh Waddell and his Carolinians
stootl high in his esteem. Waddell, wrote Governor Dobbs,
"had great honour done him being employed in all recon-
noitering parties ; and dressed and acted as an Indian ; and his
Sergeant Rogers took the only Indian prisoner who gave Mr.
Forbes certain intelligence of the Forces in Fort Duquesne
upon which they resolved to proceed." The reference to
Sergeant Eogers is to the following incident. Winter had
set in and the British general, with his army in a mountainous
region, ill prepared to pass the winter in such a wilderness, or
to lay a winter seige to a strongly fortified fort, and without
accurate information of his enemy's force, was in a dilemma
whether to retire to a more favorable position for the winter,
or to push on. He therefore offered a reward of £50 to any one
who would capture an Indian from whom information as to
the enemy's situation could be obtained. Sergeant John
Rogers, of Waddell 's command, won this reward by bringing
in an Indian who told Forbes that if he would push resolutely
on, the French would evacuate Fort Duquesne. The British
commander followed the red man's advice. Upon his ap-
proach, the French garrison fled, and Fort Duquesne, dis-
mantled and partially destroyed, fell without a blow into the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 277

hands of the English general who immediately renamed it Fort
Pitt, because as he said in a letter to Pitt, "it was in some
measure the being actuated by your spirit that now makes me
master of the place. ' '

The victories of 1758, together with the fall of Quebec in
1759, removed the French as a serious factor in the war and
brought peace with them in sight. But the war was not at an
end for the colonies still had to reckon with the Indians. In the
North the confederated tribes under Pontiac continued to
make war on the English, while in the South the Cherokee
warriors who had acted as allies of the British against Fort
Duquesne returned from that expedition to arouse their tribe
to hostilities. In 1755 they could call to arms more than 2,500
warriors. Besides the Cherokee, the two Carolinas had also
to reckon with the Catawba who had, in 1755, about 250
warriors. Both Cherokee and Catawba were nominally
friends of the English, but for several years the French had
been undermining the English influence with such success that
at the outbreak of the French and Indian War the preference
of the Indians for the French was but thinly veiled and nothing
but policy prevented their joining forces with their new
friends. The English were fully aware of this situation and
took immediate steps to hold both nations to their allegiance.

The outbreak of war on the Ohio was accompanied by
manifestations of hostility by the Carolina Indians. In De-
cember, 1754, therefore, the Assembly provided for a company
of rangers for the protection of the frontier. Governor Dobbs
entrusted this work to Hugh Waddell, a young Irishman, not
yet twenty-one years of age, and but recently arrived in the
province, who was, wrote Dobbs, ''in his person and character
every way qualified for such a command, as he was young,
active, and resolute." The governor's choice was fully justi-
fied by the results. The young officer acted with energy in
raising and organizing his company, and was soon scouting
on the frontier where his presence tended to keep the Indians
quiet. It soon became evident, however, that a larger force and
some permanent forts would be necessary. In the summer
of 1755, therefore, Governor Dobbs visited the western settle-
ments to study the situation. He was on this tour when he re-
ceived information of Braddock's defeat. Hastening to New
Bern, he convened the Assembly, September 25, and in a force-
ful address set forth the defenceless condition of the province,

278 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the growing- influence of the French over the Cherokee Indians,
and the necessity for prompt action to defeat their schemes.
Besides sending aid to New York this Assembly ordered that
a fort be erected on the North Carolina frontier. The execu-
tion of this work was entrusted to Captain Waddell who,
selecting a site "beautifully situated in the fork of Fourth
Creek, a Branch of the Yadkin River about twenty miles west
of Salisburv " erected there a fort which he named in honor
of the governor. In 1756 a committee of the Assembly, of
which Richard Caswell was a member, after an inspection re-
ported that the fort was "a good and substantial Building"
and that its garrison of forty-six men appeared to be well and
in good spirits.

Besides his military duties, Captain Waddell was charged
with diplomatic duties. In February, 1756, as the representa-
tive of North Carolina he was associated with Peyton Ran-
dolph and William Byrd, representatives of Virginia, in nego-
tiating an offensive and defensive alliance with the Cherokee
and Catawba nations. The noted chief, King Haiglar, repre-
sented the Catawba and Ata-kullakulla the Cherokee. Ata-
kullakulla was one of the most remarkable Indians of whom we
have any record. Bartram, the eminent botanist and trav-
eller, described him as a man of small stature, slender build
and delicate frame, but of superior abilities. Noted as an
orator and a statesman, he was "esteemed to be the wisest
man of the nation and the most steady friend of the English."
The treaties signed by these representatives stipulated that
the English should build three forts within the Indian reserva-
tions to protect them against the French while the Cherokee
were to furnish 400 warriors to aid the English in the North.
Accordingly South Carolina built Fort Prince George at
Keowee on the headwaters of the Savannah and Virginia
built Fort Loudoun on the Little Tennessee at the mouth of the
Tellico. It fell to North Carolina to build a fort for the pro-
tection of the Catawba, but Captain Waddell had scarcely
begun work on it, on the site of the present town of Old Fort,
when he was ordered to stop as the Catawba had repented
of their agreement and desired that no fort be built among
them. The Cherokee also became alarmed when a garrison of
200 men was sent to Fort Loudoun, which Major Andrew
Lewis of Virginia was building, and their great council at
Echota ordered the work stopped and the garrison withdrawn,

i

Hugh Waddell

280 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

saying plainly that they did not want so many armed white
men among them. Even Ata-kullakulla was now in opposition
to the English. Despite the treaties, therefore, the situation
was highly unsatisfactory and there were strong grounds for
believing that several murders along the Catawba and Broad
rivers in North Carolina were the joint work of "French
Indians" and Cherokee.

Nevertheless, the Cherokee, in accordance with their agree-
ment, sent a considerable body of warriors to aid the English
against Fort Duquesne. This policy of calling in the aid of
Indians in military affairs was to say the least always of
doubtful wisdom ; in this case it was disastrous. The trouble
began in the spring of 1756 with an expedition which Major
Andrew Lewis undertook against the hostile Shawano on the
Ohio, with 200 white troops and 100 Cherokee. The expedition
ended in disaster. Some of the Cherokee returning home hav-
ing lost their own horses, captured some horses which they
found running loose and appropriated them to their own use.
Thereupon the Virginia frontiersmen fell upon them, killing
sixteen of their number. At this outrage the hot blood of the
young warriors, who were none too friendly to the English at
the best, flared up in a passion for immediate revenge. The
chiefs, however, counseled moderation until reparation could
be demanded of the colonial governments in accordance with
their treaties. But Virginia, North Carolina, and South Caro-
lina all refused to take any action in the matter. While the
women in the wigwams of the slain warriors were wailing
night and day for their unavenged kindred, and the Creeks,
who were in alliance with the French, were taunting the Cher-
okee warriors with cowardice for submitting so tamely to their
wrongs, came news of the fall of Oswego and other English
disasters in the North. The Cherokee thirst for revenge was
now mingled with contempt for English arms, and the young
men could no longer be restrained. They fell upon the back
settlements and spread terror far and wide until Governor
Dobbs sent sufficient reinforcements to Captain Waddell to
enable him to check the ravages of the enemy.

Thus the situation remained throughout 1757 and 1758.
Murders by the Indians followed by prompt reprisals by the
whites kept both in a state of constant suspicion. While they
were in this inflammable state of mind, 150 Cherokee warriors
were sent to join the English in defence of the Virginia

HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA 281

frontier. They were unruly and dangerous allies, being, as
Governor Dinwiddie said, "a dissatisfied set of People." The
capture of Fort Duquesne, November 25, 1758, merely accentu-
ated the danger, for the French driven from the Ohio imme-
diately concentrated their intrigues upon the tribes on the
Tennessee and the Catawba. Depredations on the back settle-
ments by "French Indians" became more and more frequent,
and their influence over the Cherokee became daily more ap-
parent. In May, 1759, both the Carolinas were alarmed by re-
ports of "many horrid murders" committed by the Lower
Cherokee along the Yadkin and the Catawba. In July came
another report of murders in the vicinity of Fort Dobbs by
bands of Middle Cherokee. The white settlers, in great alarm,
were abandoning their homes and "enforting themselves,"
some in Fort Dobbs, others among the Moravians at Betha-
bara. Governor Dobbs hastily withdrew sixty men from Fort
Granville at Ocracoke and Fort Johnston and sent them
with some small cannon to the defence of the West
with orders to cooperate with the militia of Orange,
Anson and Rowan counties. Hugh Waddell, promoted to the
rank of colonel, was again sent to Fort Dobbs to take com-
mand on the frontier. He had scarcely reached his post when
he received orders to hasten to the aid of Governor Lyttleton
of South Carolina who was conducting an expedition against
the Lower Cherokee, but while on the march with his rangers
and 500 militia, he was halted by an express from Governor
Lyttleton who had made peace with the enemy.

This peace, however, was of short duration. No sooner
had Lyttleton withdrawn his forces from Fort Prince George
than Oconostota, the young war chief, who had suffered per-
sonal injuries at the hands of Governor Lyttleton, attacked
the fort after treacherously murdering its commanding officer.
War immediately broke out along the whole frontier. On the
night of February 27, 1760, the dogs at Fort Dobbs by "an
uncommon noise" warned Colonel Waddell that something
unusual was going on outside. Investigation showed that the
fort was surrounded by Cherokee warriors. After a hot fight
Waddell beat them off with serious losses. Another band
preparing for a night assault on Bethabara was frightened
away by the ringing of the church bells. Still others laid waste
the settlement at Walnut Cove. Across the mountains, Ocon-
ostota laid seige to Fort Loudoun. In June, 1760, a relief

282 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

expedition under Colonel Archibald Montgomery, consisting
of 1,600 Scotch Highlanders and Americans, penetrated the
Cherokee country as far as Echoee, near the present town of
Franklin, where in a desperate engagement with the Cherokee,
June 27, 1760, Montgomery was defeated and compelled to
retreat to Fort Prince George. His retreat sealed the fate of
Fort Loudoun. The garrison after being reduced to the
necessity of eating their horses and dogs capitulated on con-
dition that they be allowed to retire unmolested with their
arms and sufficient ammunition for the march, leaving to the
enemy their remaining warlike stores. Unfortunately the
commanding officer, Captain Demere, failed to carry out these
terms in good faith and the Indians discovering his breach of
the treaty fell upon the retreating soldiers, killed Demere
and twenty-nine others and took the rest prisoners.

Harrowing reports of atrocities and butcheries, which con-
tinued to spread throughout Virginia, North Carolina, and
South Carolina, aroused those colonies to a grim determina-
tion to put an end to the power of their ruthless foes. A cam-
paign was accordingly planned in which the three colonies
were to have the assistance of Colonel James Grant and his
regiments of Scotch Highlanders. In June, 1761, Grant assem-
bled at Fort Prince George an army consisting of regulars,
colonial troops, a few Chickasaw Indians and almost every re-
maining warrior of the Catawba, numbering 2,600 men. Refus-
ing Ata-kullakulla's request for a friendly accommodation,
Grant pushed rapidly forward into the Cherokee country along
the trail followed the previous year by Montgomery, until he
came within two miles of Montgomery 's battlefield. There on
June 10th he encountered the Cherokee upon whom he inflicted
a decisive defeat. He drove them into the recesses of the moun-
tains, destroyed their towns, burned their granaries, laid waste
their fields, and " pushed the frontier seventy miles farther to
the west." The Cherokee, compelled to sue for peace, sent
Ata-kullakulla to Charleston where he signed a treaty that
brought the war to an end. In the meantime, Virginia troops
had invaded the country of the Upper Cherokee and on Novem-
ber 19th at the Great Island of the Holston, now Kingsport,
Tennessee, forced them to sign a treaty independently of the
middle and lower towns. These blows broke the power of
the Cherokee, who were never again strong enough to stay
the westward march of the white race.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 283

Although the fall of Quebec definitely decided the contest
as between France and England, peace between the two powers
was not signed until 1763. By this treaty France and Spain
ceded to England all their North American possessions east
of the Mississippi River. The probable effect on the Indians
of the removal of their French and Spanish allies from this
region was a problem which gave the British government seri-
ous concern; and to allay any possible suspicion and alarm
which it might occasion among the southern tribes, the king
instructed the governors of Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia to hold a conference with them at
Augusta, Georgia, and explain to them "in the most prudent
and delicate Manner," the changes about to take place. This
congress met November 5, 1763. Present were Lieutenant-
Governor Francis Fauquier of Virginia, Governor Arthur
Dobbs of North Carolina, Governor Thomas Boone of South
Carolina, Governor James Wright of Georgia, John Stuart,
Indian agent for the Southern Department, twenty-five chiefs
and 700 warriors of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Catawba,
and Cherokee nations. Six days of oratory and feasting re-
sulted in a treaty of "Perfect and Perpetual Peace and Friend-
ship" between the Indians and the English, which provided
for mutual oblivion of past offenses and injuries, the establish-
ment of satisfactory trade relations, the punishment by each
party of offenders of its own race for crimes against members
of the other race, and the fixing of the boundaries of the Indian
reservations. On November 10th the four governors and the
Indian agent, on part of the king, and the twenty -five chiefs,
on part of their tribes, signed the treaty. The event was cele-
brated by the bombing of the guns of Fort Augusta and the
distribution among the Indians of £5,000 worth of presents
sent them by King George.

While these events were transpiring on the frontier,
French privateers were busy along the coast. Immediately
after the declaration of war, using French and Spanish ports
in the West Indies as bases, they/ began to appear off the Caro-
lina coast and to reenact the scenes of the Spanish War. The
defenseless state of the coast gave them ample opportunity for
carrying on their work. On one occasion, "for want of a
Fort to defend the entrance and Channel" of the Cape Fear,
' ' the Privateers seeing the masts of the Ships at anchor in the
road within the Harbour, over the sandy Islands, went in and

284 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

cut out the ships and carried them to Sea." Such coast forti-
fications as had been constructed were "Incapable of Defence
for want of Artillery, ' ' which both governor and Assembly
vainly begged the home government to supply, but some pro-
tection to shipping was afforded by American privateers. A
few, sailing under letters of marque and reprisal issued by
Governor Dobbs, were fitted out at Wilmington and Bruns-
wick. In the spring of 1757 the brigantine Hawk, armed with
16 carriage guns and 20 swivels, manned with 120 men,
Thomas Wright captain, and the sloop Franklin, armed with
6 carriage guns and 10 swivels, manned with 50 men, Robert
Ellis captain, sailed out of Cape Fear River. Some months
later came a report that the Hawk sailing into "a French port
in Hispaniola" had taken there "a pretended Danish Vessel
with 135 Hogsheads of Sugar [and] 30 Barrels of Coffee."
Occasionally, too, a British man-of-war cruising off the coast,
would look in at Cape Fear and other North Carolina ports.
But they were not as assiduous as they might have been in the
performance of their duty. On March 22, 1757, Governor
Dobbs declared that H. M. S. Baltimore, which was supposed
to be stationed at Cape Fear, had not been at her station throe
weeks all told since his arrival in North Carolina ; and at
another time he charged that her captain spent the winter
months at Charleston because there were "no balls or enter-
tainments" at Cape Fear. It is not surprising, therefore, that
merchants complained that -"notwithstanding our great
superiority in the West Indies," French privateers had cap-
tured seventy-eight English and American vessels, some of
which were owned by North Carolina merchants, and carried
them as prizes to Martinique. But after 1757 the navy like
the army coming under the spell of Pitt's genius, began to
display greater zeal and activity in running down the enemy.
Captain Hutchins, H. M. S. Tartar, reported in June, 1759,
that during a cruise of three days off Ocracoke he had neither
seen nor head of a French privateer. Three months later,
Wolfe's triumph at Quebec put an end to privateering in
American waters.

News of the fall of Quebec reached Brunswick October
24th. "Our Governour upon this occasion," wrote the Bruns-
wick correspondent of the South Carolina Gazette, "ordered a
tripple discharge of all the cannon at this town and Fort John-
ston, all the Shipping displayed their colours and fired 3

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 285

rounds ; and yester evening was spent in an entertainment at
his excellency's in illuminations, bonfires and all kinds of ac-
clamations and demonstrations of joy. Today's rejoicings are
repeated at Wilmington.".

The war had borne heavily on North Carolina both in men
and money. It is impossible to say how many soldiers the
colony raised as no accurate returns exist, indeed, none were
ever made. At various times, however, the Assembly author-
ized the recruiting of more than 2,000 men and there is no
reason to suppose that they were not enrolled; there were
indeed probably more for many a settler took down his musket
and went forth to war on the frontier whose name was never
entered on any muster roll. Nor does this number include the
militia who were called into active service but of whose service
no records exist. More than half of the 2,000 provisionals
authorized by the Assembly were sent into service in other
colonies. Of North Carolina's financial contributions, more
accurate information is available. On November 24, 1764,
Treasurer John Starkey reported to the Assembly that since
1754 the colony had issued £72,000 of proclamation money,
current as legal tender at the rate of four for three of sterl-
ing. Of this amount, £68,000 were still in circulation in 1764.
The Assembly also issued for war purposes treasury notes
bearing interest at 6 per cent to the amount of £30,776, of
which in 1764 £7,000 were still out. The war, therefore, had
cost North Carolina £102,776, of which £27,776 had been paid,
leaving a debt of £75,000. Reckoning the population at 130,-
000, the public debt contracted in support of the war amounted
to upwards of 15s per capita. For the redemption of this war
debt the Assembly levied a tax of 4s on the poll and a duty of
4d a gallon on spirituous liquors. During the war Parliament
appropriated £200,000 to reimburse all the colonies for their
expenditures, and an additional £50,000 for Virginia, North
Carolina, and South Carolina. A quarrel between the gov-
ernor and the Assembly over the control of this fund resulted
in North Carolina's receiving only £7,789 from both funds
which certainly was much less than her just share.

Over against the colony's losses and expenditures, how-
ever, may be placed the benefits resulting from the expulsion
of the French from her western territory and the removal of
the Cherokee from the path of her westward expansion. To
these material results must be added the even greater moral

286 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

benefits, viz., the breaking down of many of the barriers of
local prejudices due to her former isolation and the germina-
tion of a sense of her common interest and common destiny
with the rest of British America which, like the other colonies,
she brought out of her experiences in this first continental
event in American history.

CHAPTER XVI
WESTWARD EXPANSION

In 1764 Governor Dobbs, who had grown peevish with age,
was given permission to surrender the cares of his office to
a lieutenant-governor and return to England. While he was
busily packing for his trip "his physician had no other means
to prevent his fatiguing himself than by telling him that he
had better prepare himself for a much longer voyage." He
set sail on this "longer voyage" March 28, 1765.

Dobbs was succeeded by William Tryon who took the oath
of office at Wilmington April 3, 1765. It was Tryon 's mis-
fortune to administer the government of North Carolina in
times of domestic violence and civil strife and so to have his
name associated with events which cannot even now be dis-
cussed with that calmness and impartiality which alone gives
value to the judgments of history. However, the load of
obloquy which tradition so long heaped upon his name has
been largely lifted by the publication within recent years of
contemporaneous records which reveal the man and his career
in a new and better light. The ablest of the colonial gov-
ernors of North Carolina, he was distinguished for the energy
of his character, the versatility of his talents, and the variety
of his interests. His public papers, which are far superior
to those of any of his predecessors, reveal him as a man of great
executive ability, keen insight, and liberal views. He had the
ability to see and understand the view-point of the colonists
and he always strove to represent it fairly, even when lit'
heartily disapproved of it. His critics love to dwell on his ex-
travagance and love of display; but perhaps this fault — to
which, indeed, he must have pleaded guilty — may be traced
less to personal vanity than to his views of public policy. He
entertained exaggerated ideas, common to his time, of the
proper method of upholding the dignity of exalted official
position, and had high notions of authority, which he enforced
with a strong hand, but his public conduct was always

287

288 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

inspired by a sense of official duty and never, as so
many of his critics have charged, by vindictiveness. His
tact was unfailing, and his genius for winning the per-
sonal friendship of those who most vigorously opposed
his public policies was remarkable. Long after he had left
the colony, the General Assembly bore testimony to their
conviction of his "good intentions to its welfare," and gave
a striking expression of "the great affection this Colony bears
him, and the entire confidence they repose in him."

( )ne of the important results of the French and Indian
War was the opening of the region beyond the Alleghanies
to settlement by the English. The English colonies had long
been advertent to the importance of this region to their future
expansion. In 1748 the Board of Trade reported "that
the settlement of the country lying to the westward of
the great mountains would be for His Majesty's interest
and the advantages and security of Virginia and the
neighboring colonies;" and in 1756 Sir Thomas Pownall
wrote that "the English settlements as they are at pres-
ent circumstanced, are absolutely at a standstill; they
are settled up to the mountains and in the mountains
there is nowhere together land sufficient for a settlement large
enough to subsist by itself and to defend itself and preserve
a communication with the present settlements." Both Eng-
land and France claimed this vast region, but in 1763 by the
terms of the Treaty of Paris, which brought the French
and Indian War to a close, France was compelled to withdraw
her claims leaving only the Indians to contest the inevitable
advance of the English settlers.

Virginia, North Carolina, and other colonies had long
asserted jurisdiction over this western region, but the British
government was not disposed to recognize their claims. In
1763, immediately after the signing of the Treaty of Paris,
the king issued a proclamation forbidding settlements beyond
the mountains and instructing the colonial governments to
issue no grants in that region. How long this proclamation
would have delayed the colonization of the West had the
people obeyed it cannot be said ; as it was the hardy pioneers
on the frontier calmly disregarded it, took the problem of
settlement into their own hands, and within half a decade after
the close of the French and Indian War began to cross the
mountains and build their cabins along the Watauga, the Hol-
ston, and the Cumberland rivers without permission of either
king or royal governors.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 289

All of that part of the region beyond the Alleghanies which
is now embraced within the State of Tennessee was included
in the Carolina grant of 1665 and was therefore nominally
within the jurisdiction of North Carolina. From North Caro-
lina it received its first settlers. Although at the time of
the Treaty of Paris no attempt had been made to plant white
settlements within its limits, the region had long been familiar
to English traders and hunters. In 1748, Thomas Walker of
Virginia led a band of hunters far into the interior of what
is now Middle Tennessee, giving names to the Cumberland
Mountains and the Cumberland Eiver. In 1756, as we have
already seen, the English built Fort Loudoun on the Ten-
nessee River. Most famous of all the hardy pioneers who
explored this region was Daniel Boone who as early as
1760 was hunting along the Watauga River. The following
year at the head of a party of hunters Boone penetrated the
wilderness to the headwaters of the Holston as far as the
site of the present Abingdon, Virginia. From this time for-
ward he was constantly hunting in the Tennessee and Ken-
tucky country. Boone and his fellow hunters brought back
to the settlements in Virginia and North Carolina glowing
reports of the richness and beauty of the land beyond the
mountains and thus paved the way for the pioneers of more
settled habits whose purpose was to carve out of the wilder-
ness homes for themselves and their children.

A study of this westward movement reveals no feature
that has not already appeared in the movements which re-
sulted in the settlement of the older communities. Like the
original settlement on the Albemarle, it was not the result
of organized effort but of spontaneous, individual enterprise,
a perfectly natural overflow of population from the parent
colony. First a few hardy, adventurous individuals broke
their way into the wilderness ; soon they were followed by an
occasional family, and, finally, as the movement gathered mo-
mentum, by groups of families. The same motives, too, which
inspired the settlers in the older communities, reappear as the
inspiration of those in the new. We find in both the same rest-
less spirit of adventure, the same desire for new and cheap
land, and the same discontent with political, economic and
social conditions in the parent country. Such discontent was
wide-spread throughout the back country of Virginia, North
Carolina, and South Carolina, In North Carolina it cul-
minated in the organization of the Regulators and their disas-
trous attempts to secure reforms in the colonial administra-

Vol. 1—19

Daniel Boone

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 291

tion. In contrast with the ills at home were the freedom, the
unlimited opportunities, and the charms of adventure in a
new land; and the choice of the new was made by hundreds
who after 1768 joined in that migration across the Alleghanies
which resulted in the founding of the states of Kentucky and
Tennessee.

The earliest settlements beyond the Alleghanies were made
in that broad and beautiful valley between the Great Smoky
and Unaka ranges on the east and the Cumberland Mountains
on the west, through which the Holston, the Watauga, the
Nolichucky, the Clinch and the French Broad rivers flow to
form the Tennessee. In 1768 a few Virginians settled at Wolf
Hills on the Holston River, the present Abingdon, whence
settlements gradually expanded southward until they reached
the Watauga where some North Carolinians built homes in
the winter of 1768-69. Most of the settlers on the Watauga
came from the back comities of Virginia and North Carolina,
and were of Scotch-Irish stock. Among them of course, as
in all frontier communities, were to be found some of the out-
casts of civilization, but they were not the dominant ele-
ment in the settlement, nor did they determine its character.
The great majority of the settlers "were men of sterling
worth ; fit to be the pioneer fathers of a mighty and beautiful
state. They possessed the courage that enabled them to defy
outside foes, together with the rough, practical commonsense
that allowed them to establish a simple but effective form of
government, so as to preserve order among themselves."1
Since their political and social ideals were genuinely demo-
cratic, it is not strange that out of their experience should
have come the first government springing from the people
ever organized by native-born Americans.

The most important figure in the history of the Watauga
settlement is that of James Robertson. Born in Virginia, Rob-
ertson was carried to North Carolina in his eighth year and
grew to manhood in what is now Wake County. Like a later
and more famous native of Wake County who also moved to
Tennessee, Andrew Johnson, Robertson was taught to read
and write by his wife. Although never attaining more than a
"rudimentary education," Robertson was, says Roosevelt, "a
man of remarkable natural powers; his somewhat

sombre face bad in it a look of self-contained strength that
made it impressive ; and his taciturn, quiet, masterful way of

1 Roosevelt: Winning of the West, Vol. I, p. 219.

292 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

dealing with men and affairs, together with his singular mix-
ture of cool caution and most adventurous daring, gave him
an immediate hold even upon such lawless spirits as those of
the border. He was a mighty hunter; but, unlike Boone, hunt-
ing and exploration were to him secondary affairs, and he
came to examine the lands with the eye of a pioneer settler. ' ' 2
Such was the man who, in 1770, discontented with the condi-
tions then prevailing in the back counties of North Carolina,
set out from his Wake County home to cross the Alleghanies
and become the "Father of Tennessee."

Robertson was so delighted with the beauty and fertility
of the valley of the Watauga, that he determined to carry his
family there. Accordingly he remained just long enough to
raise a crop of corn, and then returned to North Carolina for
them. Conditions in the back counties had gradually grown
worse ; discontent was more wide-spread than ever. He had
no difficulty therefore, in interesting his friends and neighbors
in the new country beyond the mountains and when he set out
on his return to Watauga he was accompanied by about a
dozen families besides his own. This accession of sturdy set-
tlers assured the permanence of the settlement, yet it was only
the vanguard of the army that soon began to pour into that
region, as a result of the overthrow of the Regulators at Ala-
mance, May 16, 1771. Morgan Edwards, a Baptist preacher
who visited the back counties of North Carolina in 1772,
wrote that many of the Regulators " despaired of seeing bet-
ter times and therefore quitted the province. It is said that
1,500 families departed since the battle of Alamance and to my
knowledge a great many more are only waiting to dispose of
their plantations in order to follow them." Although this
estimate is certainly an exaggeration, yet it is indicative of
the extent of the emigration from North Carolina to Watauga
and the other western settlements. When Watauga asked to
be annexed to North Carolina in 1776, the petition was signed
by 111 settlers.

These settlers had come to Watauga believing it to be in
Virginia, but in 1771 Anthony Bledsoe, a surveyor, discovered
that it was really in North Carolina. His discovery was some-
what disconcerting since most of the people had settled there
because of their dissatisfaction with political conditions in
North Carolina. They were therefore reluctant to appeal to
North Carolina for protection, or to acknowledge the juris-

Wiiming of the West, Vol. I.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 293

diction of the North Carolina government. Accordingly un-
der the leadership of Robertson they determined to set up a
government of their own. This determination resulted in the
Watauga Association, the first government erected beyond
the Alleghanies and the first written constitution by native
Americans. At a general meeting, the inhabitants qualified to
take part in so important an undertaking chose thirteen repre-
sentatives, apparently one for each block-house or palisaded
village, to represent them in the first frontier legislature.
These representatives met at Robertson's station and selected
five commissioners, among whom were Robertson and John
Sevier, destined to fame surpassing even the fame of Robert-
son, to administer the government. The commissioners exer-
cised both judicial and executive functions. They recorded
wills, issued marri-age licenses, made treaties with the In-
dians, decided cases at law, punished criminals, and super-
vised the morals of the community. In their judicial capacity
they gave their constituents no cause to complain of the law's
delay. An instance frequently cited as typical of their exer-
cise of their judicial functions is that of a horse thief who
was arrested on Monday, tried on Wednesday, and hanged on
Friday. So sure and swift was their execution of the criminal
law that some unruly citizens chose to flee to the Indians
rather than submit to Watauga justice.

One of the first problems which the Watauga Association
as an organized government had to solve was its relations
with the Indians. The same year in which the association
was formed, 1772, Virginia made a treaty with the Cherokee
which fixed the southern boundary of that colonv, 36° 30'
north latitude, as the dividing line between the whites and
the Indians west of the Alleghanies. Thereupon Alexander
Cameron, the British agent resident among the Cherokee,
demanded that the Watauga settlers withdraw from their
lands which, of course, fell within the Indian reservation.
The settlers refused and in their refusal were supported by
the Cherokee themselves who, reluctant to lose the trade of
the whites, requested that they be allowed to remain provided
they encroached no farther on the domains of the Indians.
Accordingly a treaty was made by which the Indians leased
their lands to the settlers for a period of eight years. This
treaty established peaceful relations between the two races
which continued until the outbreak of the Revolution.

The first result of the Revolution was to bring Watauga
into closer relations with the mother colonv. At the be-

294 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ginning of the dispute between the king and the colonies, the
Watauga settlers, as was to be expected of men of their race,
embraced the cause of the colonies, "resolved to adhere
strictly to the rules and orders of the Continental Congress,"
and "acknowledged themselves indebted to the United
Colonies their full proportion of the Continental expense."
In 1775 they united with the settlers on the Nolichucky River
to form Washington District, — the first political division to be
honored with the name of Washington, — and the next year
petitioned the North Carolina Provincial Council to be an-
nexed to North Carolina and admitted to representation in the
Provincial Congress. The petition was granted and on De-
cember 3, 1776, John Sevier, the first representative from
beyond the Alleghanies, took his seat in the Provincial Con-
gress at Halifax just in time to participate in the formation
of the first constitution of the independent State of North
Carolina. The next year Washington District became Wash-
ington County, a land office was opened, and a system of land
grants similar to that of North Carolina was instituted. In
spite of war the settlement continued to grow and in 1779
Sullivan County was erected out of Washington. Neverthe-
less it seems not to have been contemplated that Washington
County should remain permanently a part of North Carolina,
for the Declaration of Rights, adopted in 1776, expressly
provides that the clause which defines the boundaries of the
State as extending from sea to sea, "shall not be construed
so as to prevent the Establishment of one or more Govern-
ments Westward of this State, by the consent of the Legis-
lature. ' '

By this time other settlements had been made even farther
west than the Watauga, in which Richard Henderson, an
eminent North Carolina jurist, was the moving spirit. Like
many of his contemporaries, Henderson had become affected
with the fever for western lands and had begun to dream of
vast proprietaries beyond the mountains in which he was to
play the part of a William Penn or of a Lord Baltimore. He
had made the acquaintance of Boone whose good judgment,
intelligence and character had so impressed him that in 1763
he sent Boone to explore the region between the Cumberland
and Kentucky rivers. During the next decade Boone prose-
cuted his explorations with great vigor, perseverance and
daring, but the story of his romantic career is too well known
to need repetition here. In 1774, as a result of his work, Hen-
derson organized at Hillsboro a land company, first called the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 295

Louisa Company, later the Transylvania Company, to pro-
mote the settlement of this region. Prominent among the
incorporators besides Henderson himself were John Williams
of Granville County, one of the first superior court judges
of North Carolina under the Constitution of 1776, James
Hogg, Nathaniel Hart and Thomas Hart of Orange County.
In March, 1775, at Sycamore Shoals on Watauga River, Hen-
derson and his associates negotiated a treaty with the Overhill
Cherokee Indians by which the Indians sold to the Transyl-
vania Company all the vast region between the Cumberland
and Kentucky rivers, which Henderson named Transylvania.

Even before the treaty was completed, Daniel Boone had
been sent forward to open a trail from the settlements on the
Holston to the Kentucky River. This trail was the first regu-
lar path into the western wilderness and is famous in the
history of the frontier as the Wilderness Trail. Leading
through the Cumberland Gap, it crossed the Cumberland,
Laurel and Rockcastle rivers, and terminated on the Kentucky
River. There on April 1, 1780, Boone began to lay the founda-
tions of Boonesborough where he was joined twenty days later
by Henderson with a party of forty mounted riflemen. At
Boonesborough Henderson opened a land office and proceeded
to issue grants and to organize a government for the colony of
Transylvania.

These activities, however, were somewhat premature. The
Transylvania purchase was in direct controvention of the
king's proclamation of 1763, and neither the British nor the
colonial authorities would recognize its validity. Since part
of the new colony lay within Virginia and part within North
Carolina, the governors of both colonies issued proclamations
declaring Henderson's treaty with the Indians null and void.
Governor Martin of North Carolina denounced it as a " daring
unjust and unwarrantable Proceeding," forbade the com-
pany "to prosecute so unlawful an Undertaking," and warned
all persons that purchases of lands from the Transylvania
Company were "illegal, null and void." Henderson and his
associates the governor characterized as an "infamous com-
pany of Land Pyrates." But in 1775 proclamations of royal
governors had lost something of their former effectiveness,
and Henderson and his company proceeded with their en-
terprise in disregard of the two governors' prohibition. Fail-
ing to secure recognition from the colonial governments,
in September, 1775, the company sent James Hogg to Phila-
delphia to appeal to the Continental Congress for admission

296 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

into the ranks of the United Colonies as the fourteenth colony.
But both Virginia and North Carolina, whether under royal
rule or as independent states, were opposed to such a sur-
render of their western lands, and they succeeded in secur-
ing the rejection of the petition. After this rebuff, Hender-
son's grandiose scheme collapsed. However in compensation
for the "expence, risque and trouble" to which he and his
associates had been put, in 1778 Virginia granted them 200,000
acres in that part of Transylvania which lay within her limits,
and in 1783 North Carolina made a similar grant within her
western territory. That part of Transylvania, which fell
within the limits of Virginia afterwards became the State of
Kentucky ; the rest together with Watauga became Tennessee.

In 1779, the indefatigable Henderson opened a land office
at French Lick on Cumberland Eiver and invited settlers to
purchase grants. Among those who came was James Robert-
son, who quickly became the leader of the new colony as he
had been at Watauga. In 1780 on a high bluff at French Lick,
Robertson built a block-house which he named Nashborough
in honor of Abner Nash who had just .been elected governor
of North Carolina. Later it became Nashville. The early
history of the Cumberland settlement resembles that of Wa-
tauga. In the face of crop failures, Indian attacks and other
hardships which threatened it with destruction, it was held
together by the genius of Robertson, and on May 1, 1780,
representatives from the several communities met and
adopted a temporary plan of government which they called
the Cumberland Association modeled after the Watauga As-
sociation. It was to be effective only until the settlement
could be organized as a county of North Carolina, which was
done in 1783 when the Cumberland Association became David-
son County with James Robertson as its first representative
in the General Assembly.

The tracing of the development of these western settle-
ments in a continuous story has carried us chronologically
somewhat beyond the period of Tryon's administration in
which thev originated and to which we must now return.
Tryon met his first Assembly at New Bern, May 3, 1765.
He had already evolved in his own mind a really constructive
program for the colony, part of which he laid before the
Assembly. It embraced the fixing upon a permanent seat of
government, the establishment of a postal system, the promo-
tion of religion, the encouragement of education, and other
progressive policies. The Assembly met his suggestions with

HISTOKY OF NORTH CAROLINA 297

favor, but before it could carry them into execution, North
Carolina became involved in the Stamp Act quarrel, which was
scarcely settled before the War of the Regulation broke out.
Tryon 's administration, therefore, began in storm and strife
and closed in war and bloodshed. Yet to its credit, besides
other measures which will be discussed elsewhere, must be
placed the quieting of a gathering storm among the Cherokee
Indians, the fixing upon a seat of government and the erection
there of a suitable public building, and the crushing of a dan-
gerous insurrection in the very heart of the province.

In spite of domestic violence and emigration the decade
from 1765 to 1775 was a period of growth and improvement.
In 1766 Tryon expressed the opinion that North Carolina
Avas "settling faster than any [other colony] on the conti-
nent; last autumn and winter," he added, "upwards of one
thousand wagons passed thro' Salisbury with families from
the northward, to settle in this province chiefly." All the
back country, from Salisbury to the foot of the mountains, and
beyond, was filling up "with a race of people, sightly, active,
and laborious."

This influx of population brought on a troublesome situa-
tion with the Cherokee Indians. As the settlers pushed west-
ward they encroached more and more on the Cherokee lands,
depriving the Lower Cherokee of their most valuable hunt-
ing grounds. Daily contact between the two races produced
conflicts and frequent bloodshed. Nor was the trouble con-
fined to the Cherokee. A similar situation existed all along
the borders of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia. The complaints of the Cherokee, wrote John Stuart,
"have been echoed through all the Nations." The Cherokee,
the Creeks, and the other Indians of the Southern Depart-
ment were alarmed and discontented, and ready upon the
slightest provocation to take up the hatchet.

Peace could be preserved only by establishing plain and
unmistakable boundaries and forbidding each race to encroach
upon the territories of the other. John Stuart exerted him-
self to secure adjustments in all the colonies in his depart-
ment. In February, 1766, he wrote to Governor Tryon that
"the fixing of a boundary Line is a measure necessary and
essential to the preservation of peace with the Indian Na-
tions." But Tryon hesitated to move because he had received
no instructions bearing on this matter and had no money with
which to defray expenses. Happily both these causes for
delay were soon removed. The secretary of state for the

298 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

colonies directed him to apply himself ''in the most earnest
measure" to remedy the complaints of the Indians and to
prevent hostilities, and in November, 1766, the Assembly
agreed to meet the expenses of the survey. In April, 1767,
the Council unanimously advised Tryon to go in person to
meet the Cherokee chiefs, and since this advice fell in with his
own wishes, he decided to adopt it.

The commissioners to represent the colony in running the
line were John Rutherford, Robert Palmer, and John Fro-
hock. To escort himself and the commissioners Tryon ordered
out a detachment of fifty men from the Rowan and Mecklen-
burg militia which he put under the command of Colonel Hugh
Waddell. Although he was going into a hostile country,
among a savage and treacherous race, to settle a dispute
which was about to bring on war, Tryon has been severely
criticised for his action in ordering out these troops. And
yet the only criticism of his conduct which can be justified
by the facts should be aimed at his fool-hardiness in ventur-
ing upon so dangerous an expedition with so weak an escort.
At Salisbury he was joined by Alexander Cameron, deputy
superintendent of Indian affairs in the Southern Department.
The march westward from Salisbury was begun May 21, 1767.
On June 1 Tryon met the Cherokee chiefs at "Tyger River
camp," where after exchanging "talks" they came to an
agreement as to the boundary. The survey was started June
4, which Tryon regarded as an especially auspicious date
since it was the king's birthday. Rutherford, Palmer, Fro-
hock, Cameron, and the Cherokee chiefs composed the sur-
veying party. They began the line at a point on Reedy River
where the South Carolina-Cherokee line, recently run, ter-
minated and continued it fifty-three miles northward to a
mountain which the surveyors named in honor of the governor.
Tryon himself had already returned to Brunswick. He had
made a favorable impression upon the Indians who named
him "The Great Wolf." Upon his return to Brunswick he
issued a proclamation setting out the line agreed upon, for-
bidding any purchases of land from the Indians, and prohibit-
ing the issuance of anv grants within one mile of the boundary
line. When the Assembly met in December it thanked the
governor for "superintending in person" the running of this
line and appropriated money for paying the expenses of the
survey, which amounted to about £400.

Upon his return from this expedition Tryon turned his
attention seriously to the erection of the public building at

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 299

New Bern for which the Assembly of November, 1766, follow-
ing his recommendation, had made an appropriation. Other
governors had repeatedly urged the necessity for such action.
"The Publick Records," wrote Governor Johnston, nearly
twenty years before, "lye in a miserable condition, one part
of them at Edenton near the Virginia Line in a place without
Lock or Key; a great part of them in the Secretary's House
at Cape Fear about Two Hundred Miles Distance from the
other; Some few of 'em at the Clerk of the Council's House at
Newbern, so that in whatever part of the Colony a man hap-
pens to be, if he wants to consult any paper or record he must
send some Hundred of Miles before he can come at it." In
1744 he told the Assembly that the unsatisfactory condition of
public affairs and the "shamefull condition" of the laws,
which were "left at the mercy of every ignorant transcriber
and tossed about on loose scraps of paper," were largely due
to "the want of a fixt place for the dispatch of publick busi-
ness. It is impossible," he continued, "to finish any matter
as it ought to be while we go on in this itinerant way.
We have now tried every Town in the Colonv and it is high
time to settle somewhere." The soundness of this advice was
indisputable, yet the Assembly did nothing. The trouble was
the question could never be considered on its own merits. The
act of 1746, fixing the capital at New Bern, was involved in
the representation controversy and vetoed by the king upon
the protest of the northern counties. In 1758, upon the recom-
mendation of Governor Dobbs, the Assembly passed an act
fixing the capital at Tower Hill, on the Neuse River about
fifty miles above New Bern ; but the Board of Trade claimed
for the Crown the right to select the site for a capital and
rebuked Dobbs for consenting to the act. Besides, after its
passage it was found that Dobbs himself owned the land on
which the town was to be located, and charges of speculation
and corruption were so freely circulated that the Assembly
itself asked the king to disallow the act.

Here the situation stood when the outburst of loyalty and
good-feeling which followed the repeal of the Stamp Act gave
Tryon a favorable opportunity for asking the Assembly for
funds to erect a suitable public building at New Bern. The
Assembly, in November, 1766, complied with the request, ap-
propriating £5,000 for the purpose. A year later an addi-
tional appropriation of £10,000 was made. The work begun
in 1767 was finally completed in 1770. The building, though
called the "Governor's Palace," contained in fact a residence

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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 301

for the governor, a hall for the Assembly, a council chamber,
and offices for the provincial officials. Built of brick and
trimmed with marble, it was admittedly the handsomest pub-
lic building in America. Its erection brought much undeserved
odium upon Tryon. True it fastened a debt upon the province
which it could ill afford at that lime; nevertheless it is perti-
nent to remark that this debt was incurred hot by the gov-
ernor but by representatives of the people. The governor
merely expended the money which the Assembly voted. Nor
can there be any doubt that the establishment of a permanent
capital, the concentration of the public records in a central
depository, and the erection of suitable executive offices and
legislative halls greatly facilitated and improved the transac-
tion of the public business.

While all this is undoubtedly true, yet it was an unfavor-
able time for the Assembly to enter upon such an expensive
enterprise. The eastern men, who controlled the Assembly
and upon whom chiefly the burdens of the Stamp Act would
have fallen, in their joy at being relieved of those burdens,
forgot that other sections of the province had grievances of
their own. The back counties were already deeply agitated
over abuses in the administration of their local affairs and the
inequalities in the system of taxation, and a wise administra-
tion would not have given them an additional cause for dis-
satisfaction. Their complaints were aimed not so much at
the fact of erecting a provincial building as at the method
adopted for raising the money. This method was the imposi-
tion of a poll tax for three years which fell on rich and poor
alike and was particularly burdensome in the back settlements
where money was so scarce. They complained that "as the
people in the lower counties are few in proportion to those
in the back settlements, it [a poll tax] more immediately
affects the many, and operates to their prejudice ; for * *
a man that is worth £10,000 pays no more than a poor back set-
tler that has nothing but the labour of his hands to depend
upon for his daily support." The Regulators of Orange
County, at a meeting held on August 2, 1768, told the sheriff,
"We are determined not to pay the Tax for the next three
years, for the Edifice or Governor's House. We want no such
House, nor will we pay for it," Thus the erection of the
"Governor's Palace"' was closely connected with those two
events, the Regulation and the Stamp Act, which hold so large
a place in the history of North Carolina during the decade
from 1765 to 1775 .

CHAPTER XVII
THE WAR OF THE REGULATION

The War of the Regulation is one of the most sharply
controverted events in the history of North Carolina.
The controversy, however, does not so much concern the
facts, as in the case of the "Mecklenburg Declaration," as it
does the conclusions to be drawn from them. One group of his-
torians sees in the Regulators a devoted band of patriots who
at Alamance fired the opening gun of the American Revolu-
tion ; another sees only a mob, hating property and culture, de-
lighting in violence and impatient of all legal restraints, whose
success would have resulted not in the establishment of con-
stitutional liberty but in the reign of anarchy. Neither view is
correct; the former is based upon a misunderstanding of the
American Revolution, the latter upon a misunderstanding of
the Regulation.

The Regnlation had its origin in the social and economic
differences between the tidewater section and the "back conn-
try" of North Carolina. These differences were largely the
results of racial and geological divergencies. In the East,
as has already been pointed out, the people were almost,
entirely of English ancestry; in the West, Scotch-Irish and
Germans predominated. In the East an aristocratic form of
society prevailed, based upon large plantations and slave
labor ; in the West, plantations were small, slaves were few in
number, and the forms and ideals of society were democratic.
Between the two sections stretched a sparsely settled region
of pine forest which formed a natural barrier to intercourse.
The East looked to Virginia and the mother country for its
social, intellectual, and political standards ; for the West, Phil-
adelphia was the principal center for the interchange of ideas,
as well as of produce. With slight intercourse between them,
the two sections felt but little sympathetic interest in each
other. While the East had taken on many of the forms and
luxuries of older societies, the West was still in the pi one -»v
stage. Some old Regulators long afterwards declared that

302

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 303

at the time of the Regulation there was not among all their
acquaintances one who could boast a cabin with a plank floor,
or who possessed a feather bed, a riding carriage, or a side
saddle.

There was, however, one set of people in the "back coun-
try" who aped the manners of the eastern aristocracy, and
by their haughty bearings, selfish and mercenary spirit, and
disregard of the sentiments if not the rights of the people,
drew upon themselves an almost universal detestation and
hatred. They were the public officials, who were a sufficiently
numerous and compact group to form a distinct class. The
people had but little or no voice in the choice of these officials
and therefore no control over them. The colonial government
was nighty centralized. Provincial affairs were administered
by officials chosen by the Crown, local affairs by officials
chosen by the governor. Upon the recommendation of the
assemblymen from each county, the governor in Council ap-
pointed the county justices, who administered the local gov-
ernment. The county justices nominated to the governor
three freeholders from whom he selected the sheriff. The gov-
ernor also appointed the registers and the officers of the mili-
tia. There was a clerk of the pleas who farmed out the clerk-
ships of the counties. Moreover these local officials controlled
the Assembly. No law forbade multiple office-holding, and
the assemblymen were also generally clerks, justices, and
militia colonels, who formed what in modern political parlance
we call "courthouse rings.' Where these "rings" were com-
posed of high-minded, patriotic men, as in most of the east-
ern counties, government was honestly administered; but in
the "back country" such officials were rare, local government
was usually inefficient, often corrupt, and generally oppres-
sive.

It was this system of centralized office-holding that pre-
vented the Regulators' receiving prompt and effective redress
of their grievances. Their grievances were excessive taxes,
dishonest officials, and extortionate fees. Taxes were exces-
sive because they were levied only on the poll so that the rich
and the poor paid equal amounts. The scarcity of money in
the "back country" added to the hardships of the system, for
it frequently gave brutal and corrupt sheriffs and their depu-
ties an excuse to proceed by distraint, collect an extra fee for
so doing, and sell the unhappy taxpayer's property at less
than its real value to some friend of the sheriff. The Regula-
tors charged that the officers and their friends made a regular

304 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

business of such proceedings. That the officers with rare
exceptions were either dishonest or inefficient is indisputable.
A large percentage of the taxes collected by them, estimated
bv Tryon in 1767 at fifty per cent, never found its way into the
hands of the public treasurer. In 1770 the sheriffs were in
arrears £49,000, some of which extended as far back as 1754.
It was reported that at least half of this sum could not be
collected from those officials. The arrears of the officers
were greatest in Anson, Orange, Johnston, Eowan, Cum-
berland, and Dobbs counties. While much of it was due
to inefficient methods of accounting, there is no question that
the greater part of it can be charged to corruption in office.
Sheriffs, clerks, registers, and lawyers were all paid in fees
fixed by acts of the Assembly. But these fees were frequently
unknown to the people, who were compelled to accept the
officers ' word for the proper amount. Officers too would gen-
erally manage to resolye a seiwice for which a fee was attached
into two or more seryices and collect a fee for each. That
such practices were not always technically illegal or corrupt,
and that popular rumor frequently exaggerated or misrepre-
sented the facts in particular cases, is unquestionably true,
but equally true it is that the people had ample ground for
complaint which a government properly responsive to popular
sentiment would have speedily remoyed.

But the government was not responsive to popular senti-
ment, and it onlv needed somebody to give voice and direc-
tion to the general discontent to set the whole countryside
aflame. The three names most conspicuously connected with
the agitation which led to the organization of the Regulation
are Herman Husband, Rednap Howell, and James Hunter.
Husband was a native of Maryland, Howell of New Jersey,
and Hunter of Virginia. All three had been caught up in the
stream of emigration which flowed from the middle colonies
into North Carolina during the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury, and had settled in Orange County. Husband was
a Quaker and seems to have been endowed with those
qualities of business shrewdness, industry, and thrift charac-
teristic of adherents of that sect. Better educated than the
people generally among whom he lived, he was fond of read-
ing political tracts which he distributed rather extensively
among his neighbors. He had some gift of expression which
enabled him to set forth in simple and homely fashion the
grievances' of the people in pamphlets to which he gave a wide
circulation. Thus he became pre-eminently the spokesman of

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 305

the people. Twice they elected him to represent them in the
General Assembly. Essentially an agitator, he shrank from
violence and when the quarrel which he had done so much to
bring on reached the point of appeal to arms, either from
cowardice as his enemies charged, or from religious scruples
as his apologists would have us believe, he abandoned his fol-
lowers and rode hurriedly away from the scene of action. Hus-
band had a counterpart in Howell. The former was serious,
blunt, bitter ; the latter, witty, pointed, and genial. Howell,
who was an itinerant school teacher, is known as the bard of
the Regulation. Endowed with a talent for versification, he
celebrated the personal characteristics of the officers, their
public conduct, and their rapid rise at the expense of the peo-
ple from poverty to affluence, in "ambling epics and jingling
ballads" that have not yet lost their lively interest. His keen
sarcasm, his well-aimed wit, and his broad humor set the whole
back country laughing and singing at the expense of the
officers. Of the triumvirate mentioned, James Hunter seems
to have been the man of action. He is known as the "gen-
eral" of the Regulation. Early associating himself with the
movement, upon finding petitions to the governor and appeals
to the courts alike ineffective, he advocated resort to forcible
measures. Asked to take command at Alamance, he gave a
reply which in itself is expressive of the Regulators' own
conception of their movement. "We are all free men," he
said, "and every man must command himself." After Ala-
mance, Husband, Howell, and Hunter were all outlawed and
forced to flee from the province. Hunter alone returned.
Later, in the contest with the mother country, he joined the
Revolutionary party, and rendered good service in the cause
of independence.

Except Governor Tryon, the most prominent leader of the
opposing forces was Edmund Fanning. A native of New
York, after graduating from Yrale College in 1757, he studied
law and, in 1761, came to Carolina and located at Hillsboro.
Although he may not have been as poverty-stricken upon his
arrival as Rednap Howell represents, there can be no doubt
that he soon "laced his coat with gold." He was the per-
sonification of the office-holding class which has already been
described, uniting in his own person the offices of assembly-
man, register of deeds, judge of the Superior Court, and colo-
nel of the militia. One need not think him deserving of all
the infamy that has been heaped upon him to understand the
sentiments of the people toward him. That he was a man of

Vol. 1—2 0

306 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

culture and more than average ability there can be no dispute.
To his equals he was kind, hospitable, considerate; to his
inferiors, patronizing, supercilious, overbearing. He despised
the "common people, ';i and they cordially reciprocated the
sentiment. They believed that he had acquired his wealth,
which he displayed with great ostentation, "by his civil rob-
beries. ' ' Although on the evidence he may be fairly acquitted
of the charge of deliberate and positive dishonesty, he was
unquestionably guilty of abusing his official power and influ-
ence for the purpose of perpetuating an oppressive system
and obstructing all efforts at reform. He was, indeed, the
progenitor of the race of carpetbaggers.

The Regulation was not an isolated event. It was in fact
but the culmination of a spirit of restlessness and discontent
at existing conditions that had long been abroad in the prov-
ince. Evidence of it was seen in the outbreak of violence occa-
sioned by the collection of taxes in Anson County and in the
riots in the Granville District. In 1765 such riots also broke
out among the squatters on the George Selwyn lands in Meck-
lenburg County when attempts by Selwyn 's agents to survey
these lands so that deeds might be issued and quit rents col-
lected led to armed resistance in which John Frohock, Abra-
ham Alexander, and others were severelv beaten bv angrv
settlers and Henry Eustace McCulloh, Selwyn 's agent, was
threatened with death. Similar conditions prevailed in Gran-
ville Countv. George Sims of Nutbush, Granville Countv, on
June 6, 1765, issued his famous "Nutbush Address," in which
he set forth in graphic language, "the most notorious and
intolerable abuses'' which had crept into the public service
in that county. It was not, he said, the "form of Government,
nor yet the body of our laws, that we are quarreling with, but
with the malpractices of the Officers of our County Courts,
and the abuses which we suffer by those empowered to man-
age our public affairs.'1 Extortionate fees and oppressive
methods of collecting fees and taxes formed the burden of his
complaint. He called upon the people to meet for a discussion
of reform, but the only result of his appeal was a petition to
the Assembly for redress of grievances which was stillborn.

The failure of the movement in Granville was probably
due to lack of organization. Organized opposition to the in-
equalities in the law and malpractices in its administration
began in Orange County. At the August term, 1766, of the
County Court at Hillsboro, a group of Sandy Creek men,
inspired by the success of the Sons of Liberty in resisting the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 307

Stamp Act, issued an address calling upon the people to send
delegates to a meeting at Maddock's Mill to inquire "whether
the free men of this county labor under any abuses of power
or not." The address was read in open court and the officers
present, acknowledging that it was reasonable, promised to
attend the meeting. On October 10, twelve delegates appeared,
but no officers. Apparently under the influence of Edmund
Fanning, who denounced the meeting as an insurrection, they
had repented of their promise and sent a messenger to say
that they would not attend because the meeting claimed au-
thority to call them to an account. The delegates, therefore,
were compelled to content themselves with a proposal that the
people hold such a meeting annually to discuss the qualifica-
tions of candidates for the Assembly, to inform their repre-
sentatives of their wishes, and to investigate the official acts
of public officers. But public office-holders in 1766 did not
acknowledge their responsibility to the people. Accordingly
they threw all of their personal and official influence against
the proposal, and the Sandy Creek men, discouraged at the
lack of popular interest and support, abandoned their project.
Though the agitation continued, no further organized op-
position was attempted until the spring of 1768. Almost
simultaneously a report reached Hillsboro that the Assembly
had given the governor £15,000 for a "Palace" and the sheriff
posted notices that he would receive taxes only at five speci-
fied places and if required to go elsewhere he would distrain
at a cost of 2s. 8d. for each distress. The coincidence caused
wide comment. The people declared they would not pay the
tax for the Palace. They denounced the sheriff's purpose as
a violation of the law and determined to resist it. Accordingly
they organized themselves into an association, which they
later called "The Regulation," in which they agreed: (1) to
pay no more taxes until satisfied that they were according to
law and lawfully applied ; (2) to pay no fees greater than pro-
vided by law; (3) to attend meetings of the Regulators as
often as possible ; (4) to contribute, each man according to his
ability, to the expenses of the organization; and (5) in all mat-
ters to abide by the will of the majority. They sent to the
officers a notice in which they demanded a strict accounting
and declared that "as the nature of an officer is a servant of
the publick, we are determined to have the officers of this
county under a better and honester regulation than they have
been for some time past.'1 This formidable pronunciamento
was received by the officers with an outburst of indignation.

308 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Fanning denounced the people for attempting to arraign the
officers before "the bar of their shallow understanding" and
charged them with desiring to set themselves up as the "sove-
reign arbiters of right and wrong. ' '

The officers seem not to have appreciated the gravity of
the situation ; or else they desired to put the resolution of the
Eegulators to a test. No other explanation seems possible for
their blunder, when the situation was acutest, in seizing a
Eegulator's horse, saddle, and bridle and selling them for
taxes. A storm of popular fury greeted this challenge. The
Regulators rode into Hillsboro, overawed the officers, rescued
their comrade's property, and as evidence of their temper
fired several shots into Fanning 's house. When this affair
was reported to Fanning, who was absent attending court at
Halifax, he promptly ordered the arrest of William Butler,
Peter Craven, and Ninian Bell Hamilton, called out seven
companies of the Orange militia, and hurried to Hillsboro to
take command. Immediately upon his arrival he reported the
situation and his own actions to Tryon and asked for author-
ity to call out the militia of other counties if it became neces-
sary/ The governor, who quite properly accepted his subor-
dinate's report at its face value, acted with his accustomed
vigor. He authorized Fanning to use the Orange militia to
suppress the insurrection, ordered the militia of Bute, Hali-
fax, Granville, Rowan, Mecklenburg, Anson, Cumberland, and
Johnston counties to be in readiness to respond to Fanning 's
call, sent a proclamation to be read to the people, and offered
to go himself to the scene of action if Fanning desired his
presence. The Council, declaring the Regulators guilty of
insurrection, approved these actions of the governor.

In the meantime the officers, alarmed at the storm they had
raised, offered to meet the Regulators and adjust their dif-
ferences. To Fanning they explained their offer as a subter-
fuge to gain time. The Regulators on the contrary accepted
it in good faith and immediately made preparations for the
meeting. They appointed a committee to collect data relat-
ing to the taxes and fees and required its members to take an
oath to do justice between the officers and the people to the
best of their ability. Fanning was determined to prevent any
such meeting. While the Regulators were making their prep-
arations, he collected a band of armed men and swooping down
upon Sandy Creek, arrested Butler and Husband on a charge
of inciting* to rebellion and hurried them off to prison at Hills-
boro. At this high-handed act 700 men, many of whom were

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 309

not Regulators, seized their guns and marched on Hillsboro
to rescue the prisoners. It was now the officers' turn to be-
come frightened. They threw open the prison doors, released
their captives, and hurried them off to turn back the mob.
Along with them went Isaac Edwards, the governor's private
secretary, who promised the people in the name of the gov-
ernor that if they would peaceably disperse, go home quietly,
and petition the governor in the proper manner, the governor
would see that justice was done them. Since this promise was
exactly in line with their own plans, which had been interrupted
by the arrest of Husband and Butler, the Regulators accepted
it gladly. In spite of Fanning 's opposition, they appointed
a committee which prepared their case and laid it before the
Igovernor. But Tryon repudiated the promise of his secre-
tary, saying Edwards had exceeded his authority, refused to
deal with the Regulators as an organization, demanded that
they immediately disband, and expressed his hearty approval
of Fanning 's course. At the same time he stated for the
information of the people the amount of poll tax clue for the
year 1767, promised to issue a proclamation forbidding the
officers' taking illegal fees, and ordered the attorney-general
to prosecute any officer charged in due form with extortion.
In July, 1768, Tryon went to Hillsboro in the hopes that
he might induce the people to submit to the laws. While he
was there, the Regulators met to consider his reply to their
petition. They told him that his proclamation forbidding the
taking of illegal fees had had no effect, and they had decided
to petition the Assembly in order to strengthen his hands.
Other meetings were held and several communications, both
verbal and written, passed between the governor and the
Regulators. In one of them he told the Regulators that he
was ever ready to do them justice and as evidence of it he
had ordered the attorney-general to institute prosecutions
against officers charged with extortion, one of whom was Colo-
nel Fanning himself. In a letter written by the governor and
approved by the Council, August 13, and sent to a meeting of
the Regulators, August 17, appears the key to the explanation
of the differences between the governor and the Regulators.
The latter, either from distrust of the courts or ignorance of
the law, expected the governor to give evidence of his sincerity
by summary proceedings against the offending officials : the
governor on the contrary knew that he could move only
through the courts and that every step must be in due legal
form. "By your letter delivered to me the 5th instant

310 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

* *" he wrote, "I have the mortification to find
the friendly aid I offered to correct the abuses in public offices
(which it was my duty to tender) [is] considered by you insuf-
ficient. The force of the proclamation was to caution public
officers against and to prevent as much as possible extortion :
It is the province of the Courts of Law to Judge and punish
the Extortioner." At the same time he took them to task for
their unwillingness to wait upon legal process against those
whom they charged with abusing their public trust.

One of Tryon's purposes in going to Hillsboro was to
secure protection for the Superior Court when it met in Sep-
tember to try Husband and Butler. Such protection could be
secured either by obtaining from the leaders of the Regulators
a bond that no attempt at rescue would be made, or other
insult offered the court ; or by calling out the militia. Tryon
preferred the first of these alternatives, since it would save
the province a considerable expense, but the Regulators for
very good reasons refused to give it. The governor, therefore,
in the exercise of a wise precaution called out the militia.
Some difficulty was encountered in enrolling a sufficient force
since most of the people of the surrounding counties were
tainted with Regulating principles, but Tryon tactfully won.
over the leading preachers of the Lutherans, Presbyterians,
and Baptists and largely through their influence secured 195
men from Rowan, 310 from Mecklenburg, 126 from Granville,
and 699 from Orange. Two small independent companies, an
artillery company, and the general officers brought the force
up to 1,461 men. It was one of the most remarkable organiza-
tions in military history. More than one-fifth of the entire
force were commissioned officers. They included six lieuten-
ant-generals, two major-generals, three adjutant-generals,
seven colonels, five lieutenant-colonels, and many majors, cap-
tains, aids-de-camp, and minor officers. Characteristically
enough, Edmund Fanning, who was to be tried for extortion
by the court which this imposing array was called out to pro-
tect, and Maurice Moore, who was to sit as an associate justice
of the court, were both colonels in active command. Most of
the high officers were councilmen, representatives, justices, or
holders of other political offices. At a council of war held in
Hillsboro, attended by no officer of lower rank than major,
thirty-four members were present, of whom six were members
of the Council, eighteen of the Assembly. ' ' Thus, ' ' comments
Dr. Bassett, "to guard the Superior Court a military force
was called out which embraced, either as high officers or as

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 311

gentlemen volunteers, one-fourth of the members of that body
[the Assembly] to which the Regulators had decided to ap-
peal. The above contrast indicates how completely the forces
of central and local government, both civil and military, were
in the hands of a small office-holding class, which was dis-
tributed throughout the counties. As we contemplate such a
state of affairs we are struck with the fact that nothing short
of a popular upheaval could have brought redress to the
Regulators. ' ' 1

Tryon's precautions were wisely taken. The Regulators
assembled to the number of 3,700, but, overawed by the gover-
nor's display of force, made no attempt to interfere with the
proceedings of the court. Husband was tried and acquitted;
Butler and two other Regulators were convicted and sen-
tenced to fines and imprisonment. None of them, however,
was punished, for Tryon, having vindicated the authority of
government, adopted a policy of leniency. He released the
prisoners and suspended the payment of their fines, and later,
upon the advice of the king, pardoned them. Fanning was
tried for extortion and found guilty on five counts, but the
judges, upon a motion in arrest of judgment, held their judg-
ment in reserve, and so far as the records show no further
action was ever taken on the case. Fanning promptly re-
signed his office as register. The Regulators pointed to the
result as justifying their distrust of the courts. In this
instance, however, their distrust was not well-founded for
from any point of view, Fanning was guilty of nothing worse
than a misconstruction of the law. It seems clear that he was
not even guilty of that. He was charged with taking 6s. for
registering a deed when, it was alleged, he was entitled to only
2s. 8d. Yet before entering upon his office he was advised by
the county court that he was entitled to 6s. and odd pence,
while the attorney-general of the colony had advised him that
he was entitled to 8s. 7d. on any deed. After his conviction
the case was referred to the attorney-general of England and
to John Morgan of the Inner Temple, London, both of whom
were of opinion that not only wTas Fanning entitled to more
than he took, but that under no aspect of the case could he
be guilty of extortion, since his action in seeking advice from
the county court clearly disproved any intention to commit

1 "The Regulators of North Carolina," p. 178 of the Annual Re-
port of the American Historical Association, 1894.

312 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

a fraud.2 But the Regulators were in no frame of mind to
appreciate these fine points ; all they could see was that Fan-
ning, although found guilty of extortion, had escaped punish-
ment, and they bitterly resented the outcome.

In the meantime the Regulating spirit had spread to other
counties. In some of them it found expression in acts of vio-
lence. A band of about thirty men from Edgecombe County
attempted unsuccessfully to rescue an insurgent leader who
had been imprisoned in the Halifax jail. In Johnston County
a mob attacked the county court. In Anson a hundred armed
men entered the courthouse, broke up the sitting of the county
court, drove the justices off the bench, and then entered into
an oath-bound association to assist each other in resisting all
efforts of the sheriff to collect taxes. Later, however, appar-
ently upon the advice of the Orange County Regulators, the
Anson Regulators abandoned violent methods and sought a
redress of their grievances through a petition to the governor,
from whom they received the same promise that had been
given to the Regulators of Orange. In Rowan County, also,
an organization existed which attempted to prosecute the of-
ficers for extortion, but failed because the grand jury refused
to return true bills.

The courts failing them, the Regulators decided to appeal
to the Assembly. In the summer of 1769, the governor dis-
solved the old Assembly and ordered the election of a new one.
In Orange, Anson, Granville, and Halifax counties the Regu-
lators returned their entire delegations while they made their
influence felt in Rowan and other counties. When the Assem-
bly met, several petitions were presented setting forth the
grievances of the Regulators together with their suggestions
for reform. The Assembly certainly was not unsympathetic
with their appeal, but because of some resolutions which it

2 The whole trouble lay in the differences between the popular and
the legal construction of the law. For registering a deed the law al-
lowed a fee of 2s. 8d. Fanning was accused of extortion because in reg-
istering Deed 13 he had charged 6s. Besides the deed itself, there were
three endorsements which required to be registered. To the people,
deed and endorsements formed a single instrument for which the
register could collect one fee ; to Fanning they formed four instru-
ments on each of which he was entitled to a fee. Fanning 's construc-
tion was upheld by the attorney-general of North Carolina, the attor-
ney-general of England, and John Morgan of the Inner Temple.
Morgan gave it as his opinion that Fanning was entitled to four fees,
viz. : (1) For the deed ; (2) for the certificate of the examination of the
feme covert; (3) for the certificate of the persons examining; (4) for
the oath of execution and order to register.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 313

had adopted on the questions at issue between the colonies and
the British ministry, it suffered a sudden and unexpected dis-
solution before it could take up the measures necessary to
redress the Regulators' grievances. It showed its attitude
toward their petitions, however, by resolving just before dis-
solution, "that if any public officer shall exact illegal fees, or
otherwise under colour of his office unduly oppress the people,
such officer so acting shall on conviction thereof receive the
highest censure and punishment this House can inflict upon
him." The men who composed the Assembly appeared to be
so ready to listen to the complaints of the Regulators that
James Iredell declared a majority of them were themselves
of Regulating principles.

It seems clear that legal remedies would have been pro-
vided for their grievances had the Regulators been willing to
wait upon the slow process of lawmaking. That the laws
needed amendment was not denied, but the Assembly from
its very nature as a legislative body could not move with the
speed which the impatience of the Regulators demanded. The
reformer is naturally a radical, the lawmaker is, or ought to
be, a conservative, and when he does not move fast enough for
the reformer, the latter frequently becomes impatient and
runs into excesses in words or deeds. So it was with the Reg-
ulators. Impatience at what they considered the indifference
of all branches of the colonial government to their grievances
led them into excesses which no government entitled to the
name could think of condoning. For, to break into courts of
justice, driving the judges from the bench, to "tear down
justice from her tribunal," and contemptuously to set up mock
courts filling the records with billingsgate and profanity;
to drag unoffending attorneys through the streets at the peril
of their lives, and wantonly to assault peaceable citizens for
refusing to sympathize with lawlessness — these surely are not
proper methods of redressing grievances, however oppressive,
in a civilized community under a government based upon the
will of the people.

Such were the methods which lost the Regulators the
sympathy of the Assembly and compelled both the king's gov-
ernor and the people's representatives to look less to the re-
dress of grievances than to the suppression of anarchy. When
the Superior Court, Judge Richard Henderson presiding, met
at Hillsboro, in September, 1770, a mob of 150 Regulators,
led by Herman Husband, James Hunter, Rednap Howell, and
William Butler, armed with sticks and switches, broke into

314 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the courthouse, attempted to strike the judge, and compelled
him to leave the bench. They next assaulted and severely
whipped John Williams, whose only offense was that he was
a practicing- attorney. William Hooper was "dragged and
paraded through the streets, and treated with every mark of
contempt and insult. ' ' Turning next to Edmund Fanning, the
mob pulled him out of the courthouse by his heels, dragged
him through the street, and gave him a brutal whipping.
Breaking into his house, they burned his papers, destroyed his
furniture, and demolished the building. Alexander Martin,
Michael Holt, Thomas Hart, "and many others," were
whipped. Rioting through the streets of the town, the Regu-
lators amused themselves in typical mob-fashion by smashing
the windows of private residences and terrorizing the inhab-
itants. Unable to enforce order Judge Henderson adjourned
court and escaped from the town under cover of darkness.
The next day the Regulators assembled in the courtroom, set
up a mock court, secured the docket, and entered upon it their
own judgments and comments upon the several cases. In
McMund vs. Courtney the comment was "Damn'd Rogues;"
in Wilson vs. Harris, "All Harris's are Rogues;" in Brum-
field vs. Ferrel, ' ' Nonsense let them agree for Ferrell has gone
Hellward;" in Brown vs. Lewis, wherein judgment was en-
tered by default, it was "The Man was sick. It tis damned
roguery;" in Fanning vs. Smith, "Fanning pays costs but
loses nothing;" in Hogan vs. Husbands, "Hogan pays & be
damned;" in Richardson vs. York, "Plaintiff pays all and
gets his body scourged for Blasphemy;" while in Humphries
vs. Jackson the entry is "Judgment by default the money
must come to the officers."

These outrages threw the colonial officials into a panic.
The Orange County officials loudly demanded a special session
of the Assembly. The governor hastily summoned the Coun-
cil to give their advice as to "the properest measures to be
taken in the exigency." The Council urged that the militia
be immediately called into active service. The air was full of
rumors. First came news of the burning by incendiaries of
Judge Henderson's dwelling and stables in Granville County.
Hard upon this report, followed rumors that the Regulators
were gathering in force for a descent upon New Bern to over-
awe the Assembly. In the midst of the excitement the Assem-
bly met, December 5th. "Born as it was in terror," says
Dr. Bassett, "it is not surprising that it should have passed
away in blood. '; For a time the members kept their heads

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 315

admirably. In their reply to the governor's message they
declared that the conduct of public officers in some parts of
the colony had "given just cause of complaint" which was
due chiefly to "an inconsistent and oppressive fee Bill," and
promised to remedy the evils as far as possible. Acts were
accordingly passed relating to the appointment of sheriffs
and their duties, ascertaining attorneys' fees, more strictly
regulating officers' fees, providing for the more speedy col-
lection of small debts, placing the chief justice on a salary,
and erecting the counties of Wake, Guilford, Chatham, and
Surry, all lying in the region embraced within the Regula-
tion. All these laws were in line with the demands of the
Regulators. But while the House was considering them, a
report was received that the Regulators had assembled at
Cross Creek preparatory for their march on New Bern. Re-
formatory measures were hastily side-tracked and punitive
measures given the right of way. The Assembly had already
in its message to the governor denounced the "daring and in-
solent attack" of the Regulators on the court at Hillsboro;
declared that their "dissolute principles and licentious spirit"
rendered them too formidable for the ordinary process of law;
and recommended the adoption of "measures at once spirited
and decisive." The measure adopted was introduced by Sam-
uel Johnston and is generally known as the "Johnston Act.';
It provided that the attorney-general might prosecute charges
of riot in any Superior Court in the province, declared out-
laws all those who avoided the summons of the court for
sixty days, allowed such outlaws to be killed with impunity,
and authorized the governor to employ the militia to enforce
the law. Like most laws passed in passion and fear its very
severity largely defeated its purpose. As Haywood truly re-
marks, it is doubtful if so drastic a measure ever passed
another American assembly; but the Assembly felt, as James
Iredell expressed it, that "desperate diseases must have des-
perate remedies."

The Regulators met the Assembly's "desperate remedies"
with defiance. Husband having been expelled from the Assem
bly and imprisoned at New Bern for a libel on Maurice Moore,
the Regulators were prevented from releasing him by force
only by the grand jury's failure to return a true bill against
him. Determined to extend and strengthen their organiza-
tion, they dispatched emissaries into Bute, Edgecombe, and
Northampton to stimulate and organize disaffection in those
counties. In Rowan they denounced the Assembly for passing

316 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

a "riotous act," swore they would pay no fees, resolved that
no judge or king's attorney should hold any court in Rowan,
threatened death to all clerks and lawyers who came among
them, and declared Edmund Fanning an outlaw whom any
Regulator might kill on sight. Rednap Howell, writing from
Halifax to James Hunter, February 16, 1771, said: "I give
out here that the Regulators are determined to whip every one
who goes to Law or will not pay his just debts;
that they will choose Representatives but not send them to be
put in jail; in short to stand in defiance and as to thieves to
drive them out of the Country." When Tryon appointed a
term of Superior Court to be held at Hillsboro in March, 1771,
the judges filed with the Council a formal protest saying that
under the conditions existing in that part of the province
which were ''rather increasing than declining," they could
not hold such a court with any hopes of dispatching business
or any prospect of personal safety to themselves; and the
Council, thinking that the time had come for law to take a
stand against anarchy, advised the governor to call out the
militia and march against the Regulators "with all expedi-
tion." This advice was hailed with relief by the law-abiding
people of the colony, who were worn out with the reign of
violence, lawlessness, and terrorism which the Regulators had
set up.

Tryon lost no time in getting his military preparations
under way. He ordered General Hugh Waddell with the Cape
Fear militia to proceed at once to Salisbury to overawe the
Rowan Regulators, raise the western militia, and march on
Hillsboro from the west. Tryon himself in command of the
eastern militia was to march from New Bern and unite with
"Waddell at Hillsboro. On March 19th, he ordered the colonels
of the several counties to hold militia musters and secure 2,550
volunteers. In the counties affected by the influence of the
Regulators difficulties in raising men arose, and in none of the
counties were the quotas secured. Altogether Tryon raised a
force of 1,068 men, of whom 151 were commissioned officers,
while Waddell raised 284 men, of whom 48 were commissioned
officers. Among these officers were Robert Howe, Alexander
Lillington, James Moore, John Ashe, Riehard Caswell, Fran-
cis Nash, and Griffith Rutherford, all of whom subsequently
won military distinction in the war of the Revolution, and
Abner Nash, John Baptista Ashe, and Willie Jones, who at-
tained high civil positions during and after the Revolution.
Tryon reached Hillsboro May 9 without meeting any opposi-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 317

tion, but Waddell had been checked by a superior force of
Regulators and because his men would not fire on them was
compelled to fall back on Salisbury. Consequently he did not
join Tryon until after the battle of Alamance.

On May 14, Tryon encamped on Great Alamance Creek, a
few miles west of Hillsboro. Two days later he formed his
line of battle and marched forward to meet the enemy who
had gathered about 2,000 strong. The Regulators were nu-
merically superior to the militia, but the latter enjoyed every
other advantage. Neither side really wanted to bring on a
battle. Tryon still hoped that the Regulators upon his display
of force would submit and disperse, while the Regulators had
not lost hope of securing a peaceable adjustment of their
quarrel. Accordingly while the two forces lay on their arms
facing each other, each reluctant to bring matters to a final
test, they sent a petition to the governor requesting to be per-
mitted to lay their grievances before him. To this petition
Tryon very properly replied that as long as they remained
under arms in "a state of War and Rebellion," he could hold
no negotiations with them, and demanded that they disperse
and submit to the laws of their country. He gave them one
hour to come to a decision. The infatuated people treated his
reply with contempt and foolishly declared that a fight was
all they wanted. At the expiration of the hour, Tryon sent an
officer to receive their reply. The officer told them that unless
they dispersed the governor would fire upon them. "Fire and
be damned ! ' ' was their answer. Thereupon the governor gave
the order. His men hesitated. Rising in his stirrups he cried
out, "Fire! Fire on them or on me!" The militia obeyed,
the Regulators replied, and the action became general. Or-
ganization and discipline as usual won the day. After two
hours of fighting the undisciplined mob was driven in con-
fusion from the field. Perhaps the most remarkable feature
of this remarkable battle was the poor marksmanship on both
sides. Tryon 's casualties were nine killed, sixty-one wounded,
the Regulators' casualties were nine killed and a large unas-
certained number wounded. Fifteen Regulators were cap-
tured, one of whom, James Few, who had previously been out-
lawed, was summarily executed in compliance with the insist-
ence of the militia, who demanded an example.

After his victory, Tryon 's course was marked by good
judgment and leniency. He had the wounded Regulators
cared for by his own surgeons. The next day he issued a
proclamation offering pardon to those, with a few exceptions,

318 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

who would submit to the government and take the oath of
allegiance. Fourteen of the prisoners taken in the battle were
tried at a special term of the Superior Court, twelve of whom
were convicted of high treason and sentenced to death. Six of
the number were hanged, the others at Try on 's request were
pardoned by the king.

Alamance was the climax of Tryon's administration in
North Carolina. He had already received notice of his ap-
pointment as governor of New York, and a few days after his
victory he bade his army farewell and set out for his new
province. He was soon followed by Edmund Fanning.

The Regulation was at an end. Its leaders were dead,
fugitives, or in concealment, its members scattered and dis-
heartened. James Few had been executed on the battlefield.
Benjamin Merrill and James Pugh, convicted of treason, had
paid the penalty for their crime, Husband, Howell, and Hun-
ter had sought safety in flight. Hamilton, Butler, and others
were in hiding. After Tryon's departure some of these lead-
ers, who had been excepted from his offer of general amnesty,
applied to his successor, Governor Josiah Martin, for pardon
which, however, was not then granted. The Regulators gen-
erally availed themselves of Tryon's offer of pardon. Within
six weeks after the battle of Alamance, 6,409 had submitted to
the government and taken the oath of allegiance. The British
government advised the General Assembly to pass a general
amnesty act, but the two houses could not agree on its tenns
and the proposed act failed of passage. The course of events,
however, favored the cause of the Regulators. In 1775, when
the men who had followed Tryon at Alamance were them-
selves organizing committees, congresses, and armies for re-
bellion, the old Regulators manifested such a "favorable dis-
position" toward the royal government that the king sent to
his governor in North Carolina "a Power, under the Great
Seal, to pardon all those who were concerned in the Rebellious
Insurrections in 1770, Herman Husband only excepted."
About the same time the Provincial Congress sitting at Hills:
boro and presided over by the author of the Johnston Act, re-
solved that the former Regulators "ought to be protected
from every attempt to punish them by any Means whatever."
Thus the despised and feared "banditti" of the back country,
courted by king and revolutionists alike, found safety in the
quarrels of their former enemies, and had they been asked
to express their view of the situation they would probably

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 319

have quoted the old adage that when thieves fall out, honest
men get their dues.

In any discussion of the Regulation the question arises.
Did the Regulators begin the Revolution and at Alamance
shed the first blood in the cause of independence? Upon the
answer to this question must depend our judgment of the his-
torical importance of the Regulation. The Regulators made
no such claim for themselves : on the contrary when an oppor-
tunity was offered to fight for independence a great majority
of them arrayed themselves against it. The oath which Tryon
compelled them to take after the battle of Alamance is often
urged as a sufficient justification of their course during the
Revolution ; but every American who pleaded the cause or
fought the battles of independence had repeatedly taken a sim-
ilar oath. There is a fundamental difference, which Dr. Bas-
sett points out, between the Regulation and the Revolution.
The Regulators were not contending for a great constitutional
principle lying at the very foundation of human government
such as inspired the men who fought the Revolution. Every
grievance of which the former complained could have been
removed by their own representatives in an assembly chosen
by the people ; the American people sent no representatives to
the British Parliament. The former, therefore, resisted op-
pressive methods of administering laws passed by their own
representatives ; the latter, it need scarcely be said, revolted
against taxation without representation. The one was an
insurrection, the other a revolution. The distinction is plain
and goes to the root of the whole matter. A revolution in-
volves a change of principles in government and is constitu-
tional in its significance ; an insurrection is an uprising of
individuals to prevent the execution of laws and aims at a
change of agents who administer, or the manner of adminis-
tering affairs under forms or principles that remain intact.
There is of course all the difference in the world between the
two. It is this difference, for instance, that raises the resist-
ance to the Stamp Act on the Cape Fear far above the revolt
of the Regulators in dignity and significance, and elevates the
former but not the latter above the level of a riot, The Ameri-
cans denied the validity of the Stamp Act because in passing-
it Parliament, as they believed, assumed to itself an authority
which it did not rightfully possess, and thus undermined their
constitutional liberties. The Regulators did not dispute the
constitutional right of the Assembly to enact the laws of which
they complained ; they merely objected to the improper execu-

320 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

tion of those laws. Then, too, there is no continuity between
the Regulation and the Revolution. The principles of the re-
volt against the Stamp Act did not die with the repeal of the
act, but became the living issues in the great Revolution. The
movement of the Regulators expended itself at Alamance and
died out with the removal of the causes and persons which
gave rise to it. However just their cause may have been, it did
not involve a vital principle of political freedom, and it seems
clear that it is a total misconception of the real significance of
the American Revolution as well as of the Regulation to call
Alamance the first battle in the cause of independence.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE STAMP ACT AND THE CONTINENTAL

ASSOCIATION

When Tryon took the oath of office April 3, 1765, the Stamp
Act was the chief topic of discussion in the political circles of
America. The new governor was a man of much greater force
and ability than any of his predecessors. Courtly, versatile,
tactful and resourceful, he knew how to win the favor of men
and understood the secrets of leadership. If any man could
have induced the people of North Carolina to accept the Stamp
Act, he was the man. But those with whom he had to contend
were men of equal ability and determination and had, more-
over, far more at stake than he. Before his arrival they had
already made up their minds what course they intended to pur-
sue. At the October session, 1764, the Assembly in their reply
to Governor Dobbs' address declared their opposition to the
right of Parliament to impose internal taxes in the colonies
as being "against what we esteem our Inherent right and Ex-
clusive privilege of imposing our own Taxes," and had united
with Massachusetts and the other colonies in protesting
against the proposed stamp duty. When Tryon asked John
Ashe, speaker of the Assembly, what the attitude of the col-
ony would be toward the Stamp Act, Ashe promptly replied
with great confidence: "We will resist it to the death."

In this determination the representatives received loyal sup-
port from their constituents. Indeed, from the first, opposi-
tion to the Stamp Act in North Carolina was a popular move-
ment, though directed and controlled by a few trusted leaders.
At Cross Creek, New Bern, Edenton, and other places in the
province, during the summer of 1765, public demonstrations
were made against it. But for obvious reasons the Cape Fear,
as the center of the colony's trade and the residence of the
governor, became the chief scene of the resistance and its
course determined the course of the province. At Wilmington
large crowds gathered from the surrounding counties, drank
"Liberty, Property and no Stamp Duty;" hanged Lord Bute
voi. i-2i 32i

322 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

in effigy; compelled the stamp master, William Houston, to re-
sign his office ; and required Andrew Steuart, the printer, to
issue the North Carolina Gazette on unstamped paper.
Alarmed at these demonstrations, Try on called into consulta-
tion a number of the leading merchants, assured them if they
would not resist the Stamp Act, that he would urge the minis-
try to exempt North Carolina from its operation, and offered
"as a further inducement to the reception of the small
stamps" and as a pledge of 'his good faith, to pay himself the
duties on all instruments whereon he was entitled to any fee.
To this shrewd proposition the merchants replied that every
view of the Stamp Act confirmed them in their opinion that
it was destructive of those liberties which, as British subjects,
they had a right to enjoy in common with their fellow subjects
of Great Britain; that they could not consent to his paying
for the small stamps as "an admission of part would put it
out of our power to refuse with any propriety a submission,
to the whole;" that they thought, therefore, it "more con-
sistent as well as securer conduct" to resist the execution of
the act to the utmost of their power.

The issues were thus joined. But no occasion arose to put
the resolution of the people to a test until November 28th, when
the sloop Diligence, Captain Constantine Phipps, with an
assignment of stamps, cast anchor at Brunswick. Quickly
spread the news of her arrival. Up and down the Cape Fear,
and far into the country, men snatched their rifles and hurried
to Brunswick. Under the command of Hugh Waddell and John
Ashe, they presented a resolute front to the king's man-of-
war, and declared their purpose to resist by force if necessary
any attempt to land the king's stamps. Captain Phipps pru-
dently declined to test the sincerity of their threat and made
no attempt to carry the stamps ashore. A month passed, and
Governor Tryon wrote, "the Stamps still remain on board the
said ship;" and after still another month, he added, "where
they still continue." It is impossible now to realize fully
just what such conduct meant, but we may be sure that Ashe
and Waddell, and the men who followed them, knew what they
dared when, with arms in their hands, they thus defied the
king's officers. Treason it was, of course; but while the mer-
chants and planters of J;he Cape Fear might have felt confident
of escaping the penalties of treason they well knew they could
not, if the situation remained long unchanged, escape the penal-
ties of ruin. Vessels rocked idly at their anchorage and sails
flapped lazily against their masts, for Wilmington and Brims-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 323

wick were closed ports. Ships bound for the Cape Fear passed
by to other ports, and the merchants expected nothing less than
the total destruction of their trade. Nevertheless, as Tryon
wrote, they were "as assiduous in obstructing the reception
of the Stamps as any of the inhabitants. No business, ' ' he con-
tinued, "is transacted in the Courts of Judicature
and all Civil Government is now at a stand. This stagnation
of all public business and commerce, under the low circum-
stances of the inhabitants, must be attended with fatal conse-
quences to this colony if it subsists but for a few months
longer." The situation in other parts of the colony was no
better. "Tho' the people here," wrote the Rev. James Reed
of New Bern, "are peaceable and quiet yet they seem very
uneasy, discontented, and dejected. The Courts of Justice are
in a great measure shut up and it is expected that in a few
weeks there will be a total stagnation of trade."

With the opening of the New Year the struggle reached its
climax. Two vessels arrived at Brunswick, the Dobbs from
Philadelphia, and the Patience from St. Christopher, neither
of which had stamps on her clearance papers. Although
each vessel presented to the collector, William Dry, a
statement signed by the collectors at Philadelphia and St.
Christopher that no stamps were to be had at either place,
nevertheless Captain Jacob Lobb, of the cruiser Viper, de-
clared both vessels outlaws and seized them in the name of
the king. Later a third vessel, the Ruby, shared a like fate.
Captain Lobb delivered their papers to Collector Dry that pro-
ceedings might be instituted against them in the Admiralty
Court. Thereupon Dry consulted the attorney-general, sub-
mitting to him three queries: first, whether failure to obtain
clearances on stamped paper justified the seizures; second,
whether judgment ought to be given against the vessels "upon
proof being made that it was impossible to obtain clearances ';
on stamped paper ; third, whether the proceedings should be
instituted in the Admiralty Court at Halifax, Nova Scotia,
rather than at Cape Fear.

The passions of the people were profoundly stirred by these
proceedings, but while the attorney-general was preparing his
answer, they were admirably suppressed. When the answer
was finally given, it was an affirmative to each of the collector's
questions. Instantly the smothered flames flared into open con-
flagration. The people generally entered into an association
that "We the subscribers * mutually and solemnly

plight Our Faith and Honour that We Will at any Risque

324 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

whatever, and whenever called upon, Unite and Truly and
Faithfully Assist each other, to the best of Our Power, in pre-
venting entirely the Operation of the Stamp Act. ' ' Wilming-
ton peremptorily refused the usual provisions to the king's
vessels, the angry people seized the boats sent ashore for sup-
plies and threw their crews into the common jail. Forty of
the leading men of the Cape Fear section joined in a letter to
William Dry warning him against the course advised by the
attorney-general. A party of unknown men entered the col-
lector's house, broke open his desk, and seized the ships'
papers. The people of the surrounding counties snatched
their guns, hurried to Wilmington, organized an armed asso-
ciation composed of "the principal gentlemen, freeholders and
other inhabitants of several counties," took an oath to resist
the Stamp Act to the death, and marched to Brunswick to
rescue the outlawed vessels.

It was late in the afternoon of February 19th, when
they entered the little village before which lay the king's
cruiser and near which the king's governor dwelt. Hear-
ing at Brunswick that Captain Lobb was concealing
himself in the governor's house, the "inhabitants in arms,"
as Tryon always called them, turned their steps in that direc-
tion. Though fully determined to seize Lobb and force him
to surrender the vessels, the leaders were equally determined
to protect the governor from insult. Accordingly, Cornelius
Harnett and George Moore waited on him in advance of their
followers and offered him a guard. But they had misjudged
their man. Whatever else he mav have been, William Trvon
was not a coward. He haughtily commanded that no guard
be sent to give its protection where it was neither necessary
nor desired, and with this rebuff, Moore and Harnett retired.
Immediately a band of armed men surrounded the house and
demanded the surrender of Captain Lobb. But Tryon stood
firm, and peremptorily refused to communicate any informa-
tion to the "inhabitants in arms," saying that as they had
arms in their hands they might break open his locks, force his
doors, and search his house if they chose to do so. But the
leaders, having no quarrel with Tryon, were not ready for
such violent measures; and learning in some other way that
Captain Lobb was not there, they detailed a small guard to
watch the governor's house and withdrew to Brunswick for
the night.

The next morning a delegation from the "inhabitants in
arms" went aboard the Viper and demanded the release of
the Buby and the Patience. The Dobbs, having given proper

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 325

security, bad already been released. Afraid to refuse and un-
willing to comply, Lobb begged a respite till the after-
noon. In the meantime be held a conference with the governor
and other officials to whom he declared his purpose to release
the Ruby, at the same time expressing his unalterable deter-
mination to hold fast to the Patience. Half a loaf to the
people and half to the government, he thought ought to satisfy
both. It did satisfy Tryon who expressed his approval
of the division. At the same time he urged Lobb not to con-
sider him, his family or his property as he was only "solicitous
for the honor of the government and his Majesty's interest in
the present exigency." "With this understanding the con-
ference was brought to a close. But the other party was not
so easily satisfied. When the delegation from the "inhabitants
in arms" returned to the Viper they dissented so vigorously,
that Captain Lobb was forced to surrender to thenl both
their half and the government's half also. He based his com-
pliance on the ground that he did not think ' ' it proper to detain
the sloop Ruby any longer," and had suddenly discovered
there were "perishable commodities on board the sloop Pa-
tience." But such transparent excuses could not deceive the
governor. Tryon was utterly astonished when he learned that
Lobb had surrendered completely to the people, but his aston-
ishment was turned to disgust and contempt upon hearing that
Lobb in a fit of fright had directed the commanding officer at
Fort Johnston to spike his guns lest they be captured and
turned on the king's ships by "the inhabitants in arms." His
reprimand was severe and contemptuous. The detention of
the Patience, Tryon declared, was "a point that concerned
the honor of the government," Lobb's surrender of the vessel
he considered a breach of faith for it made his situation "very
unpleasant, as most of the people by going up to Wilmington
in the sloops would remain satisfied and report through the
province they had obtained every point they came to redress,"
while Lobb's excuses for the order to Captain Dalrymple,
commander at Fort Johnston, the governor denounced as "to-
tally contrary to every sentiment I entertained."

But Tryon himself was not to he exempt from similar treat-
ment. It is true the people had obtained every point they came
to redress, but their work was not finished until they had made
sure no other points would arise that would require redressing.
There could be no assurance of this, so long as there remained
in the province any royal official with authority to sell stamps
and seize vessels who was at liberty to exercise his authority.
Accordingly the leaders made up their minds to take the same

326 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

precaution against this as they had taken in the case of
Houston. During- the afternoon of February 20th, wrote
Tryon, "Mr. Pennington, his Majesty's Comptroller, came to
let me know there had been a search after him, and as he
guessed they wanted him to do some act that would be incon-
sistent with the duty of his office, he came to acquaint me with
this enquiry and search." The governor offered the comp-
troller a bed for the night and the protection of his roof, both
of which the frightened official gratefully accepted. Early the
next morning the "inhabitants in arms" sent Colonel James
Moore to demand that they be permitted to speak with Pen-
nington. To this demand Tryon replied: "Mr. Pennington
being employed by his Excellency on dispatches for his Ma-
jesty's service, any gentleman that has business with him
may see him at the Governor's house."

About ten o'clock Tryon observed "a body of men in arms
from four to five hundred," moving toward his house. Tliree
hundred yards away they drew up in line and sent a detach-
ment of sixty men down the avenue to the door. The leader
and spokesman of this detachment was Cornelius Harnett.
Then followed the most dramatic scene of the struggle over
the Stamp Act, a brief but intense contest between "William
Tryon, representative of the king's government, and Cor-
nelius Harnett, representative of the people's will, for posses-
sion of one of the king's officers. Two better representatives
of their respective causes could not have been found. Each
was acute, determined and resourceful, and each sincere in
believing his the better cause. Tryon, the ablest of the colo-
nial governors and one of the most forceful Englishmen ever
sent in an official capacity to America, "could accomplish
more," we are told, "by the forcefulness of his personality
and the awe inspired by his mere presence than other rulers
could do by edicts and armies." 1 Cornelius Harnett "could
be wary and circumspect, or decided and daring as exigency
dictated or emergency required. " 2 In the interview that fol-
lowed, Tryon had no forcefulness of personality or awe of
presence which he could afford to hold in reserve ; and Harnett
was compelled to be both wary and decided, both circumspect
and daring.

Harnett opened the interview by demanding that Penning-
ton be permitted to accompany him. Tryon replied that the

1 Smith, C. A.: "Our Debt to Cornelius Harnett," University of
North Carolina Magazine, May, 1907, p. 383.

2 Hooper, A. M. : "Cornelius Harnett," University of North Car-
olina Magazine, Vol. IX, p. 334-335.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 327

comptroller had come into his house seeking refuge, that he
was an officer of the Crown, and as such should receive all the
protection the governor's roof and dignity of character could
afford him. Harnett insisted. "The people," he said, "are
determined to take him out of the house if he is longer de-
tainecl, an insult," he added quickly, "which they wish to avoid
offering to your Excellency." "An insult," retorted Tryon,
"that will not tend to any consequences, since they have
already offered every insult in their power, by investing my
house and making me in effect a prisoner before any grievance
or oppression has been first represented to me. ' ' During this
conversation Pennington "grew very uneasy," and said "he
would choose to go with the gentlemen," and the governor
again repeated his offer of protection. But Pennington was
doubtful of the governor's power to make good his offer, how-
ever excellent his intentions might be, and he decided to go
with Harnett. To the governor, however, he declared that
whatever oaths might be required of him, he would consider as
acts of compulsion and not of free will ; adding that he would
rather resign his office than do anything inconsistent with his
duty. "If that is your determination," replied the disgusted
governor, "you had better resign before you leave here."
Harnett quickly interposed his objection to this course, but
Tryon insisted and Pennington agreed with him. Paper and
ink were accordingly brought and the resignation was written
and accepted. "Now, sir," said Tryon bitterly, "you may
go;" and Harnett led the ex-comptroller out of the house to
his followers who were waiting outside.

The detachment then rejoined the main body of the "inhab-
itants in arms," and the whole withdrew to the town. There
they drew up in a large circle, placed the comptroller and the
customs-house officials in the center, and administered to them
all an oath "that they would not, directly or indirectly, by
themselves, or an3^ other person employed under them, sign
or execute in their several Offices, any stampt Papers, until
the Stamp Act should be accepted by the province. ' ' The clerk
of the court and other public officials, and all the lawyers, were
sworn to the same effect; and as each took the pledge the
cheers of the crowd bore the news to the enraged and baffled
governor as he sat in his room keenly conscious of his defeat.
The letter in which he described these events to his superiors
in England, it has been truly said, "contained the must humil-
iating acknowledgment of baffled pride and irredeemable

328 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

failure that Tryon was ever called upon to pen." 3 Their work
finished, the ''inhabitants in arms" dispersed quietly and
quickly to their homes.

"It is well worthy of observation," as the North Carolina
Gazette boasted, "that few instances can be produced of such
a number of men being together so long and behaving so well ;
not the least noise or disturbance, nor any person seen dis-
guised with liquor, during the whole of their stay in Bruns-
wick; neither was any injury offered to any person, but the
whole affair was conducted with decency and spirit, worthy
the imitation of all the Sons of Liberty throughout the con-
tinent.': This splendid record was due to the high character
and lofty purposes of the men who led and who composed that
body of men to whom Tryon always refers as "the inhabitants
in arms." "The mayor and corporation of Wilmington," he
wrote, "and most of the gentlemen and planters of the coun-
ties of Brunswick, New Hanover, Duplin, and Bladen, with
some masters of vessels, composed this corps."

Throughout the contest Harnett and the other leaders re-
ceived loyal support from the people. They were in the midst
of it upon the day set by the governor's writ for the election
of representatives to the Assembly. Wilmington manifested
its approval of Harnett's course by electing him without oppo-
sition, and New Hanover County unanimously elected John
Ashe and James Moore. But the Assembly was not to meet
any time soon. Tryon was too prudent a politician to convene
a session while the people were in such a rebellious mood. He
foresaw that Parliament would likely repeal the Stamp Act
and hoped by announcing that fact when the Assembly met to
insure the good humor of the lower house. It was not
until November, therefore, that he ventured to face the people 's
representatives. He opened the session with a conciliatory
message. But the members, irritated at his delay in calling
them together, replied with such asperity and show of temper,
that the Council denounced their message as "altogether in-
decent, without foundation and unmerited." The reply cut
the governor to the quick, but he kept his temper and met the
strictures of the Assembly with admirable moderation and
dignity.

AYhatever one may think of Tryon, there can be but one just
opinion of his bearing throughout these trying ordeals. He
bore himself on every occasion with dignity, courage and

3 Smith: University of North Carolina Magazine, May, 1907,
p. 384.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 329

fidelity to his trust. His dispatches even when acknowledging
defeat are conspicuous for their good temper. We search in
vain for the ill-tempered invectives and impassioned super-
latives that characterize the dispatches both of Dobbs, his
predecessor, and of Martin, his successor. Closing his letter
to Secretary Conway, he says : ' ' Thus, sir, I have endeavored
to lay before you the first springs of this disturbance as well
as the particular conduct of the individual parties concerned
in it and I have done this as much as I possibly could without
prejudice or passion, favor or affection." The impartial
reader will pronounce that in this endeavor he reached a re-
markable degree of success. Nor was his courage less marked
than his dignity. When shielding Lobb on the evening of
February 10 and when standing between Pennington and the
"inhabitants in arms" on the morning of the 21st, one feels
sure that he would have seen his house go down in ruins or up
in smoke before he would have yielded one inch to the besiegers.
In this courage straight from his heart originated his un-
feigned and unconcealed contempt for the conduct of Captain
Lobb. We feel assured that William Tryon would have buried
himself, his crew and his enemies in the bottom of the Cape
Fear River beneath the wrecks of the Viper, the Diligence,
the Dobbs, the Patience, and the Ruby, all, before he would
have broken his engagement and embarrassed his superior
officer. His sympathies were with the people in their strug-
gle, and the duty imposed upon him a disagreeable one,
but he faced it like a man and performed it faithfully. The
king had entrusted him with the execution of the laws in North
Carolina and that trust he regarded, rightly or wrongly, as
superior to any obligations he owed to the people of the
province. He was not their governor; he was the king's vice-
gerent, and his first duty was to obey the commands of his
master.

To say this of Tryon is not to depreciate the honor and the
glory that belong to his opponents. To Harnett and Ashe and
Moore and Waddell and the men who followed them, North
Carolinians owe their liberty, and no true American anywhere
will deny to them the credit that belongs to those who see the
right and fearlessly pursue it. Throughout the contest the
"inhabitants in arms" carried every point at issue. But the
most remarkable feature of the struggle was its absolute open-
ness and orderliness. No attempt at concealment, no effort at
disguise betrayed a doubt in the minds of the people that they
were engaged in a righteous cause. The resistance was made
by men on terms of familiarity with the governor, under the

330 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

guns of the king's ships, and in the broad open light of day.
Conscious of the rectitude of their purpose, the moral if not
the legal right of their conduct, they felt that any attempt at
concealment would be an admission, at least, of a doubt in their
minds of the propriety of their course, and this they scorned
to make.

The Americans of course had not been left to fight their
battle alone. They had sympathizers among every class of
Englishmen. In Parliament itself an incomparable group of
orators and statesmen, led by such men at Pitt, Burke, Barre,
and Conway in the Commons, and Camden and Rockingham in
the Lords, supported their petitions and remonstrances with
an earnestness and ability which could have been born of noth-
ing less than a firm conviction that they were fighting the battle
of English as well as American freedom. The king and min-
istry were finally forced to yield. The Stamp Act was re-
pealed and the news was received throughout America with an
outburst of joy and loyalty in which a wise ruler would have
read a lesson of warning as well as of encouragment. North
Carolina joined heartily in the rejoicing. New Bern cel-
ebrated the event with a public banquet and ball. The mayor
and ' ' Gentlemen of Wilmington, ' ' most of whom had recently
been in arms against the governor, joined in a sincere address
of congratulations to him. They assured him of their kindly
sentiments toward him personally, explained that their recent
opposition had been based solely upon their conviction that
"Moderation ceases to be a Virtue when the Liberty of British
Subjects is in danger," expressed appreciation of the "honor
and justice of the British Parliament, whose prudent resolu-
tions have relieved us from the Melancholy Dilemma to which
we were almost reduced," and acknowledged the repeal as a
mark of the king's ' ' attention to the Distresses of his American
Subjects. '; The colony as a whole had no voice in these re-
joicings because Tryon had refused to convene the Assembly,
but when the Assembly did meet in November the members
complained bitterly of the governor's action which had de-
prived them of the opportunity "to concur with our Sister
Colonies" in expressing their gratitude for "the tender and
paternal care of our most Gracious Sovereign, and the wisdom
and justice of the British Parliament. * But it is the

peculiar misfortune of North Carolina," they continued, "to
be deprived of those means which the other provinces peace-
ably enjoy (and to which this has also an unquestionable
right) of making known such their dutiful dispositions; and

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 331

if we are wanting in the general suffrage, we hope the censure
will fall on those only whose indiscretions are the cause of it."
During the fight against the Stamp Act the Massachusetts
Legislature issued a circular letter inviting all the colonies
to send delegates to a congress to be held at New York to
concert measures of resistance. Nine colonies responded. In
North Carolina Governor Tryon refused to convene the As-
sembly in time for the election of delegates, and North Caro-
lina, together with New Hampshire, Virginia, and Georgia,
was not represented. The sentiment in these colonies, how-
ever, was in perfect harmony with the sentiment expressed
by the Stamp Act Congress. From the struggle over the
Stamp Act, therefore, was born a sentiment for a union of the
colonies that contained the germs of nationality, and the devel-
opment of this sentiment in the contests with the mother
country from 1765 to 1775 gives to the events of that decade
their chief significance. The Declaratory Act, which accom-
panied the repeal of the Stamp Act, asserted the right of Par-
liament to legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."
The Townshend Acts passed in June 1767, attempted to put
this assertion into practice. Under a pretense of regulating
commerce, Parliament levied duties on certain commodities,
principally tea, imported into the colonies, and directed that
the revenues derived therefrom be used to pay the salaries of
colonial officials, thus rendering them independent of the
colonial assemblies. This scheme gave a new impulse to the
union sentiment. Massachusetts led the way with the famous
circular letter of 1768 inviting the co-operation of the other
colonies in concerting measures of resistance in order that
their remonstrances and petitions to the king "should har-
monize with each other." But unity of action on the part of
the colonies was the last thing the king and ministry desired,
and they saw in this letter nothing less than an effort "to pro-
mote unwarrantable combinations and to excite and encourage
an open opposition to and denial of the authority of Parlia-
ment. ' ' Accordingly they commanded the Assembly of Massa-
chusetts to rescind the letter and the assemblies of the other
colonies to treat it with contempt on pains of "an immediate
prorogation or dissolution." But Massachusetts refused to
rescind, and the other colonies applauded her spirit and
imitated her action.

When the Assembly of North Carolina met, Speaker John
Harvey laid the Massachusetts letter before the House.
Greatly to the disgust of the more aggressive leaders, the
House, though it did not treat it with the contempt which the

332 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

king" required, declined to take any formal notice of it and
contented itself with merely giving the speaker verbal direc-
tions to answer it. It then resolved to send to the king "an
humble, dutiful and loyal address," praying a repeal of the
several acts of Parliament imposing duties on goods imported
into America, appointed a committee consisting of John Har-
vey, Joseph Montfort, Samuel Johnston, Joseph Hewes, and
Edward Vail to prepare it, and instructed the colony's agent,
Henry Eustace McCulloh, to present it. Thus the Assembly
missed the real significance of the proposal of Massachusetts,
viz., unity of action, and by its conduct, according to Lord
Hillsborough, secretary of state for the colonies, gave "great
satisfaction to the king. ': Union was the great bugbear of the
king and ministry ; they did not doubt of their ability to bring
the colonies to terms if they could keep them from co-operat-
ing with eacli other, and accordingly fought desperately
against every step on the part of the Americans toward union.
Samuel Johnston and Joseph Hewes were so disgusted at the
"pusillanimity" of the Assembly that they declined to serve
on the committee, but the other members, under the leadership
of Harvev, acted more wiselv. They assumed that the As-
sembly intended for them to act in concert with the committees
of the other colonies, and thus improved on their verbal in-
structions. Their action saved North Carolina from the odium
which a failure to support the common cause would have
brought upon the colony and paved the way for the more
spirited co-operation of the future.

The committee's address to the king was an able state paper
and rang true to the American doctrine of "no taxation with-
out representation.'1 They reminded the king that in the past
whenever it had been "found necessary to levy supplies within
this Colony requisitions have been made by your Majesty or
your Royal Predecessors and conformable to the rights of
this people, and by them chearfully and liberally complied
with," and while promising a like compliance in the future,
maintained that "their Representatives in the Assembly alone
can be the proper Judges, not only of what sums they are able
to pay, but likewise of the most eligible method of collecting
the same. Our Ancestors at their first settling, amidst the
horrors of a long and bloody war with the Savages, which
nothing could possibly render supportable but the prospects
of enjoying here that freedom which Britons can never pur-
chase at so [too] dear a rate, brought with them inherent in
their persons, and transmitted down to their posterity, all the
rights and liberties of your Majesty's natural born subjects

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 333

within the parent State, and have ever since enjoyed as Britons
the priviledges of an exemption from any Taxation bnt such as
have been imposed on them by themselves or their Representa-
tives, and this Priviledge we esteem so invaluable that we are
fully convinced no other can possibly exist without it. It is
therefore with the utmost anxiety and concern we observe
duties have lately been imposed upon us by Parliament for
the sole and express purpose of raising a Revenue. This is a
Taxation which we are fully persuaded the acknowledged
Principles of the British Constitution ought to protect us from.
Free men cannot be legally taxed but by themselves or their
Representatives, and that your Majesty's Subjects within this
Province are represented in Parliament we cannot allow, and
are convinced that from our situation we never can be."
Along with this address went instructions to McCulloh of
whom they required "a Spirited Co-operation with the xlgents
of our Sister Colonies and Those who may be disposed to
Serve us in Obtaining a Repeal of the Late Act Imposing In-
ternal Taxes on Americans without Their Consent and the
Which is Justly Dreaded by Them to be Nothing more than an
Introduction to other acts of the same Injurious Tendency and
fatal Consequences." In the same spirit of unity Harvey de-
clared in his letter to the Massachusetts Assembly that the
North Carolina Assembly will "ever be ready, firmly to unite
with their sister colonies, in pursuing every constitutional
measure for redress of the grievances so justly complained of.
This House is desirous to cultivate the strictest harmony and
friendship with the assemblies of the colonies in general, and
with your House in particular. ' : "When this letter was received
in Boston the Boston Evening Post triumphantly declared :
"The colonies no longer disconnected, form one body; a com-
mon sensation possesses the whole ; the circulation is complete,
and the vital fluid returns from whence it was sent out.'1

As a warning to the other colonies the ministry selected
Massachusetts for punishment. Persons suspected of encour-
aging resistance to Parliament were to be arrested and sent
to England for trial; town-meetings were to be suppressed;
and two regiments were ordered to Boston to overawe that
town. The blow was aimed at Massachusetts alone, but the
other colonies promptly rallied to her support and raised the
cry that Massachusetts was suffering in the common cause.
Virginia acted first. Her Assembly denounced the govern-
ment's action in a series of spirited resolutions, and sent them
to the other assemblies ' ' requesting their concurrence therein. ' :
In consequence they suffered dissolution, but the burgesses

334 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

promptly met as a convention, agreed on a "Non-Importation
Association," and circulated it throughout the colonies.

On November 2, 1769, John Harvey laid the Virginia resolu-
tions before the North Carolina Assembly. The House, with-
out a dissenting voice, adopted them almost verbatim, agreed
on a second protest to the king, and instructed their agent,
after presenting it to have it printed in the British papers.
Convinced that the king was deaf to their prayers, they now
began to appeal to their British brethren. They again denied
the right of Parliament to levy taxes in America, affirmed the
right of the colonies to unite in protests to the throne, and
denounced as "highly derogatory to the rights of British Sub-
jects " the carrying of any American to England for trial,
' ' as thereby the inestimable priviledge of being tried by a jury
from the Vicinage, as well as the liberty of summoning and
producing witnesses on such Tryal, will be taken away from
the party accused." "We can not without horror," they de-
clared, "think of the new, unusual, and permit us withall
humbly to add, unconstitutional and illegal mode recommended
to your Majesty of seizing and carrying beyond sea the Inhab-
itants of America suspected of any crime, [and] of trying such
person in any other manner than by the Ancient and long
established course of proceeding." "Truly alarmed at the
fatal tendency of these pernicious Councils," [sic], they earn-
estly prayed the king to interpose his protection against "such
dangerous invasions" of their dearest privileges. These pro-
ceedings, when reported to the governor, sealed the fate of
that Assembly. Sending in haste for the House, he censured
them for their action, declared that it "sapped the foundations
of confidence and gratitude," and made it his "indispensable
duty to put an end to this Session."

This sudden turn of affairs caught the Assembly unprepared
for dissolution. Much important business, especially the adop-
tion of the "Non-Importation Association," remained unfin-
ished. Everybody realized that the effectiveness of non-im-
portation as a weapon for fighting the Townshend duties
depended entirely upon the extent to which it was adopted,
and the fidelity with which it was observed. Any one colony
therefore could easily defeat the whole scheme. When the
North Carolina Assembly met in October, 1769, the association
had been pretty generally adopted by the other colonies; con-
sequently, the action of North Carolina was awaited with some
concern. The leaders of the Assembly realized the situation
fully, mid were by no means ready to go home until thev had
taken the necessarv action to bring the colonv in line with the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 335

continental movement. Accordingly, immediately upon their
dissolution, following the example of Virginia, they called the
members together in convention to "take measures for pre-
serving the true and essential interests of the province."
Sixty-four of the seventy-seven members immediately repaired
to the courthouse and re-organized as a convention independ-
ent of the governor. John Harvey was unanimously chosen
moderator. After discussing the situation fully through a
session of two days, the convention came to a series of resolu-
tions which of course affirmed "invincible attachment and un-
shaken fidelity" to the king, but protested with great vigor
against the acts of Parliament levying internal taxes in the
colonies and depriving them of their constitutional right of
trial by jury as having a "tendency to disturb the peace and
good order of this government, which," the members boldly
asserted, "we are willing, at the risque of our lives and for-
tunes, to maintain and defend." The resolutions set forth a
complete non-importation program. They pledged the sub-
scribers to a course of economy, industry, and thrift; to "en-
courage and promote the use of North American manufactures
in general, and those of this province in particular;" neither
to import themselves, nor to purchase from others, any goods,
except paper, "which are or shall hereafter be taxed by act of
Parliament for the purpose of raising a revenue in America ;"
and to look upon "every subscriber who shall not strictly and
literally adhere to his agreement, according to the true intent
and meaning thereof, * with the utmost contempt."

This association was signed by sixty-four of "the late repre-
sentatives of the people being all that were then
present," and by them recommended to their constituents in
order to show their "readiness to join heartily with the other
colonies in every legal method which may most probably tend
to procure a redress" of grievances.

When the policy of non-importation was tried in opposition
to the Stamp Act it was not successful, and the Loyalists ridi-
culed the attempt of Virginia to revive it as a weapon against
the Townshend Acts. But a new element had now entered into
the situation: the union sentiment had developed into a
reality, and the opponents of the government, taking advan-
tage of this fact, pushed the movement with vigor and suc-
cess. Colony after colony joined the movement, and when
North Carolina came in, the "Whig papers declared with great
satisfaction: "This completes the chain of union throughout
the continent for the measure of non-importation and econ-
omy. ' '

336 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

But it was a simpler matter to adopt an association than to
enforce it. The Tories, of course, opposed the whole scheme,
and would gladly have welcomed an opportunity to defeat it.
Their chance seemed to come when in April, 1770, Parliament
repealed all the duties except the one on tea. The Tories hoped
and the Whigs feared that this concession would break up the
non-importation associations. While the former applauded
the magnanimity of Parliament for yielding so much, the latter
denounced the ministry for yielding no more, and regarding the
partial repeal merely as a trap, redoubled their efforts to keep
the association intact.

In North Carolina the merchants of the Cape Fear were the
largest importers of British goods, and everybody recognized
that their action would determine the matter. No non-impor-
tation association could be made effective without their co-op-
eration. Fortunately, Cornelius Harnett, one of the chief
merchants of the province, was also chairman of the Sons of
Liberty, and his influence went far toward determining the
course of the Cape Fear merchants. As soon as information
of Parliament's action reached Wilmington, he called a meet-
ing of the Sons of Liberty in the Wilmington District to take
proper action. A large number of ' ' the principal inhabitants ' '
attended at Wilmington, June 2, and "unanimously agreed to
keep strictly to the non-importation agreement," and to co-
operate with the other colonies "in every legal measure for
obtaining ample redress of the grievances so justly complained
of. ': In order to make their resolution more effective, they
chose a committee to consult upon such measures as would
best evince their "patriotism and loyalty" to the common
cause, and "manifest their unanimity with the rest of the
colonies." This committee was composed of thirty members
representing all the Cape Fear counties and the towns of Wil-
mington and Brunswick. Among its members were Cornelius
Harnett, who was chosen chairman, James Moore, Samuel
Ashe, Richard Quince, and Farquard Campbell, the most prom-
inent merchants and planters of the Cape Fear section. They
declared their intention to enforce strictly the non-importa-
tion association; denounced the merchants of Rhode Island
"who contrary to their solemn and voluntary contract, have
violated their faith pledged to the other colonies, and thereby
shamefully deserted the common cause of American liberty;"
declared that they would have no dealings with any merchant
who imported goods "contrary to the spirit and intention" of
the non-importation association; and constituted themselves
a special committee to inspect all goods brought into the Cape

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 337

Fear and to keep the public informed of any that were im-
ported in violation of the association. They then ordered
their resolves to be "immediately transmitted to all the trad-
ing towns in this colony;" and in the spirit of co-operation,
Cornelius Harnett wrote to the Sons of Liberty of South Car-
olina to inform them of their action. In this letter he said:

"We beg leave to assure you that the inhabitants of those
six counties and we doubt not of every county in this province,
are convinced of the necessity of adhering to their former
resolutions, and you may depend, they are tenacious of their
just rights as any of their brethren on the continent and firmly
resolved to stand or fall with them in support of the common
cause of American liberty. Worthless men * * are the

production of every country, and we are also unhappy as to
have a few among us ' who have not virtue enough to resist the
allurement of present gain.' Yet we can venture to assert,
that the people in general of this colony, will be spirited and
steady in support of their rights as English subjects, and will
not tamely submit to the yoke of oppression. 'But if by the
iron hand of power,' they are at last crushed; it is however
their fixed resolution, either to fall with the same dignity and
spirit you so justly mention, or transmit to their posterity
entire, the inestimable blessings of our free Constitution. The
disinterested and public spirited behaviour of the merchants
and other inhabitants of your colony justly merits the applause
of every lover of liberty on the continent. The people of any
colony who have not virtue enough to follow so glorious
examples must be lost to every sense of freedom and conse-
quently deserve to be slaves."

The interchange of such views and opinions among the sev-
eral colonies greatly strengthened the union sentiment; while
the practical operation of the non-importation associations
revealed to both the Americans and the ministry the power
that lay in a united America.

Vol. 1—2 2

CHAPTER XIX
DOWNFALL OF THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT

Soon after his victory at Alamance, Tryon left North Caro-
lina for New York. He was succeeded by Josiah Martin who
took the oath of office August 12, 1771. Martin, as Saunders
observes, was a man ill calculated to conduct an administration
successfully even in ordinary times. Stubborn and tactless,
obsequious to those in authority and overbearing to those
under authority, he found himself suddenly placed in a posi-
tion that required almost every quality of mind and character
that he did not possess. He was, it is true, an honest man, but
he was intolerant and knew nothing of the art of diplomacy.
Sincerely devoted to the king, whom he thought it no degrada-
tion to regard literally as a master, he had no faith in the
sincerity of the Americans when in one breath they declared
their loyalty to the Crown and in the next demanded from the
Crown a recognition of their constitutional rights. "Insuffer-
ably tedious and turgid, * his dispatches make the
tired reader long for the Avell-constructed, clear-cut sentences
and polished impertinences of Tryon," and show that he was
utterly incapable of understanding the people whom he had
been sent to govern.1 No worse selection could have been made
at that time ; the people of North Carolina were in no mood to
brook the petty tyranny of a provincial governor, and Mar-
tin's personality became one of the chief factors that drove
North Carolina headlong into revolution and prepared the
colony, first of all the colonies, to take a definite stand for inde-
pendence.

Their experience with the Stamp Act and the Townshend
Acts taught the king and ministry the power that lay in a
united America, and henceforth they avoided as far as possible
such measures as would give the colonies a~common grievance
upon which they could unite. Their change of policy embraced

1 Saunders: Prefatory Notes to Colonial Records of North Caro-
lina, Vol. IX, p. iv.

338

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 339

two principles* both of which the Americans promptly re-
pudiated. One was the principle of the Declaratory Act. The
other was the assumption that the king's instructions to the
provincial governors were of higher authority than acts of
assemblies and were binding on both assemblies and governors
alike. For the next three years these instructions "played
an important part in American politics. * They came

under the king's sign manual, with the privy seal annexed. It
was said that officials could not refuse to execute them without
giving up the rights of the Crown. A set was not framed to
apply to all the colonies alike, but special instructions were
sent to each colony as local circumstances dictated. Hence the
patriots could not create a general issue on them."2 The
Americans at once perceived their danger, and were not to be
caught by it; when they came a few years later to adopt a
Declaration of Independence, this policy of the king was one
of the "facts submitted to a candid world," in justification of
their action.

In North Carolina the battle was fought out on a very im-
portant local measure involving the jurisdiction of the colo-
nial courts, about which the king issued positive instructions
directing the course which the Assembly should pursue. Thus
a momentous issue was presented for the consideration of the
people 's representatives : Should they permit the Assembly
to degenerate into a mere machine whose highest function
would be to register the will of the Sovereign ; or should they
maintain it as the Constitution intended it to be, a free, deliber-
ative, law-making body, responsible for its acts only to the
people? Upon their answer to this question it is not too much
to say hung the fate of their remotest posterity. It should be
recorded as one of the chief events in our history that the
Assembly had the insight to perceive the issue clearly and the
courage to meet it boldly. "Appointed by the people [they
declared] to watch over their rights and priviledges, and to
guard them from every encroachment of a private and public
nature, it becomes our duty and will be our constant endeavour
to preserve them secure and inviolate to the present age, and
to transmit them unimpaired to posterity. The

rules of right and wrong, the limits of the prerogative of the
Crown and of priviledges of the people are in the present age
well known and ascertained; to exceed either of them is highly
unjustifiable."

2 Frothingham : The Rise of the Republic of the United States,
p. 252.

340 ' HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

The point at issue was the "foreign attachment clause" in
the court law. British merchants who transacted business in
the province through agents without ever being present in per-
son, became in course of time extensive landowners here. The
Tryon court law contained a clause empowering the colonial
courts to attach this property for debts owed by such mer-
chants to North Carolinians. The merchants objected to the
clause, but the king refused to veto the act because by its own
provision it was to expire at the end of five years and he ex-
pected, when a new bill was framed, to have the clause omitted
without interfering with the business of the courts. Accord-
ingly he instructed Governor Martin not to approve any bill
containing the attachment clause.

The struggle began in the Assembly of January, 1773, and
during that and the next two sessions was the occasion of one
of the best conducted debates in the history of the colonial
Assembly. Both sides maintained their positions with ability.
The Council acting under instructions declined to pass the As-
sembly's bill unless it was so amended as to provide that at-
tachment proceedings should be "according to the laws and
statutes of England." But the Assembly reminded the Coun-
cil that in England such proceedings existed by municipal
custom,* not by statute, and were "so essentially local" in their
application "as not to admit of being extended by any analogy
to this province. ' ' They contended that ' ' to secure a privilege
so important the mode of obtaining it should be grounded in
certainty, the law positive and express, and nothing left to the
exercise of doubt or discretion." They therefore rejected the
Council's amendment. After much debate a compromise was
effected by the addition of a clause suspending the operation
of the act until the king's pleasure could be learned. The
Assembly thereupon sent it to their agent in London with in-
structions to leave no stone unturned to secure the royal sig-
nature. He was to say to the king that "so important does
this matter appear to this Province that they cannot by any
means think of giving it up, * * choosing rather the

misfortune of a temporary deprivation of Laws than to form
any system whereby they may be left without remedy on this
great point."

To this appeal the king replied by rejecting the bill and in-
structing Governor Martin to create courts of oyer and ter-
miner by the exercise of the "ever ready prerogative." In
March, 1773, therefore, the governor appointed Richard Cas-
well and Maurice Moore judges to sit with Chief Justice
Martin Howard to hold these courts. Thus another element

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 341

of discord was injected into the controversy, for when the
Assembly met in December, the governor was compelled to in-
form them of the "royal disallowance" of the court law, and
at the same time to ask for money to meet the expenses of his
prerogative courts. The Assembly's refusal was sharp and
peremptory. They declared that while "one of the greatest
calamities to which any political society can be liable," the
suspension of the judicial powers of the government, had be-
fallen the province, and no hope of redress through "the inter-
position of Government" remained, "yet the misery of such
a situation vanishes in competition with a mode of redress
exercised by courts unconstitutionally framed : it is the blessed
distinction of the British Code of Laws that our civil and
criminal Jurisdiction have their foundation in the Laws of the
Land, and are regulated by principles as fixt as the Constitu-
tion. We humbly conceive that the power of issuing Commis-
sions of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery, dele-
gated by his Majesty to your Excellency, cannot be legally
carried into execution without the aid of the Legislature of this
Province, and that we cannot consistent with the Justice due
to our Constituents make provisions for defraying the expense
attending a measure which we do not approve. ' '

The governor and his Council protested, argued, pleaded,
and threatened. The Council predicted that unless courts were
speedily established the "Province must soon be deserted by
its Inhabitants and an end put to its name and political exist-
ence," and reproached the House for bringing the colony to
this distressed situation "for the sake only of a Comparatively
small advantage supposed to lie in a mode of proceeding by
attachment, a proceeding unknown both to the Common and
Statute Law of the Mother Country." This message drew fire
from the House. The issue now involved much more than a
mere legal procedure; the independence of the Assembly as a
legislative body was at stake. "This House," retorted the
Assembly, "ever faithful to the discharge of the important
trust reposed in them by the Inhabitants of this Province have
in the conduct of every Public Measure, had in

view the interest and happiness of our constituents, as the
grand object that ought to govern all our determinations.
* * * Conscious from our late melancholy experience of
the unhappy consequences that attend the extinguishment of
the Civil and Criminal Jurisdiction in this Province, We dread
the continuance of the calamity and submit still to suffer, only
to avoid a greater misfortune. This House for

themselves and their constituents heartily acknowledge the

342 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

necessity for Court Laws, and without anticipating the horrors
of the desertion of the Inhabitants of this Colony and the ex-
tinguishment of its name and political existence, they experi-
ence in the present unhappy State of this Province sufficient
to induce them to wish a change upon legal constitutional
principles. * * Were the attachment Law as formerly

enjoyed by us as small an advantage, compared with that of
having Court Laws as you contend it is, the right we possess to
that is equal to the rights to a more important object; in the
smallest, it [a surrender of the right] is bartering the rights
of a people for a present convenience, in a greater it would be
the same crime aggravated only by its circumstances. We
observe with surprise that a doctrine maintained by a former
House of Assembly is now adopted by you, and that you dis-
close as your opinion that attachments are not known to the
Common or Statute Law of England ; what then did Govern-
ment tender to this people in lieu of their former mode, when
it proffered to the last Assembly a mode of attachment agree-
able to the laws of England?"

Finding appeals to loyalty and threats of punishment equahV
unavailing, and caught in his inconsistency, the governor de-
termined to send the members home to consult their constit-
uents, and accordingly sent his private secretary to command
the House to attend him at the Palace. Knowing well enough
what this meant, the House took a parting shot well calculated
to ruffle his spirits. A committee was appointed to draw an
address to the king, and was instructed "as the most effectual
means to promote its success," to request Governor Try on,
"who happily for this Country for many years presided over
it, and of whose good intentions to its welfare we feel the
fullest convictions," to forward it to his Majesty and support
it "with his interest and influence." He was asked to "accept
of this important Trust as testimony of the great affection this
Colony bears him, and the' entire confidence they repose in
him." The members of the committee to prepare this address
were Harvey, Johnston, Howe, Ashe, Hooper, Hewes, Isaac
Edwards and Harnett. After adopting this insulting resolu-
tion as much to show their contempt for Martin as their regard
for Tryon, the members of the House proceeded to the Palace
where they were dismissed. The governor asked them to rep-
resent the facts to the people fairly, saying, "I am fully per-
suaded they know too well their own interests to make such a
sacrifice [as the absence of courts entailed] , or to approve your
conduct. That I may give you opportunity to learn their sen-
timents, I now, * prorogue this Assembly.

> >

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 343

But it was useless for the governor to appeal from the As-
sembly to the people ; it was but an appeal from the teachers
to the taught. To send the former back to their constituents
was but to send them to gather fresh endorsements and receive
renewed support in their contest. When they returned in
March, 1774, they told the governor that they had consulted
the people, had stated to them candidly the point for which
they contended, and had informed them how far the king was
disposed to indulge their wishes. "These facts," they de-
clared, "we have represented to them fairly, disdaining any
equivocation or reserve that might leave them ignorant of the
Conduct we have pursued or the real motives that influenced
it. And we have the heartfelt satisfaction to inform your Ex-
cellency that they have expressed their warmest approbation
of our ..past proceedings, and have given us positive instruc-
tions to persist in our endeavors to obtain the process of For-
eign Attachments upon the most liberal and ample footing."
To this message the governor replied in one of his few really
good papers. He wrote with conflicting feelings for he was
compelled to defend an instruction of his master with which
he did not entirely sympathize. Passing by the "just exulta-
tion" with which the Assembly told him of their constituents'
approval of their course, he made an eloquent plea for com-
promise. But the Assembly stood firm, passed the usual bill
with the usual clause, and, declaring that they had pursued
every measure to relieve the colony from its distressed condi-
tion, sent it to the governor. The governor rejected it. This
brought the struggle to an end for the only other Assembly
that met in North Carolina under royal rule was in session but
four stormy days and did not have time to consider the court
law. North Carolina, therefore, remained without courts for
the trial of civil causes until after independence was declared.
Among the causes recited in the Declaration of Independence
to justify that action, was the following: "He [the king] has
obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent
to laws for establishing judiciary powers."

The situation in North Carolina was indeed serious. In
March, 1773, Josiah Quincy, Jr., of Boston, traveling through
the province, noted that but five provincial laws were in force,
that no courts were open, that no one could recover a debt
except for small sums within the jurisdiction of a magistrate's
court, and that offenders escaped with impunity. "The
people," he declared, "are in great consternation about the

341 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

matter ; what will be the result is problematical. ' ' 3 Many were
disposed to charge the whole trouble to the governor. They
did not believe that he had "properly or judiciously explained
to the government at home" the necessity for the protection
they sought ; and they charged to his ' ' spirit of intolerance and
impatience" the failure of the Assembly to pass a county
court law, "the jurisdiction of which would have been so lim-
ited that it could not possibly have operated to the disfavor of
any British merchant," and the want of which subjected the
people of the province to innumerable inconveniences. But
there was no disposition on the part of the leaders of the pop-
ular party to shirk their own responsibility. Fortunately they
received loyal support from their constituents, who chose
rather to bear all the inconveniences of the situation than to
surrender the independence of their judiciary. The royal gov-
ernment was thoroughly beaten because the people made
anarchy tolerable.

Throughout the colonies, the Whig leaders, as we may now
call them, saw through the policy of the king in trying to avoid
a general issue, and held many an anxious conference to devise
a working plan for united action. One of the most important,
as it was one of the most interesting of these conferences, was
held between Josiah Quincy, Jr., of Massachusetts, and Robert
Howe and Cornelius Harnett, of North Carolina, at the home
of the latter on the Cape Fear. Quincy arrived at Brunswick,
March 26, and spent the next five days enjoying the hospitality
of the Cape Fear patriots. He found William Hill "warmly
attached to the cause of American freedom;" William Dry
"seemingly warm against the measures of British and conti-
nental administration;'1 William Hooper "apparently in the
Whig interest." The night of March 30th he spent at the
home of Cornelius Harnett. Here all doubt of his host's poli-
tical sentiments vanished. ' ' Spent the night, ' ' he records, ' ' at
Mr. Harnett's, the Samuel Adams of North Carolina (except
in point of fortune). Robert Howe, Esq., Harnett and myself
made the social triumvirate of the evening. The plan of con-
tinental correspondence highly relished, much wished for, and
resolved upon as proper to be pursued."4

The "plan of continental correspondence" was, of course,
original with neither Quincy nor Harnett. Samuel Adams had
already put a system of provincial correspondence into opera-

?' Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr.. p. 117 et seq.
4 Memoir, p. 120.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 345

tion in Massachusetts; and a few clays before Quincy arrived
in North Carolina, but too late for the news to have reached
Wilmington, the Virginia Assembly had issued a circular letter
proposing to the other assemblies the organization of a sys-
tem of inter-colonial committees to carry on a ''continental
correspondence. ': During the summer several of the colonies
adopted the plan. The decision of North Carolina had been
practically settled at Wilmington in March, but as the As-
sembly was not to meet until December, no official action was
taken until then. On the second day of the session, John Har-
vey, the speaker, laid the Virginia resolutions, together with
the resolutions and endorsements of Massachusetts, Rhode Is-
land, Connecticut and Delaware, before the House ; and Howe,
Harnett and Johnston were appointed a committee to draw an
answer which they were to report to the House. In their re-
port they recommended hearty concurrence in the "spirited
resolves" of the Virginia Assembly, particularly "in the meas-
ure proposed for appointing Corresponding Committees in
every Colony, by which such Harmony and communication
will be established among them, that they will at all times be
ready to exert their united efforts * to preserve their

just rights and Liberties * which appear of late to

be so systematically invaded;" and they nominated as a
Standing Committee of Correspondence and Enquiry" for
North Carolina John Harvey, Robert Howe, Cornelius Har-
nett, William Hooper, Richard Caswell, Edward Vail, John
Ashe, Joseph Hewes, and Samuel Johnston. It was to be the
particular business of this committee "to obtain the most
early and authentic intelligence of all such Acts and resolu-
tions of the British Parliament, or proceedings of Administra-
tion as may relate to or effect the British Colonies in America
and to keep up and maintain a correspondence and communi-
cation with our Sister Colonies respecting these important
considerations," and to report their proceedings to the As-
sembly. The work of this committee bore good fruit, for the
members brought to their task a truly national spirit in deal-
ing with continental affairs. To use a modern political term,
they adopted a platform in which they declared that the inhab-
itants of North Carolina "ought to consider themselves inter-
ested in the cause of the town of Boston as the cause of Amer-
ica in general;" that they would "concur with and co-operate
in such measures as may be concerted and agreed on by their
Sister Colonies" for resisting the measures of the British min-
istry, and that in order to promote "conformity and unanimitv
in the Councils of America," a Continental Congress was "ab-

346 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

soJutelv necessary.'1' The significance of this system of com-
mittees was soon apparent. Indeed, as John Fiske declares,
it ' ' was nothing less than the beginning of the American union.
It only remained for the various inter-colonial com-
mittees to assemble together, and there would be a congress
speaking in the name of the continent." "'

In the meantime came the Boston Tea Party, followed
promptly by the four "intolerable acts" which closed the port
of Boston, annulled the charter of Massachusetts, authorized
the transportation beyond sea for trial of persons accused of
crime, and legalized the quartering of troops on the people of
Massachusetts. These acts aroused the whole continent and
led to the call for a Continental Congress. The suggestion for
such a congress found instant favor. It was intended, follow-
ing the precedent established with the Stamp Act Congress,
that the delegates should be chosen by the assemblies. When
Governor Martin learned of these plans, he determined to pre-
vent North Carolina's being represented by refusing to con-
vene the Assembly until too late for them to elect delegates.
Tryon had successfully adopted this expedient to prevent the
election of delegates to the Stamp Act Congress, but Martin
lacked a good deal of having Tryon 's tact and political shrewd-
ness, nor did he enjoy the personal popularity which had en-
abled Tryon to meet successfully many delicate situations. Be-
sides the popular party was now organized for resistance and
its leaders were not the kind of men to be caught twice in the
same trap. Accordingly when Martin's private secretary
communicated the governor's determination to Speaker Har-
vey, Harvey flew into a rage, exclaiming, "In that case the
people will hold a convention independent of the governor!"
On April 5, 1 774, Samuel Johnston wrote to William Hoop-
er : " Colonel Harvey and myself lodged last night with Colonel
[Edward] Buncombe, and as we sat up very late the conver-
sation turned on Continental and provincial affairs. Colonel
Harvey said during the night, that Mr. Biggleston told him,
that the Governor did not intend to convene another Assembly
until he saw some chance of a better one than the last ; and
that he told the Secretary that then the people would convene
one themselves. He was in a very violent mood, and declared
he was for assembling a convention independent of the Gov-
ernor, and urged upon us to co-operate with him. He says he
will lead the way, and will issue handbills under his own name,
and that the committee of correspondence ought to go to work

5 The American Revolution, Vol. I, p. 81.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 347

at once. As for my own part, I do not know what better can
be done. Without Courts to sustain the property and to ex-
ercise the talents of the Country, and the people alarmed and
dissatisfied, we must do something to save ourselves. Colonel
Harvey said he had mentioned the matter only to Willie Jones
of Halifax, whom he had met the day before, and that he
thought well of it, and promised to exert himself in its favor.
I beg your friendly counsel and advice on the subject, and hope
you will speak of it to Mr. Harnett and Colonel Ashe, or any
other such men."

Harvey's bold and revolutionary proposition fell upon will-
ing ears. The popular leaders gave it their united support.
The Committee of Correspondence declared that if the gover-
nor carried out his determination they would "endeavor in
some other manner to collect the Representatives of the
people." Maturer consideration, however, led to the conclu-
sion that the call for such a convention had better come from
the people themselves. Accordingly the movement was
launched at Wilmington, July 21, by a great mass meeting
attended by men from all the Cape Pear counties. William
Hooper was called to the chair. The meeting declared it
"highly expedient" that a provincial congress independent of
the governor be held and invited the several counties of the
province to send delegates to it. This call met with a prompt
and cordial response. Rowan, Craven, Pitt, Johnston, Gran-
ville, Anson, and Chowan counties led the way. In those coun-
ties popular meetings were promptly held, patriotic resolu-
tions adopted, and delegates elected to the proposed congress.
Through all these resolutions ran the spirit of liberty and
union. The Wilmington meeting favored action "in concert
with the other Colonies." Anson County thought that North
Carolina ought to act "in union with the rest of the Colonies."
Rowan County struck the highest note in a resolution declar-
ing it to be " the Duty and Interest of all the American Colo-
nies, firmly to unite in an indissoluble Union and Association."
All the meetings endorsed the proposed Continental Congress.
Thirty-six counties and towns joined in the movement by
choosing delegates to meet in a provincial congress at New
Bern, August 25, 1774.

These proceedings produced consternation at the Gover-
nor's Palace. Hastily calling his Council in session, the gov-
ernor represented the situation to them as exceedingly grave
and likely "to draw His Majesty's displeasure on this Prov-
ince," and sought advice as to "the measures most proper to
be taken, to discourage or prevent these Assemblies of the

34S HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

People." The Council after taking a whole day "maturely to
consider the Subject," could think of nothing better than a
nroclamation which the governor gravely issued, August 13th.
He not only directed that the people should hold no further
county meetings, but "more particularly that they do forbear
to attend, and do prevent as far in them lies, the meeting of
certain Deputies, said to be appointed to be held at New Bern
on the 25th Instant." One of Josiah Martin's most glaring
faults as a ruler was his utter lack of a sense of humor; he
took his resounding proclamation in dead earnest and was
greatly perturbed to find that nobody else shared this view
with him. On August 25th, he again called his Council to-
gether, notified them that many of the delegates had come to
New Bern for the Congress, and asked their advice whether
he could take "any further measures" to prevent their meet-
ing; and was gravely informed that it was the Council's
"unanimous opinion that no other steps could be properly
taken at this juncture."

When the Congress met on August 25th, seventy-one dele-
gates answered the roll call. Among its members were John
Campbell, John Ashe, and Eichard Caswell, former speakers
of the Assembly; William Hooper and Joseph Hewes, soon
to become immortalized as signers of the Declaration of In-
dependence; Samuel Johnston and Abner Nash who, like
Caswell, were destined to become governors of North Caro-
lina ; but on none of these eminent men did the Congress
fix its choice when it came to select its presiding officer. The
thoughts of all centered at once upon one man, John Harvey,
father of the Congress, who was its unanimous choice as
moderator.

The man thus called to preside over the most revolutionary
body that ever met in North Carolina, had been for a decade
the undisputed leader of the popular party in the province.
Then in his fiftieth year, he had been in public life ever since
reaching his majority. In 1746 he entered the Assembly as a
representative from Perquimans County, just in time to be-
come involved in the representation controversy that marked
the closing years of Governor Johnston's administration.
Sympathizing fully with the views of the northern counties,
he refused during the next eight years to sit in an Assembly
which he believed to be unconstitutionally organized ; but when
the controversy was ended and the victory won, he again ap-
peared in his seat which he continuously occupied during the
remaining twenty-one years of his life. Out of his first ex-
perience in public life, Harvey brought an intense hostility

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 349

to government by prerogative that made him during the rest
of his career the colony's most aggressive champion of con-
stitutional representative government. He held that the
charter upon which the colonial government was founded
was a compact between sovereign and people which neither
could rightfully violate. He insisted that no number less
than a majority could legally be counted a quorum of the
Assembly because it had been so fixed by the charter. He
upheld the dignity of the Assembly as a law-making body
and utterly repudiated the doctrine that its highest function
was to register the will of the Crown. He maintained that
no power on earth could constitutionally levy taxes on the
people of North Carolina except their representatives in the
General Assembly and rejected the theory that they were
represented in the British Parliament. The sincerity of his
convictions, the fearlessness and ability with which he main-
tained them, gradually won for him the foremost place in the
councils of his party and led to his election in 1765 to the
speakership of the Assembly. That place of leadership he
held, except for one Assembly which ill health prevented his
attending, until his death in 1775. During that decade he
was the acknowledged leader of that remarkable group of
North Carolina statesmen who prevented the triumph of the
ministerial policy in North Carolina, swung the colony into
line with the other colonies in the continental movement
toward union, reduced the royal government to impotency,
organized a provincial government independent of the Crown,
inaugurated the Revolution and led the way to independence.
Throughout these great movements, Harvey's leadership was
characterized by clearness of vision that appealed to men's
judgment, firmness of purpose that inspired their confidence,
and boldness of action that stirred their imagination and
aroused their enthusiasm. Such were the qualities that led
his associates in one of the ablest assemblages in our history
to make him their unanimous choice for their presiding of-
ficer.

The Congress remained in session but three days. In a
series of spirited and clear-cut resolutions it gave expression
to the American views on the questions in dispute witli the
mother country; denounced the several acts aimed at Massa-
chusetts and Boston ; declared that the people of Massachusetts
had "distinguished themselves in a manly support of the rights
of America in general"; endorsed the proposal for a Con-
tinental Congress to which it elected William Hooper, Joseph
Hewes, and Richard Caswell delegates; pledged the honor of

350 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the province in support of whatever measures the Continental
Congress might recommend to the colonies; adopted a non-
importation agreement and provided for its execution. John
Harvey was authorized to call another Congress whenever
he deemed it necessary.

No more significant step had ever been taken in North
Carolina than the successful meeting of this Congress. It
revealed the people to themselves. Said the freeholders of
Pitt County: "As the Constitutional Assembly of this Colony
are prevented from exercising their right of providing for the
security of the liberties of the people, that right again reverts
to the people as the foundation from whence all power and
legislation flow." The Congress was a practical demonstra-
tion of how the people might exercise this right. They began
to understand that there was no peculiar power in the writs
and proclamations of a royal governor. They themselves
could elect delegates and organize legislatures without the in-
tervention of the king's authority, and this was a long step
toward independence.

This Congress and every county meeting held in North
Carolina in the summer of 1774, had re-echoed the cry, then
ringing throughout America, that Boston was suffering in
the common cause, and the people of North Carolina by their
generous contributions to the stricken city showed that it
was no mere rhetorical expression. From the counties along
the coast, and even from as far in the back country as Anson
County, provisions poured into New Bern, Wilmington, and
Edenton to be shipped free of all freight and other charges
to the suffering poor of the New England metropolis. At their
meeting on August 18, 1774, the freeholders of Anson County
appointed a committee "to open and promote a subscription
for contributing toward the relief of those indigent Inhabitants
of the Town of Boston" whom the Boston Port Bill had "de-
prived of the means of subsisting themselves." Pitt County
followed the example and loaded a ship with supplies for the
relief of "the poor of Boston. ': From Craven also sailed a
vessel bound for Salem with a cargo of corn, peas and pork
"for the relief of the distressed inhabitants of Boston." At
Wilmington a subscription was opened "for the Relief of the
poor Artizans and Labourers" of Boston, and the committee
in charge was able to declare with just pride, "we have
reason to congratulate ourselves upon the generous contribu-
tions of the Inhabitants which has put it in our power* to
load a vessel with provisions which will sail this week for
the port of Salem. ': From Edenton, too, sailed in September,

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 351

P774, the sloop Penelope carrying a cargo of 2,096 bushels of
corn, 22 barrels of flour, and 17 barrels of pork, which John
Harvey and Joseph Hewes had collected from "the inhabi-
tants of two or three counties in the neighborhood of Eden-
ton." "I hope to be able to send another cargo this winter,
for the same charitable purpose," wrote Harvey to the Massa-
chusetts Committee of Correspondence, "as the American in-
habitants of this colony entertain a just sense of the suffering
of our brethren in Boston, and have yet hopes that when the
united determinations of the continent reach the royal ear,
they will have redress from the cruel, unjust, illegal and op-
pressive late acts of the British Parliament,"

Foiled in his purpose to hold North Carolina aloof from
the Continental Congress, Governor Martin determined to
make the best of a bad situation and summoned the Assembly
to meet him at New Bern, April 4, 1775. John Harvey imme-
diately called a congress to meet at the same place on April
3d. It was a wise precaution, for the Assembly sat only at
the pleasure of the governor who would certainly dissolve
it at the first manifestation of disloyalty. The leaders of the
popular party intended that the same individuals should com-
pose both bodies and with few exceptions this plan was care-
fully carried into execution. Martin was furious and de-
nounced Harvey's action in two resounding proclamations.
The Congress replied by electing Harvey moderator, the As-
sembly by electing him speaker. The governor roundly scored
both bodies, and both bodies roundly scored the governor.
It was indeed a pretty situation. One set of men composed
two assemblies — one constitutional, sitting by authority of the
royal governor, and in obedience of his writ ; the other extra-
constitutional, sitting in defiance of his authority, and in
direct disobedience of his command. The governor impo-
tently demanded that the Assembly- join him in denouncing
and dispersing the Congress, composed largely of the same
men whose aid he solicited. The two bodies met in the same
hall, the Congress at 9 o'clock A. M., the Assembly at 10, and
were presided over by the same man. "When the governor's
private secretary was announced at the door, in an instant,
in the twinkling of an eye, Mr. Moderator Harvey
would become Mr. Speaker Harvey and gravely

receive his Excellency's message."0

Neither body accomplished much. The Congress declared

6 Saunders: Prefatory Xote^ to Colonial Records of North Caro-
lina, Vol. IX, p. xxxiv.

352 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the right of the people themselves, or through their repre-
sentatives, to assemble and petition the throne for redress of
grievances, and concluded, therefore, that "the Governor's
Proclamation issued to forbid this meeting, and his Proclama-
tion afterwards, commanding this meeting to disperse, are
illegal and an infringement of our just rights, and therefore
ought to be disregarded as wanton and Arbitrary Exertions
of power." The Continental Association adopted by the Con-
tinental Congress was approved, signed, and recommended
to the people of the province ; Hooper, Hewes, and Caswell
were thanked for their services in the Continental Congress
and re-elected; and John Harvey, or in the event of his death
Samuel Johnston, was authorized to call another congress
whenever he considered it necessary.

The Assembly had time only to organize and exchange
messages with the governor when it, too, came to an end.
Its first offense was the election of Harvey as speaker. His
election was a bitter pill to the governor and he winced at
having to take it, but held his peace. He wrote to Lord
Dartmouth, secretary of state for the colonies, that he had
hoped the Assembly after hearing what he had to say would
secede from the Congress, although he knew many of its mem-
bers were also members of the Congress, "and this hope,"
he added, "together with my desire to lav no difficultv in
the way of the public business, induced me on the next day
to admit the election of Mr. Harvey, who was chosen speaker
of the Assembly, and presented by the House for ray approba-
tion. Indeed to say the truth, my Lord, it was a measure to
which I submitted upon these principles not without repug-
nance even after I found the Council unanimously of opinion
that it would not be expedient to give a new handle of dis-
content to the Assembly by rejecting its choice if it should
fall as was expected upon Mr. Harvey, for I considered his
guilt of too conspicuous a nature to be passed over with neg-
lect. The manner however of my admitting him I believe
sufficiently testified my disapprobation of his conduct while
it marked my respect to the election of the House." The fol-
lowing day the Assembly again offended by inviting the dele-
gates to the Congress who were not also members of the As-
sembly to join in the latter 's deliberations. The governor
promptly issued his proclamation forbidding this unhallowed
union, which was read to the Assemblv bv the sheriff of
Craven County. "Well, you have read it," exclaimed James
Coor, member from Craven, "and now you can take it back-
to the governor": and except for this contemptuous exclama-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 353

lion no notice was taken of it. "Not a man obeyed it," wrote
Martin, who thus far had succeeded in keeping his temper ad-
mirably. But on the fourth day of the session the Assembly
adopted resolutions approving the Continental Association,
thanking the delegates to the Continental Congress for their
services, and endorsing their re-election. This was more
than Martin had bargained for; his wrath boiled over, and
on April 8, 1774, he issued his proclamation putting an end
to the last Assembly that ever met in North Carolina at the
call of a royal governor.

In a letter to Lord Dartmouth describing these events,
Martin wrote: "I am bound in conscience and duty to add,
My Lord, that Government is here as absolutely prostrate as
impotent, and that nothing but the shadow of it is left.
I must further say, too, my Lord, that it is my
serious opinion which I communicate with the last degree of
concern that unless effectual measures such as British Spirit
may dictate are speedily taken there will not long remain a
trace of Britain's dominion over these Colonies." Before
this dispatch had found its way to its pigeon hole in the
Colonial Office, Martin was a fugitive from the Governor's
Palace seeking protection from the guns of Fort Johnston,
revolutionary conventions and committees were in full control
throughout the province, in every community companies of
rebels were organizing, arming, and drilling for war, and
British rule was at an end forever in North Carolina.

Vol. 1—23

CHAPTER XX

COMMITTEES OF SAFETY

In order to provide an executive authority to enforce its
policy, the Provincial Congress of August, 1774, recommended
that "a committee of five persons be chosen in each county"
for that purpose. The Continental Congress in October recom-
mended a similar system throughout the thirteen colonies. In
North Carolina the plan as finally worked out contemplated
one committee in each of the towns, one in each of the counties,
one in each of the six military districts, and one for the prov-
ince at large. In all our history there has been nothing else
like these committees. Born of necessity, originating in the
political and economic confusion of the time, they touched
the lives of the people in their most intimate affairs, and grad-
ually extended their jurisdiction until they assumed to them-
selves all the functions of government. They enforced with
vTigor the resolves of the Continental and Provincial Con-
gresses, some of which were most exacting in their demands
and burdensome in their effects. They conducted inquiries into
the actions and opinions of individuals, and not only "deter-
mine 1 what act& and opinions constituted a man an enemy of
his country, but passed upon his guilt or innocence, and fixed
his punishment." They raised money by voluntary subscrip-
tions, fines and assessments for the purchase of gunpowder,
arms, and all the other implements of war. The militia had
to be enlisted, organized, equipped and drilled. In short, a
revolution had to be inaugurated and it fell to these committees
to do it. "Usurping some new authority every day, executive,
judicial or legislative, as the case might be, their powers soon
became practically unlimited." Governor Martin character-
ized them as "extraordinary tribunals." In every respect
they were extraordinary, insurrectionary, revolutionary. Ille-
gally constituted, they assumed such authority as would not
have been tolerated in the roval government and received such
obedience as the king with all his armies could not have exacted.
Yet not only did they not abuse their power, they voluntarily

354

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 355

resigned it when the public welfare no longer needed their
services. They were the offspring of misrule and rose and fell
with their parent.

Records are extant, in some cases complete, in others very
meager, of the organization of committees in eighteen counties
and four towns. Especially active and effective were the com-
mittees of New Hanover, Rowan, Tryon, Pitt, Craven and
Surry counties. The people were thoroughly alive to the
importance of the step they took in organizing these com-
mittees. The men whom they selected represented the wealth,
the intelligence, and the culture of their communities. Some
of them achieved eminence in the history of North Carolina.
The chairman of the Wilmington-New Hanover committee
was Cornelius Harnett. Among his colleagues was William
Hooper. Joseph Hewes, like Hooper, a signer of the Declara-
tion of Independence, was a member of the Edenton com-
mittee. The dominant spirit of the Halifax committee was
Willie Jones, for many years the most distinguished of the
radical leaders in the colony. Among the members of the
Craven committee was Abner Nash, afterwards governor.
Robert HowTe, afterwards a major-general in Washington's
army, served on the Brunswick committee. Benjamin Cleave-
land, famous as one of the " heroes of King's Moun-
tain," was chairman of the Surry committee. Many others
scarcely less distinguished served on these "extraordi-
nary tribunals.'1 They were men of approved character and
ability. Entrusted with despotic power, they fulfilled their
trust with fidelity, exercising tyranny over individuals that
they might preserve the liberty of the community. They uni-
formly discharged their duties with firmness and patience, with
prudence and wisdom, and in the interest of the public welfare.

The policy of both the Continental Congress and the
Provincial Congress aimed to promote economy and industry,
to encourage and stimulate manufactures, to discourage ex-
travagance and luxury, and to enforce the non-importation and
non-exportation associations. Upon the committees of safety
fell the task of making this policy effective. It was neither an
easy nor an agreeable task, for some features of the policy-
were extremely irritating in their operations and at times pro-
duced restlessness among the people. It required as much tact
as determination for the committees to execute their orders
with vigor without at the same time losing the support of their
constituents. In this double task they met with a remarkable
degree of success. "Agreeable to the Resolves of the Conti-
nental Congress," Surry County undertook to "suppress all

356 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Immorality and Vice, and all kinds of sporting, Gaming, Bet-
ting or Wagering whatsoever.'1 Although the New Hanover
committee strictly enforced the resolves against "expensive
diversions and entertainments," forbidding horse-races, bil-
liards, dancing and other amusements, the people submitted
without complaint. ' ' Nothing, ' ' declared the committee, "will
so effectually tend to convince the British Parliament that
we are in earnest in our opposition to their measures, as a
voluntary relinquishment of our favorite amusements.
Many will cheerfully part with part of their prop-
erty to secure the remainder. He only is the determined
patriot who willingly sacrifices his pleasures on the altar of
freedom. ': An interesting experiment was initiated by the
committee of Chowan County which undertook to raise a fund
to be used "for the encouragement of Manufactures," secur-
ing £80 sterling "for that laudable purpose." Premiums
were accordingly offered for the first output in the province
within eighteen months of 500 pairs of wool cards and a like
number of cotton cards and for the first 2,000 pounds of steel
"fit for edged tools," all of which the committee obligated it-
self to purchase at a good profit. These premiums, said the
committee, were "too inconsiderable" in themselves to induce
any person to establish such manufactories but it offered them
in the hope that other counties, "stimulated by the same laud-
able motives to promote industry," would increase them by
offering similar rewards. Many of the committees found it
necessary to take a determined stand to prevent profiteering
in such essential articles as salt, steel, and gunpowder, not
only by fixing prices, but also by seizing for public use such
supplies as were found within their jurisdictions.

One of the most important phases of the work of the com-
mittees of safety was the enforcement of the Non-Importation
Association. Large quantities of goods were imported in vio-
lation either of the spirit or of the letter of the prohibition —
some by merchants who had ordered them before the pro-
hibition became effective, some were brought in only in tech-
nical violation of the resolve, while others were imported
by disloyal merchants purposely to test the determination of
the patriots. All alike was seized and sold at public auction
for the benefit of the public fund. "The safety of the people
is, or ought to be, the supreme law," wrote a Wilmington
merchant whose goods were thus seized; "the gentlemen of
the committee will judge whether this law, or any act of Par-
liament, should, at this particular time, operate in North Caro-
lina." Some Cape Fear planters who thought upon one pre-

HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA 357

text or another to get around the resolve forbidding the im-
portation of slaves, were promptly summoned lief ore the New
Hanover committee to "give a particular account" of their
conduct, and as promptly required to re-ship their negroes
out of the province by the first opportunity. When Parlia-
ment, in an effort to break up the Continental Associa-
tion, passed an act "to restrain the trade and commerce ';
of certain colonies, from which North Carolina and some
others were exempted, the Wilmington-New Hanover joint-
committees at a largely attended meeting "resolved, unani-
mously, that the exception of this colony, and some others,
out of the said act, is a mean and base artifice, to seduce them
into a desertion of the common cause of America"; and there-
fore determined "that we will not accept of the advantages
insidiously thrown out by the said act, but will strictly adhere
to such plans as have been, and shall be, entered into by the
Honorable Continental Congress, so as to keep up a perfect
unanimity with our sister colonies."

In their work the committees met with just enough opposi-
tion to enable them to make a display of firmness and energy.
Neither wealth nor position could purchase immunity from
their inquisition, neither poverty nor obscurity was accepted
as an excuse for disobedience. Social and commercial ostra-
cism was the favorite weapon, and few there were with spirit
and courage determined enough to withstand it. Andrew Mil-
ler, a prominent merchant of Halifax, refusing to sign the As-
sociation, the committee though composed of his neighbors and
former friends resolved to have "no commerce or dealing"
with him and to "recommend it to the people of this County
in particular and to all who wish well of their Country to
adopt the same measure." Governor Martin cited this inci-
dent to the ministry as evidence "of the spirit of these ex-
traordinary Tribunals." Three merchants of Edenton, who
had imported goods contrary to the Association, were sum-
moned before the Chowan County committee, required pub-
licly to acknowledge their fault and to promise obedience in
the future. Craven County committee ordered that all per-
sons who refused to sign the Association be disarmed. The
sanctity of the church itself failed to serve as a cloak to cover
disaffection and disloyalty. Eev. James Reed, missionary of
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and rector at
New Bern, refusing to conduct service on the Fast Day set
apart by the Continental Congress, the Craven committee se-
verely censured him for "deserting his congregation," and
requested the vestry to suspend him "from his ministerial

358 HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA

function"; while the Rowan County committee compelled a
Baptist preacher named Cook who had signed a "protest
against the cause of Liberty," to appear and express
his regret "in the most explicit and humiliating Terms."
When the Wilmington committee submitted to the peo-
ple of Wilmington a test pledging the signers to "ob-
serve strictly" the Continental Association, eleven of the
most prominent men in the community refused to sign.
They were promptly ostracized as "unworthy the rights
of freemen and as inimical to the liberties of their
country"; and held up before the public that they might be
"treated with the contempt they deserve." There were no
braver men than some of those thus cut off from their fellows,
but they could not stand out against the open scorn of their
neighbors; within less than a week eight of their number
gave way and subscribed the test. The committee justified
their course as being "a cement of allegiance" to the Crown
and as "having a tendency to promote a constitutional at-
tachment for the mother country."

But in May, 1775, the last bond of such allegiance was
snapped, and the last sentiment of such attachment destroyed,
by news that came from Massachusetts. American blood had
been shed at Lexington and through the colonies expresses
rode day and night, carrying the news of the battle, of the
rising of the minute-men, and of the retreat from Con-
cord. In no other way did the committees of safety give a
better illustration of their usefulness than in the transmis-
sion of this news. From colony to colony, from town to
town, from committee to committee, they hurried it along.
New York received the dispatches at midday, New Brunswick
at midnight. They aroused Princeton at 3 o'clock in the
morning. Trenton read them at daybreak, Philadelphia at
noon. They reached Baltimore at bed-time, Alexandria at
the breakfast hour. Three days and nights the express rode
on, down the Potomac, across the Rappahannock, the York
and the James, through scenes since made famous, and on
to Edenton. TCdenton received the dispatches at 9 a. m.,
May 4th, and hurried them on to Bath with the injunction
to "disperse the material passages through all your parts."
Bath hastened them on to New Bern with a message to send
them forward "with the utmost dispatch." "Send them
on as soon as possible to the Wilmington Committee," di-
rected New Bern to Onslow. "Disperse them to your adjoin-
ing counties," echoed Onslow to Wilmington. At 3 o'clock
P. M., May 8th, the messenger delivered his dispatches to

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 359

Cornelius Harnett, chairman of the Wilmington committee.
Delaying just long enough to make copies, Harnett urged
him on to Brunswick. "If you should be at a loss for a
man and horse," he wrote to the Brunswick committee, "the
bearer will proceed as far as the Boundary House. You will
please direct Mr. Marion or any other gentleman to forward
the packet immediately to the Southward with the greatest
possible dispatch. * For God's sake send the man

on without the least delay and write to Mr. Marion to for-
ward it by night and day." Brunswick received the papers
six hours later and although it was then "9 o'clock in the
evening" the chairman of the committee urged the bearer on-
ward to Isaac Marion at Boundary House to whom he wrote :
"I must entreat vou to forward them to your communitv [com-
mittee] at Georgetown to be conveyed to Charlestown from
yours with all speed." Thus the news was sped to the south-
ward, inspiring the forward, stirring the backward, and arous-
ing the continent. The committees made the most of their op-
portunity. Governor Martin complained that the rebcd lead-
ers received the news more than a month before he did, and
that he received it "too late to operate against the infamous
and false reports of that transaction which were circulated
to this distance from Boston in the space of 12 or 13 days. ';
The first impression took "deep root in the minds of the vul-
gar here universally and wrought a great change in the face
of things, confirming the seditious in their evil purposes, and
bringing over vast numbers of the fickle, wavering and un-
steady multitude to their party."

The battle of Lexington was the beginning of war. For
this result the patriots of North Carolina were not wholly
unprepared, for the committees had made efforts to be ready
for "the worst contingencies." The Rowan committee seized
all the gunpowder in Salisbury. Tryon County raised money
to purchase powder for the public use. Surry ordered that
if any members of the committee "should find out any Am-
munition in this county they shall be justifiable in securing
the same for the Public Service." Other committees were
no less active in this essential work. The most effective work
was done by the Wilmington-New Hanover committees which
foresaw that the first armed conflict in North Carolina would
probably come on the Cape Fear, and determined to be pre-
pared for it. They required the merchants to sell their gun-
powder to the committees for the public use, they bought it
from other committees, imported it from other colonies, and
employed agents to manufacture it. They hired men to

360 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

mould bullets. They seized the public arms, and they com-
pelled every person who owned more than one gun to sur-
render all but one for the public service. They smuggled
arms and ammunition from other colonies and the West
Indies in such quantities that Governor Martin "lamented
that effectual steps have not been taken to intercept the sup-
plies of warlike stores that are frequently brought
into this colony", and asked for three or four cruisers to
guard the coast, for the sloop stationed at Fort Johnston "is
not sufficient to attend to the smugglers in this [Cape Fear]
river alone." The committees also undertook to lie-organize
the militia. Rowan called for 1,000 volunteers to "be ready
at the shortest Xotice to march out to Action." The Pitt
County committee required the militia companies to choose
new officers to be approved by the committee. The Wilming-
ton committee required "every white man capable of bear-
ing arms" to enlist in one of the companies that had been
organized; and early in July, 1775, gave as one reason for a
provincial congress which Harnett, Ashe and Howe urged
Johnston to call, "that a number of men should be raised
and kept in pay for the defense of the country." So active
and successful were the committees in organizing military
companies that Governor Martin issued a proclamation de-
nouncing the "evil minded persons" who were "endeavouring
to engage the People to subscribe papers obliging themselves
to be prepared with Arms, to array themselves in companies,
and to submit to the illegal and usurped authorities of Com-
mittees."

Nor were the committees unmindful of the necessity of
preparing the minds of the people for war. In this re-
spect, too, success crowned their efforts. Even historians
who think North Carolina did not give "general and heroic
support to the cause of independence," declare that at the
outbreak of the Revolution the people were "aroused to an
extraordinary degree of enthusiasm." 1 This enthusiasm Gov-
ernor Martin charged particularly to the committees of
safety. To Lord Dartmouth he wrote on June 30, 1775, that
the people "freely talk of Hostility toward Britain in the
language of Aliens and avowed Enemies," and later he at-
tributed this spirit to "the influence of Committees" which,
he said, "hath been so extended over the Inhabitants of the
Lower part [Cape Fear section] of this Country,

1 Dodd, AY. E.: ''North Carolina in the Revolution," in The
South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. I, p. 156.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 361

and they are at this day to the distance of an hundred miles
from the Sea ('oast, so generally possessed with the spirit
of revolt" that the "spirits of the loyal and well effective to
Government droop and decline daily" while "the authority,
the edicts and ordinances of Congresses, Conventions and
Committees are established supreme and omnipotent by gen-
eral acquiescence or forced submission, and lawful Govern-
ment is completely annihilated."

Martin wrote these dispatches from Fort Johnston at the
mouth of Cape Fear River where, frightened from the Pal-
ace at New Bern by the New Bern committee, he had taken
refuge. His flight was one of the turning points in the revo-
lutionary movement in North Carolina; it closed the last
door against reconciliation. To trace the events which in-
duced him to take this extraordinary step, we must turn
back to the beginning of the year 1775. It must not be sup-
posed that the people of North Carolina were a unit in sup-
port of the revolutionary movement. The movement received
its chief strength from the eastern counties where men of
English descent, trained in English institutions and imbued
with English ideals of government, predominated, and from
the counties which had .been largely settled by Scotch-Irish
immigrants whose religious principles and church organiza-
tions had given them training in democratic ideals and insti-
tutions. But from the Scotch-Highlanders and the Germans,
neither of whom understood what the quarrel was about, it
received scant sympathy, while the old Regulators naturally
distrusted a cause which counted among its most conspicu-
ous advocates the author of the "Riot Act" and those who,
acting under its authority, had but recently so completely
crushed their own revolt against oppression. By the open-
ing of the year 1775 these elements of the population began
to make themselves heard. Addresses signed by 1,500 inhab-
itants of Rowan, Surry, Guilford, Anson and other inland
counties, expressing the utmost loyalty to the king and utter
detestation of all revolutionary proceedings, were sent in to
the governor, who received similar assurances from the
Scotch-Highlanders along the Upper Cape Fear.

Encouraged by these evidences of loyalty, Martin began to
contemplate a more aggressive policy. On March 16th, there-
fore, he wrote to General Thomas Gage, at Boston, "if your
Excellency shall assist me with two or three Stands of arms
and good store of ammunition, I will be answerable

to maintain the Sovereignty of this Country to his Majesty
if the present spirit of resistance shall urge mat-

362 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ters to the extremity that the people of New England seem
to be meditating." While Martin was anxiously awaiting
Gage's reply, events in North Carolina hastened to a climax.
In April met the last royal Assembly and the second Pro-
vincial Congress, and in May came news of the battle of
Lexington. Rumors were afloat that the governor con-
templated armed action against the people, and it
was whispered here and there that he was even plan-
ning to arm the slaves against their masters. Every-
where the people were arming, organizing companies and
drilling for war. "The Inhabitants of this Country on the
Sea Coast," wrote Martin, from New Bern, May 18th, "are
* arming men, electing officers and so forth. In this
little Town they are now actually endeavouring to form what
they call independent Companies under my nose, an 1 Civil
Government becomes more and more prostrate every day. ':
While everybody's nerves were on an edge from these events
and rumors, Martin's action in dismantling some cannon at
the Palace in New Bern so alarmed the New Bern commit-
tee that it set a watch over him to report his every movement.
In the latter part of May a messenger from the governor of
New York arrived at the Palace and sought an interview
with Martin. From him Martin learned that Gage had com-
plied with his request an 1 ordered arms and ammunition to
be sent to him from New York. Whether they would be sent
by a man-of-war or by a merchant ship Martin's informant
could not say, but thought probably by the latter as the peo-
ple of the northern colonies had a mistaken idea of the loy-
alty of the people of the South. This information was ex-
tremely disconcerting. Martin felt certain that the supplies,
unless brought by a war vessel, would be seized by the com-
mittees as he himself "had not a man to protect them." He
was also greatly perturbed by rumors that the committees
in all the colonies were planning to seize the persons of the
royal governors. Prompt action, therefore, was necessary
to save his military supplies and to assure his personal safety.
His decision was perhaps wise from a personal point of view,
but disastrous to his cause. Sending his family in haste to
New York, and rlispatehing his secretary to Ocracoke Inlet,
the entrance to the port of New Bern, to prevent the supply
ship from entering there, he himself fled in secret to the pro-
tection of the guns of Fort Johnston.

Martin reached Fort Johnston on June 2d, and began at
once to coneoct new schemes for reducing the province to
obedience. His activity took the form of a thundering procla-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 363

niatioii, in which he denounced the committees of safety and
warned the people against their illegal proceedings ; of an
application to General Gage for a royal standard around
which the loyal and faithful might rally; and of an elaborate
plan for the organization of the Highlanders and Regulators
of the interior for military service. His plans were approved
by the king who promised such assistance as might be neces-
sary. They gave great alarm to the Whigs. "Our situation
here is truly alarming," wrote the Wilmington committee;
"the Governor [is] collecting men, provisions, warlike stores
of every kind, spiriting up the back country, and perhaps the
Slaves ; finally strengthening the fort with new works in such
a manner as may make the Capture of it extremely difficult. "
"Nothing," declared Harnett, "shall be wanting on our part
to disconcert such diabolical schemes." The committees kept
such close watch over his movements that Martin declared no
messenger or letter could escape them. They intercepted his
dispatches, frustrated his plans, and in general made life so
miserable for him that he bemoaned his situation as "most
despicable and mortifying to any man of greater feelings
than a Stoic' "I daily see indignantly, the Sacred Majesty
of my Royal Master insulted, the Rights of His Crown denied
and violated. His Government set at naught and trampled
upon, his servants of highest dignity reviled, traduced, abused,
the Rights of His Subjects destroyed by the most arbitrary
usurpations, and the whole Constitution unhinged and pros-
trate, and I live, alas! ingloriously only to deplore it.'

( hi June 20th, the committees of New Hanover, Brunswick,
Bladen, Duplin, and Onslow counties, in session at Wilming-
ton, declared that the governor had "by the whole tenor of
his conduct, since the unhappy disputes between Great Britain
and the colonies, discovered himself to be an enemy to the
happiness of this colony in particular, and to the freedom,
rights and privileges of America in general." Determined,
therefore, to treat him as an enemy, the Wilmington committee
passed an order forbidding any communications with him.
Expulsion from the province was the logical result of tliis
order, and the leaders were soon ready to take this step also.
In a letter to Samuel Johnston, July 13th, urging him to call
a provincial convention, the Wilmington committee said :
"We have a number of Enterprising young fellows that would
attempt to take the fort [Fort Johnston], lint are much afraid
of having their Conduct disavowed by the Convention." But
what these "enterprising young fellows" were afraid to at-
tempt, Cornelius Harnett, John Ashe and Robert Howe made

364 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

up their minds to do. Captain John Collet, the commander of
tli" fort, who felt all the professional soldier's contempt for
the militia and all the Britisher's contempt for the provincials,
took no pains to conceal his feelings. A long series of studied
insults had exasperated the people of the Cape Fear against
him, but they had borne them all patiently. But now news
came that at Governor Martin's command, he was preparing
the fort "for the reception of a promised reinforcement," the
arrival of which would be the signal for the erection of the
king's standard. The committee regarded this as a declaration
of war, and "having taken these things into consideration,
judged it might be of the most pernicious consequences to the
people at large, if the said John Collet should be suffered to
remain in the Fort, as he might thereby have an opportunity of
carrying his iniquitous schemes into execution. ' ' They accord-
ingly called for volunteers to take the fort, and in response
"a great many volunteers were immediately collected."

The committee's preparations alarmed Governor Martin.
Nobody realized better than he that the fort could not be held
against a determined attack. Yet its defense was a matter of
honor and its surrender would have a bad effect in the province.
Besides it held artillery "considerable in value," with a quan-
tity of movable stores and ammunition. "Its Artillery which
is heavy," wrote Martin, "might in the hands of the Mob be
turned against the King's Ship, and so annoy her as to oblige
her to quit her present station which is most convenient in all
respects." Then, too, an unsuccessful defense meant the cap-
ture of the governor himself. In this perplexing situation,
Martin decided to remove the stores to a transport, to withdraw
the garrison, dismantle the fortifications, and seek refuge on
board the Cruizer. These plans he successfully carried into
effect on July 16th. Almost at the very hour of his flight, Lord
Dartmouth was writing to him : "I hope His Majesty's Gov-
ernment in North Carolina may be preserved, and His Gover-
nor and other officers not reduced to the disgraceful necessity
of seeking protection on Board the King's Ships."

Smarting keenly under his disgrace, Martin hastened to
put on record the punishment he desired to inflict on those
most responsible for it. From the cabin of the "Cruizer,
Sloop of War, in Cape Fear River," July 16th, he wrote to
Lord Dartmouth :

"Hearing of a Proclamation of the King, proscribing John
Hancock and Samfuejl Adams of the Massachusetts Bay, and
seeing clearly that further proscriptions will be necessary
before Government can be settled again upon sure Founda-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 365

tions in America, I hold it my indispensable duty to mention
to your Lordship Cornelius Harnett, John Ashe, Robert
Howes2 and Abner Nash, as persons who have marked them-
selves out as proper objects for such distinction in this Colony
by their unremitted labours to promote sedition and rebellion
here from the beginning of the discontents in America to this
time, that they stand foremost among the patrons of revolt and
anarchy. ' '

Rumors of Martin's plans at Fort Johnston having reached
the committees of New Hanover and Brunswick, they de-
termined to take steps to prevent their execution. A call for
volunteers was promptly answered by 500 minute-men. Be-
fore setting out for the fort, Col. John Ashe, who commanded
the New Hanover contingent, dispatched to Governor Martin
a declaration of their puipose. The fort, he said, had been
built and maintained by the people of the province to protect
them in time of war and to aid their trade and navigation in
time of peace, but these ends had been defeated by Captain
Collet. He had illegally invaded the rights and property of
private persons by wantonly detaining vessels applying for
bills of health ; by threatening vengeance against magistrates
whose actions in the execution of the duties of their offices he
happened to disapprove; by setting at defiance the high sheriff
of the county in the execution of his office; by treating the
king's writs served on him for just debts with shameful con-
tempt and insult ; by unparalled injustice in detaining and em-
bezzling a large quantity of goods which having been unfortu-
nately wrecked near the fort, had from every principle of
humanity the highest claims to his attention and care for the
benefit of the unhappy sufferers ; by his base encouragement of
slaves to elope from their masters and his atrocious and horrid
declaration that he would incite them to insurrection. These
things, and many others of like character, had excited the in-
dignation and resentment of the people but they had sub-
mitted to them for a time in the hopes that the Assembly
would grant relief; but now they learned that Captain Collet
was dismantling the fort and they proposed to prevent it.
Replying to this communication, Martin declared that Captain
Collet was acting at his command and lie hoped, therefore, the
people would not proceed with their design of attacking the
fort.

2 "Robert Howes," wrote Martin, "is commonly called Howe, he
having impudently assumed that name for some years past in affecta-
tion of the noble family that hears it, whose least eminent virtues have
ever been far beyond his imitation." Col. Rec, Vol. X, p. 08.

366 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

John Ashe's answer was an order to all the masters and
commanders of ships in the Cape Fear to furnish their boats
to convey his men and arms down the river to Fort Johnston.
On July 18th, 500 minute-men under his command rendez-
voused at Brunswick and during the night marched on the
fort and applied the torch. Early in the morning of July 19th,
Martin was aroused from his quarters on the Cruizer by the
announcement that Fort Johnston was on fire. Hurrying to
the deck he watched the rapid spread of the flames as they re-
duced the fort to ashes. The "rabble," he wrote, burned sev-
eral houses that had been erected by Captain Collet, and thus,
in the words of the Wilmington committee, "effectually dis-
lodged that atrocious Freebooter." "Mr. John Ashe and Mr.
Cornelius Harnett," wrote the enraged governor, "were ring-
leaders of this savage and audacious mob."

CHAPTER XXI
THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL,

Upon the adjournment of the second Provincial Congress,
April 7, 1775, authority was given to John Harvey, or in
the event of his death to Samuel Johnston, to call another
Congress whenever it became necessary. Harvey dying in
May, the leadership of the revolutionary party devolved upon
Johnston. Although a native of Scotland, Johnston had
passed his life since early infancy in North Carolina, and felt
for the colony all the affection and loyalty that men usually
feel only for the land of their nativity. His public career,
which began in 1759 with his election to represent Chowan
County in the General Assembly, covered a period of forty-
four years and embraced every branch of the public service.
He was legislator, delegate to four provincial congresses,
president of two constitutional conventions, member of the
Continental Congress, judge, governor, United States senator.
By inheritance, by training and by conviction he was a con-
servative in politics. He clung tenaciously to the things that
were and viewed with apprehension, if not with distrust, any
departure from the beaten path of experienc?. Holding the
principles of the British Constitution in great reverence, he
regarded the policies of the British ministry toward America
as revolutionary in their tendency, and therefore threw the
whole weight of his influence against them.

In the great crises of our history, immediately preceding
and immediately following the Revolution, Johnston saw per-
haps more clearly than any of his colleagues the true nature
of the problem confronting them. This problem was, on the
one hand, to preserve in America the fundamental principles
of English liberty against the encroachments of the British
Parliament, and on the other, to secure the guarantees of law
and order against the well-meant but ill-considered schemes
of honest but ignorant reformers. For a full quarter of a
century he pursued both of these ends so patiently and per
sistently that neither the wrath of a royal governor, threaten-

.367

Samuel Johxstox

From a portrait in the Governor's office, Raleigh

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 369

ing withdrawal of royal favor and deprivation of office, nor the
fierce and passionate denunciations of party leaders, menac-
ing him with loss of popular support and defeat at the polls,
could swerve him a hair's breadth from the path of what he
considered the public good. He had in the fullest degree that
rarest of all virtues in men who serve the public, courage —
courage to fight the battles of the people, if need be, against
the people themselves. While he never questioned the right
of the people to decide public questions as they chose, he fre-
quently doubted the wisdom of their decisions ; and when such
doubt arose in his mind he spoke his sentiments without fear
or favor, maintaining his positions with a relentlessness in
reasoning that generally carried conviction and out of defeat
wrung ultimate victory. More than once in his public career
the people, when confronted by his immovable will, in fits of
party passion, discarded his leadership for that of more com-
pliant leaders, but only in their calmer moments to turn to
him again to point the. way out of the mazes into which their
inexperience had led them. An ample fortune made him inde-
pendent of public office. He possessed a vigorous and pene-
trating intellect, seasoned with sound and varied learning.
"His powerful frame,'1' says McRee, "was a fit engine f6r
the vigorous intellect that gave it animation. Strength was
his characteristic. In his relations to the public an inflexible
sense of duty and justice dominated. There was a remarkable
degree of self-reliance and majesty about the man. His erect
carriage and his intolerance of indolence, meanness, vice and
wrong gave him an air of sternness. He commanded the
respect and admiration, but not the love of the people. ' ' 1

Such was the man upon whose shoulders now fell the
mantle of John Harvey. It became necessary for Him to exer-
cise the authority with which he was clothed sooner than was
expected. The flight of the governor left the province with-
out a government or a constitutional method of calling an As-
sembly. The battle of Lexington, followed by the destruction
of Fort Johnston, produced a state of war. Both sides, recog-
nizing this fact, were straining every nerve to get ready for
the conflict. The situation, therefore, called for a larger
authority than had been granted to the committees of safety.
A new government had to be formed, a currency devised, an
army organized, munitions of war collected, and a system of
defense planned; and all these preparations had to be made

1 Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, Vol. 1, p. 37.

Vol. 1—24

370 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

with a view to continental as well as provincial affairs. The
leaders of "the Whig party on the Cape Fear were required
daily to exercise authority and accept responsibilities that
exceeded the powers granted them; and they realized earlier
than their friends elsewhere the necessity for organizing a
government that could act independently of the royal author-
ity. Only a general congress could provide this government.
Accordingly on May 31, 1775, Howe, Harnett and Ashe joined
in a letter to Samuel Johnston — Harvey having died a few
days before — suggesting that he call a congress "as soon as
possible. ': Johnston, however, thought the suggestion prema-
ture, and was reluctant to take a step that would widen still
further the breach with the royal government. Besides the
Assembly had been summoned to meet July 12, and he thought
it wise not to call a convention until then, as "many members
of the Assembly would probably be chosen to serve in conven-
tion." But at his quiet home on the Albemarle, Johnston
failed to appreciate the situation on the Cape Fear, where a
state of war practically existed, and he hesitated. "I expect
my Conduct in not immediately calling a Provincial Con-
gress," he wrote, "will be much censured by many, but being
conscious of having discharged my duty according to my
best Judgment I shall be the better able to bear it. " The Cape
Fear leaders became impatient. On June 29, Howe, Harnett
and Ashe wrote again to Johnston, taking him to task for his
delay. "The circumstances of the times," and "the expecta-
tions of the people," they thought, ought to determine his
conduct. The people, wrote the Wilmington committee, were
"Continually clamouring for a Provincial Convention. They
hope everything from its Immediate Session, fear everything
from its delay." In the meantime Governor Martin pro-
rogued the Assembly. Thereupon other committees joined
in the request for a convention. Thus pressed, Johnston
yielded and issued his call for a Congress to meet at Hillsboro,
August 20th.

Nothing shows the progress that had been made toward
revolution during the year more clearly than the full attend-
ance at this Congress. Just a year, lacking but five days, had
passed since the first Congress met at New Bern. At that
Congress seventy-one delegates were present, while five coun-
ties and three towns sent no representatives. But in the Hills-
boro Congress of August, 1775, every county and every bor-
ough town were represented, and 184 delegates were present.
No abler body of men ever sat in North Carolina. More than

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 371

half of them had served in the Assembly or in the first two
Congresses. Among them were Johnston, Caswell, Howe,
Hooper, Hewes, Burke, Harnett, John Ashe, Abner Nash and
Willie Jones. Appearing for the first time in a revolutionary
assemblage were Samuel Ashe, afterwards governor; Joseph
Winston and Frederick Hambright, distinguished among the
heroes of King's Mountain; Francis Nash, who fell gloriously
leading his brigade at Germantown ; Thomas Polk, Waightstill
Avery, John McNitt Alexander, and their Mecklenburg col-
leagues, fresh from setting up a county government "inde-
pendent of the Crown of Great Britain and former constitu-
tion of this Province"; John Penn, a recent arrival from Vir-
ginia, whose name is indissolubly associated with those of
Hooper and Hewes as signers of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence ; Jethro Sumner and James Hogun, soldiers whose serv-
ices on the battlefield helped to make that Declaration good.
The Congress organized by the election of Samuel Johnston
"president" — a significant change in the title of its presiding
officer.

The delegates brought to their deliberations a spirit and
a point of view almost national. No such thing as a truly na-
tional sentiment existed in America at that time, but the Hills-
boro Congress approached it as nearly as any body that had
yet assembled in the colonies. Among their first acts was to
approve anew the Continental Association which the first Con-
tinental Congress had recommended, and to adopt and sub-
scribe a test denying the right of Parliament "to impose
Taxes upon these Colonies to regulate the internal police
thereof"; declaring that "the people of this province, singly
and collectively, are bound by the Acts and resolutions of
the Continental and Provincial Congresses, because in both
they are freely represented by persons chosen by themselves ;':
and solemnly binding themselves to support and maintain
the policies and plans of the Continental Congress. Since
the Continental Congress had resolved to raise an army and
to emit $3,000,000 for its support, the Provincial Congress
resolved unanimously that North Carolina would bear her
proportionate share of the burden and made provision for the
redemption of the sum allotted to her by the Continental Con-
gress, and also authorized the raising and organization of
two regiments of Continental troops. Throughout its pro-
ceedings, in its appeals to the people, in the organization of
an army, and in the formation of a provisional government,

372 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the one clear note sounding above all others was "the com-
mon cause of America."

Although the delegates were unanimous in expressing this
sentiment, there was no such unanimity among the people,
and Governor Martin had been alarmingly successful in his
efforts to arouse and organize the disaffected elements. His
agents were especially active among the former Eegulators
and Highlanders. Hillsboro and Cross Creek, therefore, were
the chief centers of disaffection to the American cause. The
Whig leaders, of course, recognized the importance of coun-
teracting Governor Martin's influence in these sections. This
was the chief reason for changing the meeting place of Con-
gress from New Bern to Hillsboro. Immediately after organ-
izing, therefore, Congress turned its attention to these prob-
lems. Consideration was given to the Regulators first, for
Governor Martin had succeeded in persuading them that they
were still subject to punishment for their late insurrection,
and that their only chance of securing pardon was to aid the
government in the present crisis. Congress adopted a reso-
lution declaring all such representations false and promising
to protect the Eegulators "from every attempt to punish them
by any Means whatever." A committee was appointed, of
which Thomas Person, who had been a leader among the Regu-
lators, was a member, to confer with such persons as enter-
tained "any religious or political Scruples" against "asso-
ciating in the common Cause of America, to remove any ill
impressions that have been made upon them by the artful
devices of the enemies of America, and to induce them by
Argument and Persuasion" to unite with the Whig party in
defense of their liberties. Another committee, numbering
among its members Archibald Maclaine, iUexander McAlis-
ter, Alexander McKay, and Farquard Campbell, good High-
landers, all, was appointed to explain to the Highlanders who
had lately arrived in North Carolina "the Nature of our Un-
happy Controversy with' Great Britain, and to advise and
urge them to unite with the other Inhabitants of America in
defence of those rights which they derive from God and the
Constitution. ': Nor were the people at large to be neglected.
Maurice Moore, Hooper, Howe, Caswell and Hewes were di-
rected to prepare an address to the people of North Carolina,
"stating the present Controversy in an easy, familiar stile
and manner obvious to the very Meanest Capacity;" vindicat-
imr the taking up of arms by showing the necessity which had
been forced upon the colonies by the British ministry, and

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 373

ascribing the silence of the legislative powers to the gover-
nor's "refusing to exercise the Functions of office." Unhap-
pily these plans to unite the people were better conceived than
they were executed; North Carolina remained divided
throughout the Revolution and that strength and vigor which
she should have contributed to the support of the general
cause was largely consumed in civil strife at home.

The two most important matters before the Congress were
the organization of an army and the formation of a provi-
sional government. "Our principal debates," wrote Johns-
ton, "will be about raising troops." As a preliminary to this
step, the Congress first issued what may not inaptly be called
a declaration of war. It declared that whereas "hostilities
being actually commenced in the Massachusetts Bay by the
British troops under the command of General Gage ;
And whereas His Excellency Governor Martin hath taken
a very active and instrumental share in opposition to the
means which have been adopted by this and the other United
Colonies for the common safety, * * therefore [resolved
that] this colony be immediately put into a state of defense. ':
Two regiments of 500 men each were ordered "as part of
and on the same establishment with the Continental army."
Col. James Moore was assigned to the command of the first,
Col. Robert Howe to the second. Both won military fame in
the war that followed. Six regiments of 500 minute-men each,
were ordered to be raised in the six military districts, in
which the province was divided. These districts with their
colonels were : Edenton District, Edward Vail, colonel ; Hali-
fax District, Nicholas Long, colonel; Salisbury District,
Thomas Wade, colonel ; Hillsboro District, James Thackston,
colonel; New Bern District, Richard Caswell, colonel; Wil-
mington District, Alexander Lillington, colonel. Of these offi-
cers only Caswell and Lillington attained distinction. The
minute-men were to be enlisted for six months, and when
called into active service were to be under the same discipline
as the continental troops. In addition to these 4,000 troops,
provision was made for a more effective organization of the
militia, and for raising and organizing independent com-
panies.

The problem of financing these military organizations
early occupied the attention of the Congress. A committee
appointed to make a statement of the public funds reported
that the province owed large sums to individuals, but how
much it had on hand with which to meet these claims the

374 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

committee could not say, as the accounts of the provincial
treasurers were not accessible. It also found that there were
"divers large sums of money due from sundry sheriffs,"
and urged that steps be taken to compel speedy settlements.
Congress, however, had little confidence in ever receiving any
considerable sums from this source and accordingly to meet
the expenses necessary for defense of the province resorted
to the old familiar policy of issuing paper money. The amount
determined upon was $125,000 in bills of credit, for the re-
demption of which the faith of the province was pledged.
Significant of the drift of sentiment was the change from the
English pound to the Spanish milled dollar as the standard
of value. The new bills were to pass at the rate of eight
shillings to the dollar, and for their redemption a tax of two
shillings was to be levied annually on each taxable from 1777
to 1786, "unless the money should be sooner sunk." Any
person who should refuse to receive the bills in payment of
any debt, or "speak disrespectfully" of them, or offer them
at a greater rate than eight shillings for a dollar should "be
treated as an enemy to his country." Persons convicted of
counterfeiting, altering, or erasing them, or of knowingly
passing such counterfeited, or altered bills, were to "suffer
Death, without Benefit of Clergy. ' '

To agree upon a plan of civil government was a more diffi-
cult task than the organization of the army. Most men will
frankly confess their ignorance of military matters, and will-
ingly submit to the opinions of experts, but no American
would consider himself loyal to the teachings of the fathers
were he to admit himself incapable of manufacturing offhand
a perfect plan of civil government. Congress, therefore,
found no lack of plans and ideas. On August 24th a strong
committee was appointed to prepare a plan of government
made necessary by the "absence" of Governor Martin. The
committee reported September 9th. The plan proposed and
adopted continued the Congress as the supreme branch of
the government with a few changes that will be noticed. The
executive and judicial authority was vested in a Provincial
Council, six district committees of safety, and the local com-
mittees of safety.

Congress was to be the supreme power in the province.
Henceforth it was to meet annually at such time and place
as should be designated by the Provincial Council. Delegates
were to be elected annually in October. Each county was
to be entitled to five delegates, and each borough town to one.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 375

The privilege of suffrage was limited to freeholders. The
members of Congress were to qualify by taking an oath in
the presence of three members of the Provincial Council,
acknowledging allegiance to the Crown, denying the right of
Parliament to levy internal taxes on the colonies, and agree-
ing to abide by the acts and resolutions of the Provincial
and Continental Congresses. Each county and each town was
to have one vote in Congress. No constitutional limitation
was placed on the authority of Congress, and as the supreme
power in the province it could review the acts of the executive
branches of the government.

The executive powers of the government were vested in
the committees. The committees of the counties and towns
were continued practically as they were. Some limitation
was placed on their power by making their acts reviewable
by the district committees with the right of appeal to the Pro-
vincial Council. They were empowered to make such rules
and regulations as they saw fit for the enforcement of their
authority, but they could not inflict corporal punishment ex-
cept by imprisonment. Within their own jurisdictions, they
were to execute the orders of the district committees and the
Provincial Council. They were to enforce the Continental
Association and the ordinances of the Provincial and Conti-
nental Congresses. Each committee was required to organize
a sub-committee of secrecy, intelligence and observation to
correspond with other committees and with the Council. They
were vested with the power to arrest and examine suspected
persons and if deemed necessary to hold them for trial by a
higher tribunal. Members of the committees were to be
elected annually by the freeholders.

Above these local committees was placed a system of dis-
trict committees, one in each of the military districts, com-
posed of a president and twelve members. The members were
to be elected by the delegates in Congress from the counties
which composed the several districts. They were to sit at
least once in every three months. Power was given to them,
subject to the authority of the Provincial Council, to direct
the movements of the militia and other troops within their
districts. They were to sit as courts for the trial of civil
causes, for investigations into charges of disaffection to the
American cause, and as appellate courts over the town and
county committees. They shared with the Council authority
to compel debtors suspected of intention to leave the prov-

376 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ince to give security to their creditors. Finally, they were
to superintend the collection of the public revenue.

The Provincial Council was the chief executive authority
of the new government. It was to be composed of thirteen
members, one elected by the Congress for the province at
at large, and two from each of the military districts. Vacan-
cies occurring during the recess of Congress were to be filled
by the committee of safety for the district in which the va-
cancy fell. Military officers, except officers of the militia, were
ineligible for membership. The members wTere to qualify by
subscribing the oath 'prescribed for members of Congress.
The Council was to meet once everv three months, and a ma-
jority of the members was to constitute a quorum. Authority
was given to them to direct the military operations of the
province, to call out the militia when needed, and to execute
the acts of the Assembly that were still in force with respect
to the militia. They could issue commissions, suspend officers,
order courts-martial, reject officers of the militia chosen by
the people, and fill vacancies. But their real power lay in a
sort of "general welfare" clause which empowered them "to
do and Transact all such matters and things as they may
judge expedient to strengthen, secure and defend the Colony."
To carry out their powers, they were authorized to draw
on the public treasury for such sums of money as they needed,
for which they were accountable to Congress. In all matters
they were given an appellate jurisdiction over the district
committees, and in turn were subject to the authority of Con-
gress. Their authority continued only during the recess of
Congress, and Congress at each session was to review and
pass upon their proceedings.

Such was the government that was to organize, equip and
direct the military forces raised by Congress and to inaug-
urate the great war about to burst upon the colony. As
Saunders says, the die was now cast and North Carolina was
at last a self-governing commonwealth. The people had so
declared through representatives whom they had chosen after
a campaign of forty days. Nobody was taken by surprise, for
all knew that the Congress elected in that campaign would
formulate a provisional government. This action was taken
fully eight months before the Continental Congress advised
the colonies to adopt new constitutions. "The more the action
of this great Hillsborough Congress is studied, and the events
immediately preceding," writes Saunders, "the more wonder-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 377

fill seems the deliberate, well-considered, resolute boldness of
our ancestors." 2

The efficiency of the new government depended, of course,
upon the men chosen to administer it. The members of the
Provincial Council were elected Saturday, September 9th.
Samuel Johnston was chosen by the Congress for the province
at large. The other members were : Cornelius Harnett and
Samuel Ashe, for the Wilmington District; Thomas Jones and
Whitmill Hill, for the Edenton District; Abner Nash and
James Coor, for the New Bern District ; Thomas Person and
John Kinchen, for the Hillsboro District; Willie Jones and
Thomas Eaton, for the Halifax District; Samuel Spencer and
Waightstill Avery, for the Salisbury District. On October
18th the Council held their first session at Johnston Court
House and elected Cornelius Harnett president.

Cornelius Harnett thus became the first chief executive
of North Carolina independent of the British Crown. Gover-
nor in all but name, he exercised greater authority than the
people have since conferred on their governor, and occupied
a position of honor and power, but also of great responsibility
and peril. He had long been in the public service. Entering
the Assembly in 1754 as the representative of the borough
of Wilmington, he had represented that town in every Assem-
bly since that date. His legislative career covered a period
of twenty-seven years, embracing service in the Assembly, in
the Provincial Congress, and in the Continental Congress.
From 1765 he was conspicuous in every movement in opposi-
tion to the colonial policy of the British ministry. He led
the resistance to the Stamp Act on the Cape Fear; was chair-
man of the Sons of Liberty and their leader in enforcing the
Noil-Importation Association; and was among the foremost
in organizing and directing the activities of the Committee
of Correspondence. Perhaps his chief service was rendered
as chairman of the Wilmington-New Hanover committees of
safety. Of these he was the acknowledged master spirit, By
his activity in "warning and watching the disaffected, en-
couraging the timid, collecting the means of defence, and com-
municating its enthusiasm to. all orders," he made this local
committee the most effective agency, except the Provincial
Congress itself, in getting the Revolution under way in North
Carolina. Governor Martin recognized in him the chief source

2 Prefatory Notes to Colonial Records of North Carolina, Vol. X,
p. viii-ix.

378 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

of opposition to the royal government, marked him out for
special punishment, and induced Sir Henry Clinton to except
him, together with Robert Howe, from his offer of general
amnesty to all who would return to their allegiance. As presi-
dent of the Provincial Council, he fully sustained his repu-
tation for executive skill, energy and foresight. From the
outbreak of the Revolution Harnett had taken a broad and
liberal view of the relations of the colonies to each other,
and he inspired his colleagues on the Council with the same
continental spirit that was the chief characteristic of his own
statesmanship. He was foremost among the advocates of a
united Declaration of Independence, and wrote the first reso-
lution adopted by any of the colonies favoring such a step
by the Continental Congress. As a delegate to the Conti-
nental Congress he bore an important part in framing the
Articles of Confederation, which he regarded as "the best
confederacy that could be formed, especially when we con-
sider the number of states, their different interests [and] cus-
toms."

Harnett was not politically ambitious. He loved ease and
pleasure, and had sufficient fortune to enjoy both. Public
office, therefore, as such, made no appeal to him. He did not
need its emoluments. He cared little for its distinctions. In-
deed, the offices which he held brought more of sacrifice than
of gain, more of drudgery than of glory. Desire to serve
his country, regardless of the cost to himself, alone held him
to the duties, burdens and dangers of the public service. With
a profound faith in popular government, he had in his nature
none of the elements of the demagogue. He appealed neither
to the prejudices nor to the passions of mankind. His work
lay not on the hustings, nor in the legislative hall, but rather
in the council chamber. His chief service was executive in
its nature. In the performance of his duties, we are told, "he
could be wary and circumspect, or decided and daring, as
exigency dictated or emergency required." Such work as he
did was the backbone of the Revolution, without which the
eloquence of the orator, the wisdom of the legislator, and the
daring of the soldier would have been barren of results. Yet
it was work that offered but little opportunity for display,
and brought but little fame. For Cornelius Harnett its only
opportunity was for service, its only reward a wasted body
and a martyr's grave.

The Provincial Council were forced to work under the most
unfavorable conditions. To begin with there was not a place

HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA 379

in the province, except possibly the Palace at New Bern, suit-
able for their sessions. From necessity, as well as from pol-
icy, they became a migratory body. The members were
subjected to almost every personal inconvenience and dis-
comfort. But these were among the least of their difficulties.
Almost without any of the means with which governments
usually administer public affairs, they were compelled to
struggle against political and economic conditions that might
well have daunted the most determined. Thev had to rely
for success on a public sentiment which they themselves, to
a large extent, had to create, and at the same time to enforce
measures that were at once burdensome and irritating. They
had no powerful press to uphold their hands. The people
were scattered over an immense area, with means of com-
munication crudely primitive. There were no public high-
ways except a few rough and dangerous forest paths fre-
quently impassable. Their principal river was held at the
mouth by hostile ships of war, and at the head of navigation
by an enemy bold, hardy, and enthusiastic in the king's cause.
The East was dominated by an oligarchy of wealthy planters
and merchants, living in an almost feudal state, supported
by slave labor; the West was a pure democracy, composed of
small farmers, living on isolated farms, tilled by their own
hands. Both East and West, aristocracy and democracy, were
equally determined in their opposition to the British gov-
ernment, but between the two, right through the heart of the
province, were projected the Scotch Highlanders and the for-
mer Regulators — the one eager to prove their loyalty to the
throne against which they were but recently in rebellion, the
other equally as eager to wreak vengeance upon the men
who had but lately crushed and humiliated them at Alamance.
The province was a rural community without a single center
of population. There were no mills or factories. The only
port of any consequence was in the hands of the enemy. Thus
the Council's task was to organize an army among a people
divided in sentiment and unused to war; to equip it without
factories for the manufacture of clothes, arms or ammuni-
tion; to train it without officers of experience; to maintain
it without money; and to direct its movements in the face of
an enemy superior in numbers, in equipment, and in military
experience.

The Council was created as a war measure, and its prin-
cipal work related to military affairs. The province was
threatened in front and in the rear. In front Governor Mar-

380 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

tin was organizing the Highlanders and Regulators for a de-
scent on the lower Cape Fear, and Governor Dunmore of
Virginia was encouraging an insurrection of slaves on the
Albemarle. In the rear bands of Tories were overrunning
Western South Carolina and threatening the frontier of North
Carolina, while the Indians, instigated by British agents, were
showing signs of restlessness. Foreseeing that the province
would ''soon be invaded by British troops," the Council
issued orders to Colonel Moore and Colonel Howe of the con-
tinental regiments to resist "to the utmost of their power' '
any attempt to invade the province; directed the committees
of Wilmington and Brunswick to stop all communications,
' ' on any pretense whatever, ' ' between the people and the gov-
ernor, and ' ' to cut off all supplies of provisions to any of the
ships of war lying in Cape Fear River;" and commanded
Colonel Griffith Rutherford and Colonel Thomas Polk of
the Salisbury District to raise two regiments for defense of
the frontier. Had they been less than tragical, these high-
sounding orders, in comparison with the Council's means for
enforcing them, would have been ludicrous. The Council
found the minute-men and continental troops practically with-
out clothes, arms, ammunition, or any of the necessary equip-
ment of war, the people "destitute of sufficient arms for de-
fense of their lives and property," and the outlook for
supplying them unpromising enough. They drew upon every
conceivable source. They bought and borrowed, made and
mended, begged and confiscated, and though their efforts fell
far short of what the emergency required, yet they were suffi-
cient to enable the western militia to march to the aid of
South Carolina on the famous "Snow Campaign", to enable
Colonel Howe to drive Lord Dunmore out of Norfolk, and
to enable Colonel Moore to win a brilliant campaign against
the Highlanders at Moore's Creek Bridge. South Carolina
and Virginia were profuse in their thanks to President Har-
nett for important assistance in their hour of need, while
Governor Martin expressed great "mortification," and de-
clared it was a matter "greatly to be lamented."

With war impending, both sides began to give anxious
thought to the attitude of the Indian tribes along the frontier.
The British expected their active aid, the Americans knew
they could hope for nothing feetter than their neutrality. Un-
fortunately, in the competition which immediately arose the
Americans were at every disadvantage. It was they who,
coming in daily contact with the red man, had driven him

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 381

from his hunting grounds, destroyed his property, burned his
towns, reduced his women and children to slavery, and slain
•his warriors. Eternal enmity seemed to be decreed between
them. On the other hand, since the expulsion of the French
in 1763, the Indians had been trained to look to British officials
and agents as the sole representatives of authority standing
between them and the encroachments of the American bor-
derer. Licensed British traders dwelt in almost every Indian
village, married Indian women, adopted Indian customs, and
made the Indians' interests their own. The British govern-
ment, too, had been especially fortunate in its agents among
the Indians. In the Northern Department Sir William John-
son and in the Southern Department Captain John Stuart were
known to the Indians as generous, sympathetic friends, ever
watchful over their interests. From the Americans, there-
fore, ever steadily encroaching upon their possessions, the
Indians knew they could expect nothing but rivalry and op-
pression; from the British they had been taught to expect
assistance and protection.

Accordingly when the severance came the Indians, almost
to a tribe, threw their power into the scale with the Crown.
As early as June, 1775, the British government decided to
call them into active service. Presents and clothing were dis-
tributed among all the tribes from the Great Lakes to the
Gulf; hatchets, arms and ammunition were issued to the war-
riors, and liberal bounties were offered for American scalps.
All along the border the Indians awaited the command to begin
their work of fire and slaughter. In August, 1775, the Chero-
kee sent to Alexander Cameron, the deputy agent resident
among them, a "talk," assuring him that they were ready at a
signal to fall upon the frontier settlements of Georgia and the
Carolinas. Circulars were distributed among the border
Tories, apprising them of the plans and directing them to
repair to Cameron's headquarters to join in the assault. For-
tunately, the Cherokee "talk" fell into the hands of the
Americans and warned them of the impending danger.

The Americans themselves had not been inactive. Indian
affairs had received the attention of both the Continental
Congress and the Provincial Congress. The former divided
the colonies into three Indian departments and appointed
agents in each. In the Southern Department the agents were
John Walker of Virginia, Willie Jones of North Carolina,
Robert Eae, Edward Wilkinson and George Galphin of South
Carolina. The Provincial Congress at Hillsboro directed

382 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

that all persons who had any information about Indian affairs
should submit it to Willie Jones. Accordingly Thomas Wade,
Thomas Polk and John Walker laid before him information
relative to the "hostile intentions" of Governor Martin and
the Indians which was of "so serious and important a
Nature" that it was referred to the Congress for considera-
tion. The necessity for placating the Indians was urgent.
Congress, therefore, appropriated £1,000 to be used by Willie
Jones in the purchase of presents for them. The southern
agents also were active. Galphin and Rae held a "talk" with
the Creek Indians at Augusta, and in November, 1775, all five
agents met a delegation of Creek warriors at Salisbury. The
burden of their "talks" was neutrality; "you have been
repeatedly told the nature of the disputes between the father
and his children," they said, "and we desire you to have no
concern in it."

One of the results of these efforts to placate the Indians
was the "Snow Campaign" to which allusion has just been
made. In October, 1775, the Council of Safety of South Caro-
lina, in accordance with their agreement with the Chero-
kee, dispatched a large supply of powder and lead to the
Lower Towns of that nation. The Loyalists of Western South
Carolina, who were led to believe that the Whigs were plan-
ning to bring the Indians down upon them, embodied in force
under Major Joseph Robinson and Captain Patrick Cunning-
ham, intercepted the supply wagons, seized the powder and
lead, compelled a Whig force under Major Andrew William-
son, who had been sent to disperse them, to seek refuge in the
fort at Ninety-Six, and after a vigorous siege forced him to
capitulate. Their success spread alarm among the Whigs of
both the Carolinas. The South Carolina Congress immedi-
ately dispatched a force of 2,500 men under Colonel Richard
Richardson to the scene, while 700 men from Western North
Carolina hastened into South Carolina to co-operate with him.
This force was composed of 220 Continentals under Lieu-
tenant-Colonel Alexander Martin, 200 militia of Rowan
County under Colonel Griffith Rutherford, and 300 Mecklen-
burg militia under Colonel Thomas Polk. Thus reinforced,
in spite of the inclement weather and the indifferent equip-
ment of his men, Colonel Richardson pushed forward vigor-
ously against the enemy, breaking up such parties as ventured
to oppose him and capturing several of their leaders. The
campaign came to an end with a battle at Cane Brake on
Reedy River, about four miles within the Cherokee reserva-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 383

tion, in which Colonel William Thomson surprised and
destroyed a Loyalist force under Cunningham. Colonel Rich-
ardson, considering the campaign now at an end and "its ob-
ject accomplished, dismissed the North Carolina troops and
marched his own men back to their homes. In his campaign
he had captured most of the Loyalist leaders and about 400
of their followers. Governor Martin in a letter to Lord Dart-
mouth wrote that the reinforcements from North Carolina
"put the Rebels of the Country in sufficient force to disarm
the loyal people who had made so noble a stand and who were
collecting strength so fast that they must have carried every-
thing before them if it had been possible to afford them the
least support. This check of the friends of Government in
that Province is greatly to be lamented." In local tradition
the campaign became known as the "Snow Campaign" be-
cause of the heavy fall of snow in which it was waged.

In the meantime another force of North Carolinians had
gone to the aid of the Virginians in their campaign against
their royal governor, Lord Dunmore. Like Martin of North
Carolina and Campbell of South Carolina, Dunmore had fled
from the province and sought refuge on board a man-of-war.
During the summer he assembled in Chesapeake Bay a flotilla
which enabled him to capture Norfolk, the chief town of the
province with a population of 6,000. On November 7th, from
his cabin on the Fowney, he issued a proclamation in which
he declared war on the people of Virginia, denounced as trait-
ors all persons capable of bearing arms who did not repair
at once to his standard, and offered freedom to "all indentured
servants, negroes, or others appertaining to rebels." His
emissaries were also busy trying to incite the slaves of the
Albemarle section of North Carolina to insurrection. To pre-
vent the success of his schemes a force of Virginia militia
under Colonel William Woodford fortified Great Bridge near
Norfolk, where they were joined by 150 minute-men from
North Carolina under Colonel Nicholas Long and Major
Jethro Sumner. On December 8th a force of British regulars
attempted to drive them away, but were repulsed with loss and
forced to retreat into Norfolk. Three days later Colonel
Robert Howe, with the Second North Carolina Continentals,
arrived at Great Bridge and took command. Howe pushed
forward immediately, compelled the British to evacuate Nor-
folk, and entered the town December 14th. "Lord Dunmore
had abandoned the town," wrote an officer, describing these
events, "and several of the Tories had fled on board their

384 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

vessels, with all their effects; others of them are applying for
forgiveness to their injured countrymen." For this service
Colonel Howe received the thanks of the Virginia Convention.
Dunmore could not afford to leave the rebels in possession
of Norfolk. On New Year's day, 1776, therefore, he began
a bombardment of the town. "About four o'clock in the after-
noon,'1 wrote an officer on His Majesty's ship Otter, "the
signal was given from the Liverpool, when a dreadful can-
nonading began from the three ships, which lasted till it was
too hot for the Rebels to stand on their wharves. Our boats
now landed and set fire to the town in several places. It
burnt fiercely all night and the next day; nor are the flames
yet extinguished; but no more of Norfolk remains than about
twelve houses, which have escaped the flames. ' ' The destruc-
tion of Norfolk served no military purpose but it inflamed the
people of Virginia and North Carolina and hastened the de-
velopment of sentiment for independence.

Following hard upon the "Snow Campaign" and the de-
struction of Norfolk, came the defeat of the Highlanders at
Moore's Creek Bridge, February 27, 1776. The victory of
Moore's Creek Bridge was an event of much greater signifi-
cance than is generally accorded it in the histories of the
Revolution, and Frothingham is guilty of no exaggeration
when he calls it "the Lexington and Concord" of the South.
So far from being an isolated event, it was part of an exten-
sive campaign planned by the king and ministry for the sub-
jugation of all the southern colonies which but for the victory,
at Moore's Creek Bridge would probably have succeeded.

Governor Martin in his cabin on the Cruizer had never
once relaxed his efforts to restore the king's authority in
North Carolina. Some Loyalists, who in spite of the vigi-
lance of the committees found means of communicating with
him, assured him that the people were tired of the rule of
"the little tyrannies" called committees which they had set
up and were eager for him "to relieve them from the self-
made yoke which they now found intolerable." Encouraged
by such reports, Martin submitted to the ministry a well-
conceived plan for the reduction not of North Carolina only,
but also of Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. According
to this plan, he was to raise 10,000 Tories, Regulators and
Highlanders in the interior of North Carolina; Lord Corn-
wall is was to sail from Cork, Ireland, with seven regiments
of British regulars escorted by a fleet of seventy-two sail
under command of Sir Peter Parker, and Sir Henry Clinton

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 385

was to sail from Boston with 2,000 regulars and take com-
mand of the combined forces, which were to effect a junction
at Wilmington about the middle of February. On January 3,
1776, Martin received dispatches from Lord Dartmouth in-
forming him that his plan had been heartily approved; that
Clinton and Cornwallis had received their orders accordinglv,

O •/ 7

and that he might proceed with his part of the program.
Accordingly he promptly issued commissions to Donald Mac-
Donald, a veteran of Culloden whom Clinton had sent from
Boston to take command of the North Carolina Highlanders ;
to Allan MacDonald, husband of the Scottish heroine, Flora
MacDonald, and to twenty-four others in Cumberland, Anson,
Chatham, Guilford, Orange, Mecklenburg, Rowan, Surry and
Bute counties, empowering them to raise and organize troops
and ordering them to press down on Brunswick by February
15th. A few davs later he received word that the Lovalists
were in high spirits, were fast collecting, and were well
equipped with wagons and horses. They planned to leave
1,000 men at Cross Creek and with the remainder to march at
once upon Wilmington; the governor might feel assured
that they would place that rebellious town in his possession by
February 25th at the latest. On February 18th, 1,600 Highland-
ers, led by Donald MacDonald, encouraged by the presence
and the stirring words of Flora MacDonald herself, with bag-
pipes playing and the royal standard flying in their midst,
marched gaily out of Cross Creek and took the Brunswick
road for Wilmington. Upon receiving information of this
movement, Governor Martin with the men-of-war which were
stationed at the mouth of the Cape Fear moved up the river
and dropped anchor opposite Wilmington to be ready to sup-
port his friends.

In the meantime the Whig leaders had not been inactive.
Colonel James Moore of the First Regiment of Continentals
had been closely watching the movements of the Highlanders
and was fully informed of their plans. On February 15th lie
took a position on the southern bank of Rockfish Creek, where
he was soon joined by enough minute-men under James
Kenan, Alexander Lillington and John Ashe to raise his little
army to 1,100 men. Colonel Alexander Martin was approach-
ing with a small force from Guilford County ; Colonel James
Thackston with another small force was hastening from the
southwest, and Colonel Richard Caswell was on the march
with 800 militia from the New Bern District. Moore was in

Vol. 1—25

386 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

supreme command and directed the movements of all these
detachments.

On February 19th MacDonald approached to within four
miles of Moore's encampment on Rockfish Creek. Now began
a series of movements in which Moore out-generaled Mac-
Donald, displayed military capacity of a high order and
clearly won the honors of the campaign. Some years later a
dispute arose among the friends of Alexander Lillington and
Richard Caswell as to which of the two was due the credit of
the victory over the Highlanders. It has since taken its place
along with Alamance and Mecklenburg among the historic
controversies in our annals. The truth is that the real hero
of Moore's Creek Bridge was neither Lillington nor Caswell,
but Moore. This is said without any purpose to detract from
the just fame of either of those eminent patriots. Their work
was plain and could be seen of all men; Moore's part in the
campaign, owing to his absence from the scene of the actual
fighting, was not so evident and can not be understood without
a careful study of the events of the week preceding the battle.
It was he who directed the movements which on the morning
of February 27th brought Caswell, Lillington and Ashe with
1,100 minute-men face to face with MacDonald 's 1,600 High-
landers at Moore's Creek Bridge, eighteen miles above Wil-
mington.

On the afternoon of February 26th, in obedience to Moore's
directions, Caswell took up a position at the west end of
Moore's Creek Bridge, toward which MacDonald was ap-
proaching, while Ashe and Lillington held the east end. About
daybreak the following morning MacDonald reached within
striking distance of Caswell's camp, expecting to find him
with the creek in his rear between his forces and those of
Lillington and Ashe. But in the night Caswell, leaving his
campfires burning, as Washington afterwards did at Trenton,
(a fact which Caswell's friends commented on at the time),
crossed the bridge and joined Lillington and Ashe. He then
had the planks of the bridge removed, leaving only the sills
in place. The Highlanders having formed for the attack on
the west bank of the stream wTere greatly surprised when they
marched into a deserted camp and immediately concluded that
the enemy had fled. Leading his troops, Donald McLeod, who
commanded, MacDonald being too ill to take the field, reached
the bridge while it was still dark. "Who goes there?" chal-
lenged Caswell's sentinel. "A friend," replied McLeod. "A
friend to whom?" answered the voice in the darkness. "To

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 387

the king," replied the Highlander. Receiving no further
reply and thinking the challenge might have come from one
of his friends, McLeod called out in Gaelic. Still no answer.
Raising his gun, he fired toward the spot whence the voice
came and made a dash across the bridge. The Whigs fired
and McLeod fell. Those who attempted to follow him were
cut down and fell into the creek below. More than thirty of
the bravest were shot down. The others losing heart, shame-
fully abandoned their sick general and fled. The victory
could not have been more complete. Of the Whigs only one
man was killed and one wounded. The total loss of the High-
landers in killed and wounded was estimated at fifty. Their
army was completely scattered. Moore arriving on the field
shortly after the battle pressed the pursuit so vigorously that
350 guns, 150 swords and dirks, 1,500 excellent rifles, a box
containing £15,000 sterling, 13 wagons, 850 soldiers and many
officers, including their commanding general, fell into his
hands. Two days after the victory Caswell reported it to
President Harnett of the Provincial Council and on March 2d
Colonel Moore sent to him a more detailed account of the cam-
paign. Both these reports were widely published throughout
the colonies and everywhere encouraged the advocates of inde-
pendence.

Martin's plan for the subjugation of the province was
excellent, but it failed because the Loyalists were too eager
and the regulars were not eager enough. During the month
of February, while the ill-fated Highlanders were marching
to their doom at Moore's Creek Bridge, Sir Henry Clinton,
with the two thousand regulars he was to bring from Boston,
was leisurely coasting southward, now calling at New York
for a talk with former Governor Tryon, now peeping in at
Chesapeake Bay to pass the time of day with Governor Dun-
more; while Sir Peter Parker, whose fleet was to bear Lord
Cornwallis' seven regiments to the Cape Fear, was still
lingering at Cork. Consequently when Clinton finally arrived
at Cape Fear in April and Cornwallis in May, they found
that they were too late. The Highlanders rising prematurely
had been crushed, and the Americans forewarned were under
arms in large numbers. Clinton therefore dared not attempt
a landing, and after wasting more than a month plundering
the plantations of prominent Whig leaders along the Cape
Fear, weighed anchor and set sail for Charleston. With him
sailed Josiah Martin, the last royal governor of North Caro-
lina.

388 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

The victory at Moore's Creek Bridge was the crowning
achievement of the Provincial Council. But for the sleepless
vigilance and resourceful energy of President Harnett and
his colleagues in organizing, arming and equipping the troops,
MacDonald's march down the Cape Fear would have been
but a holiday excursion. As it was, the royal governor had
again measured strength with the people and again was
beaten. High ran the enthusiasm of the Whigs, and high
their confidence. Ten thousand men sprang to arms and hur-
ried to Wilmington. "Since I was born," wrote an eye wit-
ness, "I never heard of so universal an ardor for fighting
and so perfect a union among all degrees of men." Clinton
and Cornwallis came with their powerful armaments, but find-
ing no Loyalist force to welcome them at Cape Fear, they
sailed away to beat in vain at the doors of Charleston. The
victory at Moore's Creek Bridge saved North Carolina from
conquest, and in all probability postponed the conquest of
Georgia and South Carolina for three more years. Of this
victory Bancroft wrote: "In less than a fortnight, more than
nine thousand four hundred men of North Carolina rose
against the enemy; and the coming of Clinton inspired no ter-
ror. Almost every man was ready to turn out at an
hour's warning. Virginia offered assistance, and
South Carolina would gladly have contributed relief; but
North Carolina had men enough of her own to crush insur-
rection and guard against invasion; and as they marched in
triumph through their piney forests, they were persuaded that
in their own woods they could win an easy victory over Brit-
ish regulars. The terrors of a fate like that of Norfolk could
not dismay the patriots of Wilmington; the people spoke
more and more of independence; and the Provincial Con-
gress, at its impending session, was expected to give an
authoritative form to the prevailing desire." 3

History of the United States, ed. 1860, Vol. VIII, p. 289.

CHAPTER XXII
INDEPENDENCE

''Moore's Creek was the Rubicon over which North Caro-
lina passed to independence and constitutional self-govern-
ment." Before that event the Whig leaders had rather
dreaded than sought independence. They met with indignant
denial the assertions of their enemies that they had aimed
at it from the beginning of their dispute with the mother
country. Perhaps they did not foresee as clearly as the Tories
did the logical result of their contentions. At any rate, they
approached independence slowly, through a long process of
development, and finally adopted it, as emancipation was
afterwards adopted, as a war measure. Officially North Caro-
lina led the way with the first resolution adopted by any of
the colonies authorizing their delegates in the Continental
Congress to vote for independence. It seems proper, there-
fore, to trace briefly the rise and development of the senti-
ment for independence in North Carolina, and to point out
what influence the action of the North Carolina Congress had
in other colonies.

It cannot be said that the sentiment for independence
"originated" in any particular place. It was a growth and
was present, perhaps unconsciously, in the minds of political
thinkers and leaders long before England's policy crystal-
lized it into conscious thought. Academic discussions of the
possibility of an independent American nation were not un-
common, either in Europe or America, for many years before
the Revolution; but it is safe to say that the idea took no defi-
nite shape even in the minds of the most advanced thinkers
until after the struggle over the Stamp Act. The principles
upon which the Americans opposed the Stamp Act had been
regarded in the colonies as so firmly fixed, both by the British
Constitution and by the colonial charters, that they were as-
tonished to find them seriously questioned. Adherence to
their charters and resistance to their perversion were car-
dinal principles with North Carolinians throughout their

389

I

390 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

colonial history, and their records for a hundred years before
the passage of the Stamp Act are full of the assertions of the
principles upon which the American Revolution was fought.

The ministry, therefore, no sooner asserted the constitu-
tional authority of Parliament to levy internal taxes in the
colonies than the people of North Carolina denied it. Their
contest, however, before the outbreak of hostilities was for
constitutional government within the British Empire, though
a few far-sighted leaders soon began to think of independence
as possibly the ultimate solution of their political troubles
with the mother country. Among the leaders of North Caro-
lina who foresaw it, first place must be assigned to William
Hooper. On April 26, 1774, in a letter to James Iredell,
Hooper made this remarkable forecast of the political tenden-
cies of the time :

''With you I anticipate the important share which the
Colonies must soon have in regulating the political balance.
They are striding fast to independence, and ere long will
build an empire upon the ruins of Great Britain, will adopt
its constitution purged of its impurities, and from an experi-
ence of its defects will guard against those evils which have
wasted its vigor and brought it to an untimely end."

In the same prophetic vein, Samuel Johnston, writing Sep-
tember 23, 1774, with reference particularly to the Declara-
tory Act and the Boston Port Bill, said: "It is useless, in
disputes between different Countries, to talk about the right
which one has to give Laws to the other, as that generally
attends the power, tho' where that power is wantonly or
cruelly exercised, there are Instances where the weaker state
has resisted with Success; for when once the Sword is
drawn all nice distinctions fall to the Ground; the difference
between internal and external taxation will be little attended
to, and it will hereafter be considered of no consequence
whether the Act be to regulate Trade or raise a fund to sup-
port a majority in the House of Commons. By this desperate
push the Ministry will either confirm their power of making
Laws to bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever, or give up
the right of making Laws to bind them in any Case."

These utterances, however, expressed political judgment
rather than sentiment, for neither Hooper nor Johnston at
that time desired independence. Nor did their judgment ex-
press the general sentiment of the colony. This sentiment
found more accurate expression in the proceedings of the
local meetings which were held in the various counties during

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 391

the summer of 1774 to elect delegates to the Provincial Con-
gress, and to adopt instructions to them. They invariably
required the delegates to take a firm stand for the constitu-
tional rights of the colonists, but at the same time professed
the utmost loyalty to the king; while in August the Provincial
Congress spoke for the province as a whole when it resolved
to ''maintain and defend the succession of the House of Han-
over as by law established," and avowed "inviolable and un-
shaken Fidelity" to George III. But while these expressions
undoubtedly represent the general sentiment of the colony at
that time, they are less significant than other utterances which
point to the change unconsciously working in the minds of
men. Significant were the instructions of Pitt County, whose
delegates were directed to make "a declaration of American
rights, ': and, while acknowledging "due subjection to the
Crown of England," to make it equally clear that in submit-
ting to the authority of the king, the Americans did so "by
their own voluntary act," and were entitled to enjoy "all
their free chartered rights and libertys as British free sub-
jects." But surpassing all other resolutions in the clearness
and accuracy with which they stated the American idea, and
reaching the most advanced ground attained in North Caro-
lina during the year 1774, were the instructions of Granville
County, adopted August 15th. They declared ' ' that those ab-
solute rights we are entitled to as men, by the immutable Laws
of Nature, are antecedent to all social and relative duties what-
soever ; that by the civil compact subsisting between our King
and His People, Allegiance is right of the first Magistrate,
and protection the right of the People; that a violation of
this Compact would rescind the civil Institution binding both
King and People together. ' '

Political sentiment in North Carolina, therefore, during
the year 1774 reached this point: The people owe and ac-
knowledge allegiance to the king, but in return for this al-
legiance the king owes protection to the people; if either
violates the "civil compact" subsisting between them, the
other is released from all obligations to maintain it; however,
the acts of which the people now complain are not the acts
of the king, but of a corrupt Parliament and a venal and
tyrannical ministry; the people are convinced that the king,
if only they could reach his royal ears with their grievances,
would throw the mantle of his protection around them; and
therefore they determined, in the words of the Granville reso-
lutions: "Although we are oppressed, we will still adhere

392 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

to the civil Obligation exacting our allegiance to the best of
Kings, as we entertain a most cordial affection to His Maj-
esty's Person."

A severe blow was dealt this position with the opening of
the year 1775. In February the two houses of Parliament
presented an address to the king declaring the colonies in
rebellion, and assuring his majesty of their determination
to support him in his efforts to suppress it; and the king
returning his thanks for their loyal address, called for an in-
crease of both the land and naval forces to be used in America.
A few months later those who held that the king was not
responsible for the acts of Parliament were still further
shaken in their position by the announcement that he was
hiring Hessians for service against the Americans; and in
October they were driven completely from their ground by
his proclamation declaring the colonists out of his protection.

The effect of these measures on the development of senti-
ment for independence is marked, first in the opinion of indi-
vidual leaders, afterwards in the utterances of public assem-
blies. On April 7th, just after the adjournment of the second
Provincial Congress and the dissolution of the last Assembly
held under royal authority, Governor Martin, in a letter to
Lord Dartmouth declared that the royal government in North
Carolina was absolutely prostrate and impotent; that "noth-
ing but the shadow of it is left," and that unless strong meas-
ures were taken at once "there will not long remain a trace
of Britain's dominion over these colonies." Three months
later Joseph Hewes urged Samuel Johnston to use his in-
fluence and example to "drive every principle of Toryism"
out of every part of the province ; he considered himself ' ' over
head and ears in what the ministry call Rebellion," but felt
"no compunction" for the part he had taken, or for the num-
ber of "our enemies lately slain in the battle at Bunkers Hill."
Another North Carolina Whig, writing July 31st to a busi-
ness house in Edinburgh, declared that "every American, to
a man, is determined to die or be free," and closed his letter
with the warning: "This Country, without some step is
taken, and that soon, will be inevitably lost to the Mother
Country." Thomas McKnight, a Tory, believed there had
been "from the beginning of the dispute, a fixed design in
some peoples breasts to throw off every connection with
G [i-eat;1 B[ritain] and to act for the future as totally inde-
pendent." After the king's proclamation in October, Hewes
at Philadelphia entertained "but little expectation of a recon-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 393

ciliation" and saw ''scarcely a dawn of hope that it will take
place"; and thought that independence would come soon "if
the British ministry pursue their present diabolical scheme."
The year 1775 closed in North Carolina with the publication
of a remarkable open letter to "The Inhabitants of the United
Colonies" by one who called himself "A British American."
He declared that the salvation of the colonies lay in "declaring
an immediate independency," in "holding forth, to all the
Powers of Europe, a general neutrality," and in "immedi-
ately opening all our ports, and declaring them free to every
European Power, except Great Britain." "We must separ-
ate," he concluded, "or become the laboring slaves of Britain,
which we disdain to be. ' '

Men of course are more radical in expressing their
opinions in private than in public assemblies and official docu-
ments. It will be found, therefore, that during the year 1775
the sentiment of public assemblies, though much in advance
of the sentiment of 1774, was more conservatively expressed
than the private opinions of the leaders might lead us to ex-
pect. On April 6, 1775, the Assembly of the province, in reply
to a message from the governor reminding them of their duty
"to the king, declared that "the Assembly of North Carolina
have the highest sense of the allegiance due to the King; the
Oath so repeatedly taken by them to that purpose made
it unnecessary for them to be reminded of it"; at the same
time, however, they called the governor's attention to the
fact that the king "was by the same Constitution which
established that allegiance and enjoined that oath, happily for
his Subjects, solemnly bound to protect them in all their just
rights and privileges by which a reciprocal duty became in-
cumbent upon both. ' '

This declaration was made before the people had heard
of the address of Parliament in Februarv and the king's
reply declaring them in rebellion. How quickly they as-
sumed that the withdrawal of protection by the sovereign re-
leased the subject from the obligations of allegiance is made
manifest by the Mecklenburg Resolutions of May 31. "Where-
as," so runs this striking document, "by an address presented
to his majesty by both Houses of Parliament in February
last, the American colonies are declared to be in a state of
actual rebellion, we conceive that all laws and commissions
confirmed by or derived from the authority of the King and
Parliament are annulled and vacated and the former civil
constitution of these colonies for the present wholly sus-

394 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

pended;" therefore, it was resolved that "the Provincial
Congress of each Province under the direction of the great
Continental Congress is invested with all legislative and
executive powers within their respective Provinces and that
no other legislative or executive power does or can exist at
this time in any of these colonies." Under these circum-
stances it was thought necessary to inaugurate a new county
government, to organize the militia, and to elect officials "who
shall hold and exercise their several powers by virtue of this
choice and independent of the Crown of Great Britain and
former constitution of this Province." These resolves and
this organization were declared to be "in full force and virtue
until instructions from the Provincial Congress regulating
the jurisprudence of the Province shall provide otherwise or
the legislative body of Great Britain resign its unjust and
arbitrary pretensions with respect to America."1

The day after the meeting at Charlotte, the Rowan com-
mittee, which had declared a year before that they were ready
to die in defense of the king's title to his American dominions,
resolved "that by the Constitution of our Government we
are a free People"; that the constitution "limits both Sov-
ereignty and Allegiance," and "that it is our Duty to Sur-*
render our lives, before our Constitutional privileges to any
set of Men upon earth;" and referred any who might be of

1 An attempt twenty-five years later to reproduce these resolves
from memory resulted in the document famous in the controversial
literature of the Revolution as the "Mecklenburg Declaration of In-
dependence" of May 20, 1775. It is not necessary to refer to this
controversy here further than to vindicate the statesmanship of the
Mecklenburg patriots from the suspicion of having promulgated so
absurd a declaration. For what, indeed, could be more absurd than
a declaration of independence and assertion of sovereignty by a single
county while in the same breath acknowledging its subordination
to a Continental Congress which at that very moment was sincerely
protesting the utmost loyalty to the Crown and earnestly exerting
itself to restore the colonies to their former relations to the mother
country? When the time came to act, even the Provincial Congress
did not venture to declare the province itself independent but re-
ferred the question to the Continental Congress where it properly
belonged. It is no credit to either the patriotism or the statesmanship
of the Mecklenburg patriots, representing a mere artificial adminis-
trative unit dependent for its very existence upon the provincial au-
thority, to suppose that in such a grave matter they would assume
to do what the Provincial Congress did not consider itself competent
to do. On the other hand the course which they actually pursued,
viz., the setting up of a county government to take the place of that
which had been annulled until the proper authority, the Provincial
Congress, should provide otherwise, was a wise and statesmanlike pro-
cedure which reflects credit upon their wisdom and patriotism alike.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 395

a different opinion to "the Compact on which the Constitution
is founded." And, finally, in August, just before the meeting-
of the Provincial Congress, Tryon County resolved to bear
true allegiance to the king, but only "so long as he secures
to us those Rights and Liberties which the principles of Our
Constitution require."

Thus it seems clear that when the Provincial Congress
met in August, 1775, the entire province had reached the ad-
vanced ground on which Granville County stood in August of
1774. But just as these local assemblies were more conserva-
tive in expressing their sentiments than individuals, so the
Provincial Congress was more conservative than the local
assemblies, though both were controlled largely by the same
men. This Congress, September 8, unanimously adopted an
address to "The Inhabitants of the British Empire," in which
they said :

"To enjoy the Fruits of our own honest Industry; to call
that our own which we earn with the labour of our hands and
the sweat of our Brows; to regulate that internal policy by
which we and not they [Parliament] are to be affected; these
are the mighty Boons we ask. And Traitors, Rebels, and
every harsh appellation that Malice can dictate or the Viru-
lence of language express, are the returns which we receive
to the most humble Petitions and earnest supplications. We
have been told that Independance is our object ; that we seek
to shake off all connection with the parent State. Cruel Sug-
gestion! Do not all our professions, all our actions, uni-
formly contradict this?

"We again declare, and we invoke that Almighty Being
who searches the Recesses of the human heart and knows our
most secret Intentions, that it is our most earnest wish and
prayer to be restored with the other United Colonies to the
State in which we and they were placed before the year 1763."

Soon after the adjournment of this Congress came news
of the king's proclamation in October declaring the Americans
out of his protection and commanding his armies and navy to
lew war against them. After this nothing more is heard from
public assemblies and conventions of loyalty to the Crown.
Sentiment hastened rapidly toward independence. "My first
wish is to be free," declared Hooper, a delegate in the Con-
tinental Congress; " my second to be reconciled to Great Brit-
ain." Eight days later, February 14, 1776, John Penn, also
a delegate in the Continental Congress, urged the necessity
of forming alliances with foreign countries although he fore-

396 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

saw that "the consequences of making alliances is perhaps a
total separation with Britain. ': And Hewes, writing from
Congress to Samuel Johnston, March 20, declared: "I see
no prospect of a reconciliation. Nothing is left now but to
fight it out. * Some among us urge strongly for Inde-

pendency and eternal separation."

Thus spoke the three delegates in the Continental Con-
gress ; but in no respect were they in advance of their con-
stituents. Samuel Johnston in March, 1776, thought it
"highly probable that the Colonies will be under the

necessity of throwing off their Allegiance to the K[ing] and
P[arliament] of Gr[reat] B[ritain] this Summer," and reply-
ing to Hewes' letter of March 20th, said: "I have apprehen-
sions that no foreign power will treat with us till we disclaim
our dependancy on Great Britain and I would wish to have as-
surances that they would afford us effectual Service before
we take that step. I have, I assure you, no other Scruples
on this head ; the repeated Insults and Injuries we have re-
ceived from the people of my Native Island has [sic] done
away all my partiality for a Connection with them." On
April 12, 1776, eight days after the fourth Provincial Con-
gress convened at Halifax, in a letter written from Peters-
burg, Virginia, the writer says: "From several letters I have
received from North Carolina since that convention met, I

find the}7 are for independence. Mr. was some

little time at Halifax. He says they are quite spirited and
unanimous; indeed, I hear nothing praised but 'Common
Sense' and Independence."

On April 14, Hooper and Penn arrived at Halifax from
Philadelphia to attend the Provincial Congress. Three days
later Hooper wrote to Hewes. who had remained at Phila-
delphia, and Penn wrote to John Adams, describing the situa-
tion as they found it in Virginia and North Carolina. "The
Language of Virginia, ': wrote Hooper, "is uniformly for
Independence. If there is a single man in the province who
preaches a different doctrine I had not the fortune to fall
in his Company. But rapid as the change has been
in Virginia, North Carolina has the honour of going far
before them. Our late Instructions afford you some speci-
men of the temper of the present Congress and of the
people at large. It would be more than unpopular, it would
be Toryism, to hint the possibility of future reconciliation."
Likewise wrote Penn: "As I came through Virginia I found
the inhabitants desirous to be independent from Britain.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 397

However, they were willing to submit their opinion on the sub-
ject to whatever the General Congress should determine.
North Carolina by far exceeds them occasioned by the great
fatigue, trouble and danger the people here have undergone
for some time past. Gentlemen of the first fortune in the
province have inarched as common soldiers ; and to encourage
and give spirit to the men have footed it the whole time.
Lord Cornwallis with seven regiments is expected to visit us
every day. Clinton is now in Cape Fear with Governor
Martin, who has about forty sail of vessels, armed and un-
armed, waiting his arrival. The Highlanders and Regulators
are not to be trusted. Governor Martin has coaxed a number
of slaves to leave their masters in the lower parts; every-
thing base and wicked is practiced by him. These things
have wholly changed the temper and disposition of the in-
habitants that are friends to liberty; all regard or fondness
for the king or nation of Britain is gone ; a total separation
is what they want. Independence is the word most used.
They ask if it is possible that any colony after what has
passed can wish for a reconciliation? The convention have
tried to get the opinion of the people at large. I am told
that in many counties there was not one dissenting voice. ':

Thus in letters, in conversations by the fireside and at the
cross-roads, in newspapers, and in public assemblies, the
Whig leaders worked steadily to mould public sentiment in
favor of a Declaration of Independence. But the crowning-
arguments that converted thousands to this view were the
guns of Caswell and Lillington at Moore's Creek Bridge in
the early morning hours of February 27, and the black hulks
of Sir Henry Clinton's men-of-war as they rode at anchor
below Brunswick. Moore's Creek Bridge, says Frothingham,
"was the Lexington and Concord of that region. The news-
papers circulated the details of this brilliant result. The
spirits of the Whigs ran high. 'You never,' one wrote, 'knew
the like in your life for true patriotism.' "2 In the midst of
this excitement the Provincial Congress met, April 4, at Hali-
fax. The next day Samuel Johnston wrote: "All our people
here are up for independence," and added a few days later:
"We are going to the Devil without knowing how

to help ourselves, and though many are sensible of this, ye1
they would rather go that way than to submit to the British
Ministry. * * * Our people are full of the idea of inde-

- Rise of the Republic, p. 503.

398 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

pendance. " "Independence seems to be the word," wrote
General Robert Howe; "I know not one dissenting voice."

To this position, then, within a year, the king had driven
his faithful subjects of North Carolina and they now expected
their Congress to give formal and public expression to their
sentiments. When Hooper and Penn arrived at Halifax they
found that the Congress had already spoken. On April 8,
a committee was appointed, composed of Cornelius Harnett,
Allen Jones, Thomas Burke, Abner Nash, John Kinehen,
Thomas Person, and Thomas Jones, "to take into considera-
tion the usurpations and violences attempted and committed
by the King and Parliament of Britain against America, and
the further measures to be taken for frustrating the same,
and for the better defense of this Province. " After deliberat-
ing four days, on April 12th, this committee, through its
chairman, Cornelius Harnett, submitted the following report
which the Congress unanimously adopted :

"It appears to your committee, that pursuant to the plan
concerted by the British Ministry for subjugating America,
the King and Parliament of Great Britain have usurped a
power over the persons and properties of the people unlimited
and uncontrolled ; and disregarding their humble petitions
for peace, liberty and safety, have made divers legislative
acts, denouncing war, famine, and every species of calamity,
against the Continent in general. That British fleets and
armies have been, and still are daily employed in destroying
the people, and committing the most horrid devastations on
the county. That Governors in different Colonies have de-
clared protection to slaves who should imbrue their hands
in the blood of their masters. That ships belonging to Amer-
ica are declared prizes of war, anS many of them have been
violently seized and confiscated. In consequence of all which
multitudes of the people have been destroyed, or from easy
circumstances reduced to the most lamentable distress.

"And whereas the moderation hitherto manifested by the
United Colonies and their sincere desire to be reconciled to
the mother country on constitutional principles, have procured
no mitigation of the aforesaid wrongs and usurpations, and
no hopes remain of obtaining redress by those means alone
which have been hitherto tried, your committee are of opinion
that the House should enter into the following resolve, to wit:

"Resolved, That the delegates for this Colony in the Con-
tinental Congress be impowered to concur with the delegates
of the other Colonies in declaring Independency, and forming

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 399

foreign alliances, reserving to this Colony the sole and ex-
clusive right of forming a Constitution and laws for this
Colony, and of appointing delegates from time to time (under
the direction of a general representation thereof,) to meet
the delegates of the other Colonies for such purposes as shall
be hereafter pointed out. ' '

"Thus," declares Frothingham, "the popular party car-
ried North Carolina as a unit in favor of independence, when
the colonies from New England to Virginia were in solid
array against it."3 Comment is unnecessary. The actors,
the place, the occasion, the time, the action itself, tell their own
story. "The American Congress," declared Bancroft,
"needed an impulse from the resolute spirit of some colonial
convention, and the example of a government springing wholly
from the people. * * The word which South Carolina

hesitated to pronounce was given by North Carolina. That
colony, proud of its victory over domestic enemies, and roused
to defiance by the presence of Clinton, the British general,
in one of their rivers, * * unanimously" voted for sep-

aration. "North Carolina was the first colony to vote explicit
sanction to independence. ' ' 4

A copy of the resolution was immediately dispatched to
Joseph Hewes at Philadelphia to be laid before the Contin-
ental Congress. Its effect on the movement for independence
was immediate and wide-spread. The newspapers gave it
wide publicity. Leaders in the Continental Congress has-
tened to lay it before their constituents. "I hope it will be
forthwith communicated to your honorable Assembly," wrote
Elbridge Gerry, "and hope to see my native colony follow
this laudable example. " To a like effect wrote Samuel Adams,
John Adams, and Caesar Eodney. On May 15th, Virginia
followed North Carolina's lead, and on the 27th of the same
month, just after Joseph Hewes had presented to the Con-
tinental Congress the resolution of the North Carolina Con-
gress, the Virginia delegates presented their instructions.
Virginia had gone one step further than North Carolina, for
while the latter "impowered" her delegates to "concur"
with the other colonies in declaring independence, the former
"instructed" her representatives to "propose" it. Hence it
was that Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, and not Joseph
Hewes, of North Carolina, won the distinction of moving

3 Rise of the Republic, p. 504.

4 History of the United States, ed. 1860, Vol. VTTT, p. 345-352.

400 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

"that these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free
and independent States."

Lee's motion was made June 7th, but no vote was taken on
it until July 1st. On June 28th, John Penn who had recently
returned to Philadelphia from Halifax wrote to Samuel John-
ston: "The first of July will be made remarkable. Then the
question relative to independence will be agitated, and there
is no doubt but a total separation from Britain will take
place." Accordingly on July 1st, the Congress, meeting in
committee of the whole, took a vote with New Hampshire,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey,
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia voting in
the affirmative. The New York delegates personally favored
the Declaration and believed that their constituents also
favored it, but they were bound by an old instruction of the
previous year against independence; accordingly they with-
drew from Congress, declining to vote at all. Delaware's two
delegates were divided and the vote of that colony was lost.
Only South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. It
was known, however, that the New York Convention which was
to meet soon would repeal the old instruction and declare for
independence; and that certain delegates from Delaware and
Pennsylvania who favored it but were absent when the vote
was taken would attend next day and carry their colonies for
it. Thus South Carolina was alone in opposition. There-
fore when the committee of the whole arose and reported the
resolution to Congress, Edward Rutledge, the senior delegate
from South Carolina, "requested the determination might
be put off to the next day, as he believed his colleagues,
though they disapproved of the resolution, would then join
in it for the sake of unanimity." 5 The request was granted.
The next day a third member from Delaware and members
from Pennsylvania who favored the Declaration attended.
New York still declined to vote. When Congress met on Julv
2, therefore, South Carolina "for the sake of unanimity"
changed her vote and joined with her sister colonies in de-
claring the United Colonies "free and independent States. ':
The final draft of the Declaration was laid before Congress
on July 4th and formally adopted. It was signed in behalf of
the State of North Carolina by William Hooper, Joseph
Hewes, and John Penn.

After adopting the Resolution of April 12th, the Congress

5 Jefferson's Notes in Works, Memorial Edition, Vol. XY, p. 199.

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402 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

of North Carolina, proceeding as if independence were an ac-
complished fact, immediately took up the task of reorganizing
the government. On April 13th a committee was appointed
"to prepare a temporary Civil Constitution." Prominent
among the members of this committee were Johnston, Nash,
Harnett, Burke, and Person. Hooper was afterwards added.
They were men of political sagacity and ability, but their
ideas of the kind of constitution that ought to be adopted were
woefullv inharmonious. Heretofore in the measures of re-
sistance to the British ministry remarkable unanimity had
prevailed in the councils of the Whigs. But when they under-
took to frame a constitution faction at once raised its head.
In after years historians designated these factions as "Con-
servatives" and "Radicals." These terms carry their own
meaning, and need no further explanation, but perhaps it
may not be out of place to say that while both were equally
devoted to constitutional liberty, the Radicals seem to have
laid the greater emphasis upon "liberty," the Conservatives
upon the modifier "constitutional." Of the members of the
committee, Thomas Person was the leader of the former,
Samuel Johnston of the latter. As the lines between the two
factions at that time were not sharply drawn, it is not always
possible to assign prominent politicians to either; indeed,
many of them would not have admitted that they belonged to
any faction, or party, for agreeing with some of the views of
both, they agreed with the extreme views of neither.

The committee worked hard at its task. Its discussions
were not always tempered with good feeling. "I must con-
fess," wrote Johnston, April 17, "our prospects are at this
time very gloomy. Our people are about forming a constitu-
tion. From what I can at present collect of their plan, it will
be impossible for me to take any part in the execution of it."
In fact, the next day he withdrew from the committee in dis-
gust, though later he was persuaded to reconsider his actiou.
It should be remembered that many political policies which we
now regard as elementary were then in their experimental
stage. Should suffrage be universal, or should a property
qualification be required? Should there be one, or two houses
of legislation? Should the representatives of the people be
chosen annually, and what check should be imposed upon their
power over the rights of the people? How should the execu-
tive branch of the government be constituted? How should
the governor and other "great officers" be chosen and for
what terms? Should the judges be elected by the people? Or

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 403

chosen by the legislature? Or appointed by the executive?
And what should be their tenure? Such were the questions
that puzzled and divided our first constitution-makers.

The more they discussed them, the more hopeless became
their divisions. Congress finally found that no agreement
could be reached, while continued debate on the constitution
would consume time that ought to be given to more urgent
matters. Accordingly on April 30th, the committee was dis-
charged and a second committee appointed to frame "a tem-
porary form of government until the end of the next Con-
gress." This committee brought in a report on May 11th,
which the Congress promptly adopted. But few changes were
made in the plan already in operation, but these changes were
not without significance. The district committees of safety
were abolished. The term "Provincial" was thought to be
no longer appropriate and "Council of Safety" was accord-
ingly substituted for "Provincial Council." No change was
made in its organization. The Provincial Council had been
required to sit once in every three months ; the Council of
Safety was to sit continuously, and its authority was con-
siderably extended. All the powers of its predecessor were
bequeathed to it, while among its additional powers was the
authority to grant letters of marque and reprisal; to estab-
lish courts and appoint judges of admiralty; and to appoint
commissioners of navigation to enforce the trade regulations
of the Continental and Provincial Congresses.

The election of the members of the Council of Safety re-
vealed the growth of factions. Willie Jones, chief of the
Radicals, defeated Samuel Johnston for member at large.
Other changes in the membership were as follows : in the
New Bern District, John Simpson in place of Abner Nash ; in
the Halifax District, Joseph John Williams in place of Willie
Jones ; in the Hillsboro District, John Rand in place of John
Kinchen; in the Salisbury District, Hezekiah Alexander and
William Sharpe, both new members. Two only of the six dis-
tricts retained their same members, Edenton District reelected
Jones and Hill; Wilmington District, Harnett and Ashe.
The other members who retained their seats were Coor, Eaton
and Person.

Such was the personnel of the Council that was to put
into execution the measures of the Congress for the defense
of the province. This was the most important business that
came before Congress. Clinton with a large force of British
regulars was at Cape Fear awaiting the arrival of Sir Peter
Parker's fleet with Cornwallis' army. "Our whole time,"

404 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

wrote Thomas Jones, May 7, "lias been taken up here in
raising and arming men, and making every necessary mili-
tary arrangement. The word is war, or as Virgil expresses
it, bella, horrida bella. Two thousand ministerial troops are
in Cape Pear, 5,000 more hourly expected; to oppose the
whole will require a large force." The Congress, accordingly,
in addition to the troops already in the field, ordered the
levying of four continental regiments, the enlistment of three
companies of light-horse, the drafting of 1,500 militia, and
the organization into five companies of 415 independent vol-
unteers. The light-horse were offered to the Continental
Congress and accepted; the militia were ordered to Wilming-
ton "for the protection of this province;" and the independ-
ent companies were .directed to patrol the coast against the
ravages of small armed vessels which were accustomed in
this way to secure fresh supplies for the troops below Wil-
mington.

It was comparatively an easy matter to raise these troops ;
to clothe, feed and equip them was another problem. It is of
course, unnecessary to say that this was a problem that was
not solved at all during the Revolution, either by the United
Colonies or by any of them ; but perhaps North Carolina came
as near to it as the former, or as any of the latter. This was
the work which, during the year 1776, was entrusted to the
Council of Safety. The Council held its first session at Wil-
mington, June 5, and unanimously elected Cornelius Harnett
president. Harnett served until August 21st when he resigned
and was succeeded by his colleague, Samuel Ashe who re-
signed in September and was succeeded by Willie Jones.
Jones served until the meeting of the Constitutional Conven-
tion in December which superseded the provisional govern-
ment with a permanent government.

An attempt to follow in detail the numerous problems pre-
sented for the consideration of President Harnett and his
colleagues would doubtless make but a dull and lifeless nar-
rative. Yet upon the proper disposition of these matters
depended the execution of laws, the administration of justice,
the preservation of order, and the success of armies; and
when we consider these facts, we may well doubt whether in
subordinating such details to more dramatic and striking
events, the narrative does not lose in instructiveness what it
may gain in interest. The fidelity with which the members of
the Council attended to the details of these problems is a good
index to their characters and patriotism. Nothing less than

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 405

boundless faith in the justice of their cause and in its ultimate
success could have sustained them in the discharge of their
delicate and exacting duties. There was nothing in the char-
acter of their labor, such as the soldier finds in the excitement
of the campaign, to lighten fatigue or banish anxiety. Nor
were they, like the soldier, inspired by the hope of glory and
renown; on the contrary their duties were of such a nature
that to discharge them with fidelity and impartiality, would
more likely invite criticism and denunciation than applause
and popularity. There was no popular applause to be gained
by even the strictest attention to the commonplace details in-
cident to the detection, apprehension and punishment of
rioters, counterfeiters, traitors and other malefactors. Little
popularity was to be expected from efforts, however success-
ful, to adjust disputes among army officers over their relative
ranks ; to pass impartially upon applications for military and
civil commissions; to hear and determine justly appeals for
pardon and prayers for mercy ; to enforce rigid discipline
among a mutinous soldiery; to execute martial law against
former friends and neighbors whose only crime was refusal
to join in rebellion and revolution ; to enforce without an ade-
quate police obedience to a confessedly revolutionary govern-
ment among those who denied its moral or legal right to rule.
Whatever glory was to be won by successful military achieve-
ments all knew well enough would go to the soldiers in the
field, not to the councilors in the cabinet who, by grinding out
their spirits and lives over the details of organizing and
equipping armies, made such success possible. Nevertheless
day and night, week in and week out, President Harnett
and his associates with unfailing tact, patience and
energy, and with remarkable success, gave conscientious
and efficient attention to a thousand and one details as unin-
spiring as they were necessary.

The chief problems of the Council related to defense. The
Indians on the frontier, the Tories of the interior, and Clinton
on the coast threatened the province with attack from three
directions. A few days before the Council met, Clinton with-
drew from the Cape Fear River, but nobody knew where he
had gone nor what his plans were, and all apprehended that
his movement was but a change of base for an attack on North
Carolina. Clinton did contemplate such a movement, but
was frustrated by the activity of the committees and the
Council. The Council's problem was to organize and equip
the troops ordered to be raised by the Congress. The or-

406 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ganization was more tedious than difficult, but it required
much time and labor. A harder task was to equip them.
Even the utmost exertions of the Council could not keep the
several arsenals sufficiently supplied to meet the constant
calls on them for arms and ammunition. The Council con-
tinued to press into public service arms found in private
hands; they appointed commissioners to purchase warlike
supplies; they imported them from other states; they manu-
factured them; they purchased them in the North through
the delegates in the Continental Congress; and they chartered
vessels which they loaded with cargoes of staves and shingles
to be exchanged for military supplies. The Polly, the Heart
of Oak, the King Fisher, the Lilly, the Little Thomas, the
Johnston, and other fast sailing vessels slipped through
the inlets of Eastern Carolina, ran down to the West Indies,
sold their cargoes of lumber, and eluding the British cruisers
which patrolled those waters returned safely to Ocracoke,
Edenton, and New Bern with cargoes of small arms, cannon,
gunpowder, salt, clothes and shoes. Their enterprising crews,
the prototypes of the more famous blockade-runners of later
days, continued this work throughout the Revolution, and
made no inconsiderable contributions to the cause of Ameri-
can independence. The Council issued letters of marque and
reprisal to the Pennsylvania Farmer, the King Tammany,
the General Washington, the Heart of Oak, and the Johnston;
and they organized courts of admiralty and appointed judges.
They set up iron works for casting cannon and shot, and
salt works for supplying that necessary article. In one way
or another they managed to put into the field equipped for
service 1,400 troops to aid in the defense of Charleston, 300
militia to aid Virginia against the Indians, and an army of
2,400 riflemen for a campaign against the Creeks and the
Cherokee beyond the Alleghanies.

The efforts to secure the neutrality of the Indians had
failed. In the spring of 1776, while Clinton was on the coast,
Cameron determined to stir up the Cherokee on the frontier.
Under his leadership, the warriors of the Upper and Middle
towns, with some Creeks and Tories of the vicinity, took up
arms and laid waste the border far and wide. Aroused by
their common danger, Virginia, North Carolina, South Caro-
lina, and Georgia determined to strike a blow at the Cherokee
that would compel them to remain passive during the struggle
with England. Accordingly, during the summer of 1776 four
expeditions were simultaneously launched against them from

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 407

four different quarters. The North Carolina expedition of
2,400 men was under command of General Griffith Rutherford.
Crossing the Blue Ridge at Swannanoa. Gap in August he
struck the first Indian town, Stikayi, on the Tuckasegee, and
acting with vigor destroyed in rapid succession every town on
the Tuckasegee, Oconaluftee, the upper part of the Little Ten-
nessee, and on the Hiwassee to below the junction of Valley
River. The Indians attempted resistance but were every-
where defeated. Their most determined opposition was
offered while Rutherford was passing through Waya Gap of
the Nantahala Mountains. The invaders lost more than forty
men, killed and wounded, before they put the red men to
flight. Unable to offer further resistance the Cherokee fled to
the fastnesses of the Great Smoky Mountains, leaving their
crops and towns at the mercy of the enemy. All told Ruther-
ford destroyed thirty-six towns and laid waste a vast stretch
of the surrounding country. In the meantime Coloned Andrew
Williamson with an army of 1,800 men from South Carolina
was pushing up from the south through the Lower Towns, and
on September 26, reached Hiwassee River, near the present
town of Murphy, where he effected a junction with Ruther-
ford; while Colonel William Christian, of Virginia, with a
force of about 1,700 Virginians and 300 North Carolinians,
was advancing from the north.

The effect upon the Cherokee of this irruption of more than
6,000 armed men into their territory was paralyzing. More
than fifty of their towns were destroyed, their fields laid waste,
their cattle and horses driven off, hundreds of their warriors
killed, captured and sold into slavery, and their women and
children driven to seek refuge in the recesses of the moun-
tains. From the Virginia line to the Chattahoochee the
destruction was complete, and the red men were compelled to
sue for peace. Accordingly, at De Witts Corners in South
Carolina, May 20, 1777, was concluded the first treaty ever
made by the Cherokee with the new states. By its terms the
Lower Cherokee surrendered all of their remaining territory
in South Carolina except a small strip along the western bor-
der. Two months later, July 20, at the Long Island in the
Holston, Christian concluded a treaty with the Middle and
Upper Cherokee by which they ceded everything east of the
Blue Ridge, together with all the disputed territory on the
Watauga, Nolichucky, upper Holston and New rivers.

While Rutherford was engaged with the red men on the
frontier, the Council of Safety were wrestling with a strong

408 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

and energetic domestic enemy in the very heart of the State.
The Tories of North Carolina, as the Council declared, were
"a numerous body of people who, although lately sub-

dued, are only waiting a more favorable opportunity to wreak
their vengeance upon us." The Tories hoped and the Whigs
feared that this opportunity would come through a British suc-
cess either at Wilmington or at Charleston. Moore's Creek
Bridge had warned the former of the folly of an uprising with-
out the co-operation of the British army, and the result at
Charleston dashed their hopes of an immediate insurrection.
Nevertheless they regarded this as only a temporary setback
which necessitated a postponement but not a surrender of
their plans. Though forced to work more quietly, they seized
every opportunity to undermine and counteract the work of
the Council. The Council, therefore, were compelled to devote
a large part of their time to the detection and punishment of
these domestic enemies. Their active leaders were arrested
and brought before the Council on such general charges as
denouncing the Council and the committees for exercising
arbitrary and tyrannical powers; as uttering " words inimical
to the cause of liberty"; as endeavoring "to inflame the minds
of the people against the present American measures"; as
using their influence to prevent the people from "associating
in the common cause.'1 More specific charges were corres-
pondence with the enemy; refusal to receive the continental
currency; and efforts to depreciate both the continental and
provincial bills of credit. The Council dealt with each case
upon its individual merits. In a general way, however, they
permitted those who were willing to subscribe the test and
submit to the revolutionary government to remain at home
unmolested. They "naturalized" prisoners captured in battle
who expressed a willingness to take the oath of allegiance,
and admitted them to the privileges of free citizens. Persons
suspected of disaffection, but who had committed no overt act,
were required to give bond for their good behavior. Those
whose presence among their neighbors was regarded as dan-
gerous were taken from their homes and paroled within pre-
scribed limits ; while the most active leaders were imprisoned,
some in North Carolina, some in Virginia and some in Phila-
delphia. The last two methods of punishment in some cases
worked real hardships and moving appeals were made to
President Harnett for relaxations of the restrictions.

While a majority of the cases that came before the Council
involved the conduct of individuals only, a few instances were

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 409

reported in which something like general disaffection ap-
peared in a community. In such cases the Council acted with
determination and vigor. Those whom they believed to have
been led into disaffection through ignorance they undertook to
instruct in "their duty to Almighty God," and to "the United
States of America." But to those "who had been nursed up in
the very bosom of the country," and yet "by their pre-
tended neutrality declare themselves enemies to the Ameri-
can Union," the Council offered but one course, — the
pledge either of their property or their persons for their
good behavior. On July 4, 1776, they directed the
county committees to require under oath from all suspected
persons inventories of their estates, and ordered the com-
manding officers of the militia to arrest all who refused and
•bring them before the Council for trial. This order going
forth simultaneously with the news of Clinton's defeat at
Charleston, carried dismay into the ranks of the Loyalists.
"This glorious news [Clinton's defeat], with the Resolve of
Council against the Tories," wrote James Davis, the public
printer, "has caused a very great Commotion among them.
They are nocking in to sign the Test and Association." By
these vigorous measures the Council dealt Toryism in North
Carolina a serious blow, and saved the province during the
summer of 1776 from the horrors of civil war. It must of
course be confessed that these measures, though taken in the
name of liberty, smacked themselves of tyranny; their justifi-
cation lies in the fact that they were in behalf of peace and
the rights of mankind.

On July 22d, while the Council were in session at Halifax,
came the welcome news that the Continental Congress had
adopted a Declaration of Independence. The Council received
the news with great joy. No longer rebellious subjects in
arms against their sovereign, they were now the leaders of a
free people in their struggle for constitutional self-govern-
ment. The Council, therefore, immediately resolved that by
the Declaration of Independence the people "were absolved
from all Allegiance to the British Crown," and therefore "the
Test as directed to be subscribed by the Congress at Halifax
[was] improper and Nugatory." The first clause of this test
—"We the Subscribers professing our Allegiance to the King,
and Acknowledging the constitutional executive power of
Government" — was accordingly stricken out, and the amended
test, which contained no allusion to the king, was signed. The
Council also directed that members of courts martial should

410 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

be required to take an oath to try well and truly all matters
before them "between the Independant State of North Caro-
lina and the prisoner to be tried."

At Halifax the people of North Carolina gave the first
official utterance in favor of a national declaration of inde-
pendence. Cornelius Harnett was their mouthpiece. At Hali-
fax the Declaration of Independence was first officially pro-
claimed to the people of North Carolina. Again, Cornelius
Harnett was their mouthpiece. One incident was the logical
outcome of the other, and the two together enriched our an-
nals with a dramatic story. The first entry in the Council's
journal for July 22, is a resolution requiring the committees
throughout the State upon receiving the Declaration of Inde-
pendence to "cause the same to be proclaimed in the most
public Manner, in Order that the good people of this Colony
may be fully informed thereof. ' ' The Council set the example,
and set apart Thursday, August 1, "for proclaiming the said
Declaration at the Court House in the Town of Halifax; the
freeholders and Inhabitants of the County of Halifax are
requested to give their Attendance at the time and place afore-
said." The people were profoundly interested. On the first
day of August an "immense concourse of people" gathered
in the county town to hear President Harnett make official
proclamation of their independence. The ceremony was
simple enough. At noon the militia proudly paraded in such
uniforms as they could boast, and with beating drums and
flying flags escorted the Council to the court-house. The
crowd cheered heartily as President Harnett ascended the
platform. When the cheers had died away he arose and midst
a profound silence read to the people the "Unanimous De-
claration of the Thirteen United States of America." As
he closed with the ringing words pledging to the support of
that Declaration their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor, the people with shouts of joy gave popular ratification
to the solemn pledge their representatives had made for them.
In the exuberance of their enthusiasm the soldiers seized
President Harnett and, forgetful of his staid dignity, bore
him on their shoulders through the crowded streets, applaud-
ing him as their champion and swearing allegiance to Ameri-
can Independence.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE INDEPENDENT STATE

Since the State was now independent it was desirable that
a permanent form of government should displace the provi-
sional government as soon as possible. Accordingly on the
9th of August, 1776, the Council of Safety, in session at Hali-
fax, resolved "that it be recommended to the good people of
this now Independant State of North Carolina to pay the
greatest attention to the Election to be held on the fifteenth
day of October next, of delegates to represent them in Con-
gress, and to have particularly in view this important Consid-
eration, that it will be the Business of the Delegates then
Chosen not only to make Laws for the good Government of,
but also to form a Constitution for this State, that this last,
as it is the Corner Stone of all Law, so it ought to be fixed
and Permanent, and that according as it is well or ill Ordered,
it must tend in the first degree to promote the happiness or
Misery of the State."

This resolution was the signal for the opening of a cam-
paign famous in our history for its violence. Feeling ran
high. Riots were numerous. Everywhere democracy exult-
ing in a freedom too newly acquired for it to have learned
the virtue of self-restraint expressed itself in irregularities,
tumults, and carousings. In Guilford County many voters
were intimidated by threats of personal abuse ; at one voting
place a candidate, "with a whip clubbed in his hand," took
possession of the polls and drove his opponents away. In
Orange County the election was held in such "a tumultuous
and disorderly manner," that the Convention afterwards de-
clared it null and void. Drunkenness and unbridled abuse
characterized the campaign in Chowan. Throughout the State
the campaign opened wider than ever the cleaveage in the
Whig party. The Radicals were determined to wrench con-
trol of public affairs from the Conservatives. Abner Nash in
New Bern and Thomas Jones in Chowan, both Conservatives,

411

412 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

won seats only by narrow margins from constituencies in
which they had rarely had serious opposition. In New Hano-
ver so strong was the opposition to William Hooper that, to
assure his having a seat in the Convention, Cornelius Harnett
relinquished his hold on the borough of Wilmington in Hoop-
er's favor, himself standing for election in Brunswick County.
Samuel Spencer was defeated in Anson, and John Campbell,
for many years a representative in the Assembly as well as
in the four Provincial Congresses, was left out of the Bertie
delegation. The climax of the campaign was the fight in
Chowan County against Samuel Johnston. Johnston wTas rec-
ognized as chief of the Conservatives, and the Radicals deter-
mined that he should not have a seat in the Convention. "No
means," says McRee, "were spared to poison the minds of
the people ; to inflame their prejudices ; excite alarm ; and sow
in them, by indirect charges and whispers, the seeds of dis-
trust. It were bootless now to inquire what base
arts prevailed, or what calumnies were propagated. Mr.
Johnston was defeated. The triumph was celebrated with riot
and debauchery; and the orgies were concluded by burning
Mr. Johnston in effigy."1 While the chief of the Conserv-
atives was thus defeated, Willie Jones, his great radical rival,
was elected. The Radicals as a rule were successful in those
counties in which the influence of the former Regulators was
most potent.

When the Convention assembled at Halifax, November
12th, the violence of the campaign had been followed by a
reaction. Richard Caswell, a moderate if not a conservative,
was unanimously elected president. The committee appointed
to frame a "Bill of Rights and Form of a Constitution for the
Government of this State," embraced among its members
Willie Jones, Thomas Person, and Griffith Rutherford, rad-
ical leaders; Allen Jones, Thomas Jones, Samuel Ashe, and
Archibald Maclaine, conservative leaders; Richard Caswell
and Cornelius Harnett, who may be classed as moderates.
Since the adjournment of the preceding Congress the Amer-
icans had progressed considerably in the science of constitu-
tion-making, and the North Carolina Convention in Decem-
ber had before it several precedents which had been lacking
in April. Among them were the constitutions of Delaware,
New Jersey, Virginia, and South Carolina. John Adams,
too, apparently upon the invitation of Caswell, had submitted

1 Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, Vol. I, p. 334.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 413

some interesting "Thoughts on Government." Better still
were the views of the people of North Carolina, some of whom
had reduced their ideas to writing in "instructions" to their
delegates. Thus the Scotch-Irish of Mecklenburg and Orange
counties, putting into practice the principle of the responsi-
bility of representatives to their constituents, which the Reg-
ulators had tried in vain to establish, had adopted elaborate
instructions in which they stated the fundamental principles
on which the new government should be founded and outlined
some of its details. Many of these details found their wav
into the new Constitution, but the Convention did not estab-
lish, as Mecklenburg desired, "a simple democracy," nor did
it accede to Mecklenburg's demand that the Constitution be
submitted "to the people at large for their approbation an 1
consent if they should choose to give it, to the end that it may
derive its force from the principal supreme power."

With these precedents before them, the men who could not
agree on a form of government in April found no such dif-
ficulty in December. The committee on the, Constitution was
appointed on November 13th; on December 6th it reported a
Constitution, and on December 12th a Bill of Rights, to the
Convention. Both documents received from the Convention
the serious consideration their importance demanded. After
being debated paragraph by paragraph, the Bill of Rights was
adopted December 17th, and the Constitution the following
day. These results were not attained without much sharp de-
bate, acrimonious interchange of views, and the acceptance by
both factions of numerous compromises. "God knows when
there will be an end of this trifling here," wrote Samuel John-
ston who, as public treasurer, was at Halifax in attendance on
the Convention. "A draft of the constitution was presented
to the House yesterday and lies over for consideration. * * *
As well as I can judge from a cursory view of it, it may do as
well as that adopted by any other Colony. Nothing of the
kind can be good." Two days later he was "in great pain
for the honor of the Province," and much alarmed at the
tendency to turn affairs over to "a set of men without reading,
experience or principle to govern them." But Johnston's
pessimistic views were scarcely justified. Discussion and a
spirit of compromise eliminated most of the "absurdities"
which so excited his disgust, and the instrument which finally
emerged was in many ways admirably adapted to the needs
of the people for whom it was designed. After passing it
upon its final reading the Convention directed that a copy be

414 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

sent to the state printer "with directions that he do immedi-
ately print and distribute a number of copies to each county
in the State."

The new Constitution was short and simple. It contained
merely the framework of government and the great funda-
mental principles upon which it was founded. The Conven-
tion left the details of administration to be worked out by the
legislature. Since 1776 there has been a radical change in
the popular conception of what is proper to be included in a
constitution. What that change has produced in constitution-
making may be seen by contrasting the Constitution of 1776
with its seventy-one sections and general statements of po-
litical principles with the Constitution of 1919 with its 198
sections and innumerable details of legislation. Between the
new state government and the old colonial government there
was no violent break; the members of the Convention were
practical statesmen intent only on establishing a working gov-
ernment, not philosophers testing out political theories, and
they thought it wise to follow as far as possible the forms with
which the people had long been familiar. Following the form
of the colonial government, therefore, they provided for a
legislative department to consist of two houses, a senate and
a house of commons ; a judiciary department to embrace a su-
preme court of law and equity, an admiralty court, and county
courts; and an executive department, to be composed of a
governor, a council, and such administrative officers as might
be needed.

One radical change was introduced, not so much in the
form as in the working of the government, viz., the shifting
of the center of political power from the executive to the legis-
lative branch. Under the royal government neither the people
nor the Assembly exercised any constitutional control over
the governor. They had no voice in his selection, no control
over his conduct, and no means of removing him from office.
His authority was neither fixed nor definite. He acted under
instructions from the Crown, whose representative he was,
and those instructions he could not make public unless espe-
cially authorized by the Crown to do so. As the personal
representative of the sovereign he was apt to entertain ex-
travagant ideas of his prerogatives and to seek to extend
his power to the utmost extreme. The Assembly struggled
hard to hedge him about with restrictions, and the result was
a perpetual conflict between the executive and the legislative
branches of the government with every advantage in favor of

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 415

the former. Through his right of veto the governor had
power to negative acts of the Assembly, while the right of
prorogation and dissolution placed the very life of the As-
sembly in his hands. In consequence of this system the people
felt hampered in the only branch of the government in which
they had a direct share, and chafed impatiently under the re-
striction. Accordingly when the Convention of 1776 came to
define the powers of the chief executive in the new state gov-
ernment, its members were in a decidedly reactionary frame
of mind. "What powers, sir," inquired one of Hooper's con-
stituents, "were conferred upon the governor?" "Power,"
replied Hooper, "to sign a receipt for his salary." In truth
the legislative branch now had the upper hand ; the pendulum
had swung to the other extreme. The governor was to be the
creature of the Assembly, elected by it and removable by it.
Not only was he shorn of his most important powers; with
every power was coupled a restriction. He could take no im-
portant step without the advice and consent of the Council of
State, and in the selection and removal of his councilors lie
had no voice. But the Council exercised a restraining author-
ity only; to the governor belonged the right of initiative and
this fact, added to the moral influence of the office, gave the
incumbent opportunity for service and usefulness.

The Constitution was not the work of any one man, or
group of men, though tradition and an occasional reference
in contemporaneous documents attribute a few features to the
influence of certain individuals. Tradition credits Cornelius
Harnett with the authorship of the thirty-fourth article which
declares, "That there shall be no Establishment of any one
religious Church or Denomination in this State in Preference
to any other, * * but all persons shall be at Liberty to

exercise their own mode of Worship;" while Governor Cas-
well attributed to Harnett's influence the refusal of the Con-
vention to clothe the governor with adequate powers. In the
Convention of 1835, John D. Toomer quotes tradition to the
effect that Richard Caswell "dictated the principles, if not
the terms," of the Constitution: and while the word "dic-
tated" is surely too strong a term to be used in this connec-
tion, it is certain that Caswell's influence was very great.
Samuel Johnston, in a letter written in 1777, describes the
plan of organization of the legislature as Thomas Burke's
plan, of which he heartily disapproved. Johnston himself,
although not a member of the Convention, was able to secure
the incorporation of many of his views in the Constitution,

436 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

especially those relating to the qualifications for suffrage and
the method of selection and the tenure of judicial offi-
cers. It is interesting to note that Johnston, the great Con-
servative and, according to his enemies, the stern foe of de-
mocracy, advocated annual elections. Writing while a constitu-
tion was under discussion in April, he said: "The great dif-
ficulty in our way is, how to establish a check on the repre-
sentatives of the people, to prevent their assuming more power
than would be consistent with the liberties of the people.
After all, it appears to me that there can be no check
on the representatives of the people in a democracy but the
people themselves ; and in order that the check may be more ef-
ficent I would have annual elections." To Johnston's great
rival, Willie Jones, has been ascribed the determining influ-
ence in the final shaping of the Constitution. The Constitu-
tion, declared a delegate in the Convention of 1835, "is
thought to have been as much or more the work (the 32d sec-
tion excepted) of Willie Jones than any other one individual."
Upon which Ashe quite pertinently comments that if this is so,
"VVillie Jones was not the radical democrat he is popularly sup-
posed to have been.2

Indeed, the student can make no graver mistake than to sup-
pose that North Carolina, or any other American State, began
its independent existence in 1776 as a pure democracy.
"America in 1776 was not a democracy. It was not even a
democracy on paper. It was at best a shadow-democracy."3
To say this neither impeaches the wisdom nor decries the work
of the framers of our first State Constitution. The truth is
they did not intend to establish a democracy. The men who
led and dominated the political thought in North Carolina in
1776 were English landowners whose political ideals were
found in the British Constitution. This Constitution in its
full vigor, as has been pointed out before, the early English
settlers in North Carolina had demanded should follow them
to the New World ; and they had insisted that their charters
should guarantee to them "all liberties, franchises and privi-
leges" enjoyed by their fellow subjects in England. In 1776
they were in rebellion against the mother country because
they believed her rulers had a purpose, in order to carry out
their imperialistic policies, to ride roughshod over these same
"liberties, franchises and privileges." Accordingly when they
came to write their own constitution in 1776 they were much

2 History of North Carolina, Vol. I, p. 565.
:: Wey] : The New Democracy, p. 12.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 417

more determined to write into it those safeguards of political
liberty which they considered had been guaranteed by the
British Constitution, i. e., representative government, the
principle that taxation without representation is tyranny, the
right of trial by jury, the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus, the prohibition against the passage of ex post facto
laws, the guarantee that no man should be deprived of his
life, liberty, or property, ' ' but by the law of the land, ' ' and all
those other great constitutional principles that characterized
the British Constitution — they were much more anxious to
secure these principles to themselves and their posterity than
they were to establish a democracy.

Consequently the government established by the Constitu-
tion of 1776 was a representative democracy in form, but in
form only. In fixing the basis of representation in the legis-
lature the Convention paid no attention to population, but
gave to every county the same number of representatives in
both houses of the General Assembly, and to certain towns one
representative each in the House of Commons, without regard
to population. Nor were the qualifications for suffrage and
office-holding fixed upon a democratic basis. To English
statesmen of 1776 — and such were the framers of our first
State Constitution — manhood suffrage was a Utopian dream,
interesting, doubtless, as a subject for philosophical specula-
tion, but an impossibility in practical politics ; and, although
they conferred the right to vote for members of the House of
Commons upon all freemen who had paid their taxes, they
were careful to offset this concession to democracy by restrict-
ing the right to vote for senators to those who possessed a
freehold of fifty acres. Even less democratic were the qualifi-
cations for office holding. No person could be a member of the
House of Commons unless he possessed in the county which he
represented "not less than one hundred acres of land in fee,
or for the term of his own life;" no person could be a senator
unless he possessed in the county which he represented "not
less than three hundred acres of land in fee;" and no person
was eligible for the office of governor unless he was possessed
of a "freehold in lands and tenements, above the value of one
thousand pounds" — an amount comparable to a fortune in our
own day of at least ten times that sum. Other undemocratic
features forbade any clergyman, while in the exercise of his
pastoral functions, to sit in the General Assembly and im-
posed a sectarian test for office hoi ding designed to exclude
Roman Catholics, Jews, and Atheists. The people had no voice

Vol. 1—27

418 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

in the selection of their public servants other than members of
the General Assembly, for the governor and other executive
officers, the councilors of state, and the judges were all elect-
ed by the General Assembly; and the judges held office for
life. No provision was made for calling a constitutional
convention, or for amending the Constitution in any other
way, and the Constitution itself, as has been pointed out,
was never submitted to the people for ratification. As un-
democratic as this Constitution was in form, it was even
less so in spirit. Inasmuch as all officials were elected by
the General Assembly, and membership in the General As-
sembly was based upon a property qualification, property
not men controlled the government. The theory of prop-
erty was then, as it always has been, that the best govern-
ment is that which governs least. It teaches that govern-
ment has fulfilled its mission when it has preserved order,
protected life and property, punished crime, and kept down
the rate of taxation. Such was the theory of government
which prevailed in North Carolina in 1776 and which, un-
der the Constitution adopted in that year, continued to pre-
vail in North Carolina for more than half a century.

After adopting the Constitution the Convention passed a
series of ordinances providing for the government of the
State until the close of the first session of the General As-
sembly under the new Constitution. All those parts of the
common law and such statutes in force under the royal gov-
ernment which were "not destructive of, repugnant to or
inconsistent with the freedom and Independence of this State,
or of the United States of America," were declared to be still
in force; and a commission including among its memb/rs
such eminent lawyers as Samuel Johnston, Archibald Mac-
laine, James Iredell, Samuel Ashe, Waightstill Avery, and
Samuel Spencer, was appointed to revive, and present to the
General Assembly bills for re-enacting, such former statutes
as were "consistent with the Genius of a Free People" and
their new form of government. The Convention performed
a long delayed act of justice in adopting an ordinance em-
powering all regularly ordained ministers of the Gospel of
every denomination to perform the marriage ceremony ac-
cording to the rites of their respective churches. Another
ordinance defined treason against the new-born State and
prescribed its punishment. The State was divided into ju-
dicial districts, courts of oyer and terminer and general gaol
delivery were erected, and the governor was authorized upon

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 419

the recommendation of the Council of State to appoint judges
to hold them. William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, and Thomas
Burke were appointed a commission to procure a Great Seal,
but in the meantime the governor for the time being was
authorized to use his own "private Seal at Arms" on all
public documents. Other ordinances named officials who
should put the new government into operation. Collectors
were appointed for the ports of Currituck, Roanoke, Bath,
Beaufort, and Brunswick; and justices, sheriffs, and consta-
bles in the several counties ; while Richard Caswell was named
as governor; James Glasgow as secretary of state; and Cor-
nelius Harnett, Thomas Person, William Dry, William Hay-
wood, Edward Starkey, Joseph Leech, and Thomas Eaton
as councilors of state, until their successors could be chosen
by the General Assembly.

Richard Caswell, the first governor of the independent
State, was perhaps the most versatile man of his genera-
tion in North Carolina. He was distinguished among his
contemporaries as surveyor, lawyer, orator, soldier, and
statesman. A native of Maryland he had come to North Car-
olina in 1746 as a youth of seventeen seeking his fortune. He
was a surveyor by profession in which he was so skilful and
energetic that within three years after his arrival he was
appointed deputy-surveyor for the province. North Caro-
lina at that time was an attractive field for surveyors. So
rapidly were the vacant spaces in the colony filling up that at
almost every sitting of the Council thousands of acres were
granted to new settlers, and upon the skill, activity, and in-
tegrity of the surveyors depended not only the interests of
the Crown but the security of the thousands of pioneers who
had braved all the hardships and dangers of the wilderness
in their search for homes. A surveyor on the frontier must
needs have steady nerves, keen eyes, and trained muscles,
combined with indefatigable industry and determination, a
cool head, and sound judgment. He must be skilled in wood-
craft, and able to circumvent the cunning of the savage and
the craft of the land-grabber. His work brought him in close
touch with the people, and made him familiar with their con-
ditions of life, problems, and habits of thought. No better
school for the training of the man who was to become the
civil and military leader of a pioneer people in a great revo-
lution could have been found. It is interesting to note that
while Richard Caswell was attending this school in North
Carolina, another young surveyor, a few years his junior,

SOUTH :OF THIS TABLET. 166 YARDS, IS T,
OF RlCrfARD CASWELL .THE FIRST GOVE!

North Carolina, as an inderen de*

1 \vill most- cheerfully , j

countrymen , even as <

.and whilst! have blood in my veins

offer it in support of the lie

L

3

Bronze Tablet on State Highway Near Kinston

HISTOEY OF NORTH CAROLINA 421

was attending a similar school on the vast estates of Lord
Fairfax in the wilds of Western Virginia. The same train-
ing that fitted George Washington for his career as comman-
der-in-chief of the armies and the first chief executive of the
United States, fitted Richard Caswell for similar duties in his
more contracted field.

Caswell rose to his position of leadership through the
regular gradations of service as assemblyman, speaker of
the House of Commons, colonial treasurer, member of the
Provincial Congress, delegate to the Continental Congress,
and president of the first Constitutional Convention. In the
various contests between the Assembly and the governor
which led up to the Revolution, he stood among the foremost
in support of popular government. He was ambitious for
military fame, and entered with zest into the two campaigns
conducted by Governor Tryon against the Regulators. These
campaigns were excellent training for him and served to
prepare him for his subsequent military career in the same
way that the campaigns of the French and Indian War pre-
pared a much greater American soldier for his career. Cas-
well was one of the first to see that the contest with the
mother country would probably lead to war, and was urgent
in his appeals to the Provincial Congress to make military
preparations for the emergency. Writing to his son from
Philadelphia in 1774, he tolls him to urge upon his neighbors
that "it is indispensably necessary for them to arm and form
into a company or companies of independents," adding: "If
I live to return I shall most cheerfully join any of my country-
men even as a rank and file man." When the Congress of
August, 1775, provided for raising an army, he entered into
the plans with zeal, and upon his election as colonel of the
New Bern District, resigned his seat in the Continental Con-
gress to take steps to raise, organize, equip and drill his
regiment. His energy enabled him to meet the Scotch High-
landers at Moore's Creek Bridge and win the initial victory
of the Revolution in the South. His reward for this victory
was his election as the first governor of the independent
State. As governor he displayed the same zeal and fore-
sight, but for reasons over which he had no control not the
same success which had previously characterized bis public
actions. His patriotism though deep, fervent, and sincere,
was stimulated by ambition for personal fame and power.
Aggressive and domineering in overcoming opposition, he
showed consummate address and skill in winning the confi-

422 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

deuce of the people which he possessed to a remarkable de-
gree. He was elected governor of North Carolina seven
times.

The executive branch of the new government went into
operation January 16, 1777, when Caswell and the other state
officials met at New Bern, took the oath of office, and entered
upon the discharge of their duties. On April 7th, the legis-
lative branch went into operation when the first Assembly un-
der the Constitution met at New Bern and organized by the
election of Samuel Ashe as speaker of the Senate and Abner
Nash as speaker of the House of Commons. Since all the ordi-
nances of the Convention were to expire at the close of this
session, it fell to the lot of the Assembly to enact such legisla-
tion as was necessary to put the new government into complete
operation. The Assembly accordingly re-enacted the ordi-
nance declaring what parts of the common law and former
statutes were still in force. It amplified the ordinance defining
treason so as to check active opposition from the Loyalists and
prevent "the Dangers which ma}T arise from the Persons
disaffected to the State. ': The counterfeiting of the bills of
the State and of the Continental Congress was made a fel-
ony punishable by death. Other acts provided for the better
regulation of the militia, the establishment of criminal courts,
the collection of import duties, and the erection of admiralty
courts. A radical but timely innovation in the fiscal policy
of the State was introduced by an act which provided for
the general assessment of property and the levying of an
ad valorem tax on land, negroes, and other property. The
Assembly also made provision for the administration of
county affairs by the erection of county courts and the ap-
pointment of justices, sheriffs and registers in the several
counties. On April 18th, it re-elected Caswell governor,
Glasgow secretary of state, and all of the former councilors
except Dry and Person whose places it filled with William
Cray and William Taylor. The work of this Assembly fairly
launched the new State upon her stormy voyage of independ-
ence and sovereignty.

A situation full of difficulties, dangers, and pitfalls con-
fronted Caswell and his advisers. The remarkable fervor
that had swept the colony into revolution and created an in-
dependent government had been followed by reaction. En-
thusiasm had given way to apathy, and henceforth, as far as
the people generally were concerned, support of the com-
mon cause was spasmodic and forced. This situation may

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 423

be traced to four causes : first, the weakness of the executive
under, the new Constitution ; second, the cleavage in the pa-
triot party ; third, the presence of a large and active Loyalist
element in the population; and fourth, the utter breakdown
of the financial systems of both State and United States.

The successful conduct of war requires concentration of re-
sponsibility and power. It was unfortunate, therefore, that
North Carolina, especially at a time when there was no na-
tional executive, should have entered upon a long and ex-
hausting war with an executive to which all real power had
been denied. An active, aggressive and resourceful gover-
nor, seeing things that ought to be done and lacking au-
thority to do them, was apt to chafe greatly under the re-
strictions. Caswell had not been in office a year before the
mistake of the Convention in this respect became appar-
ent. Urged to pursue more ''spirited measures" for filling
up the State's battalions, he replied that his hands were
tied because "by the Constitution of this State, nothing
can be done by the Executive power itself, towards this most
desirable purpose" and complained of the Constitution "for
cramping so much the powers of the executive." The longer
the war continued, the more apparent became the mistake of
the Convention in withholding power from the governor.
In 1781, Governor Nash wrote, "The Constitutional power
of a Government [governor] in this State, is at best but very
small, and in time of War, insufficient for purposes of Gov-
ernment and Defence." In the military crisis of 1780-81 the
executive broke down completely, and to meet the emergency
the Assembly created first a board of war which it later su-
perseded with a council extraordinary of three persons upon
whom it conferred extra-constitutional powers, authorizing
them not only to exercise all the powers "which the council
of state might have exercised in a state of war," but also
"to do and execute every other act and thing which may con-
duce to the security, defence and preservation of this State'
But this expedient did not solve the difficulty since it merely
divided the executive functions among three men instead of
concentrating and unifying them under a single head. As
Governor Nash declared in a letter to Burke, the executive1
power was so divided and sub-divided that it had lost its
force and "men, not knowing whom to obey, obeyed no-
body."

The constitutional deficiencies of the chief executive would
have been greatly minimized if the several governors had

424 ' HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

had the support of a united constituency, determined to sub-
ordinate all lesser objects to the winning of independence.
Unfortunately the cleavage in the patriot party rendered such
united support impossible. During the session of the first
Assembly under the Constitution, Abner Nash writing from
New Bern thought "we are all harmony" and expected to see
"a perfect good agreement" prevail in the two houses. But
Nash having just been elected speaker of the House of Com-
mons saw things through too rosy a medium. At the very
moment that he was predicting an era of good feeling, the
Radicals were laying plans to elect John Penn to the Conti-
nental Congress in place of Joseph Hewes. "A warm strug-
gle" ensued, in which Hewes was defeated. The result and
the manner in which it was accomplished drove the iron into
the souls of the Conservatives. Bitterly Johnston denounced
the "fools and knaves" who were in control of the Assembly.
"When I tell you," he wrote to Thomas Burke, a delegate in
the Continental Congress, "that I saw with indignation such
men as G— th R— d [Griffith Rutherford], T— s P-s-n
[Thomas Person], and your Collegue J. Penn, with a few
others of the same stamp, principal leaders in both houses,
you will not expect that anything good or great should pro-
ceed from the counsels of men of such narrow, contracted
principle, supported by the most contemptible abilities.
Hewes was supplanted of his seat in Congress by the most
insidious arts and glaring falsehood, and Hooper, though no
competitor appeared to oppose him, lost a great number of
votes. Quince for no crime alleged against him, but that he
was a man of fortune, was turned out of his appointment of
Naval Officer of Port Brunswick." Johnston resigned as
treasurer, and Hooper, piqued at his loss of popularity, de-
clined to accept the seat in Congress to which he had been
elected. Other Conservatives following the example of these
leaders withdrew from public life.

Their retirement of course left the Radicals in control.
Since Caswell was acceptable to them, as long as he was eli-
gible for the office, they made no contest over the election of
governor. In 1777, 1778, and 1779, therefore, Caswell was
unanimously elected. But in 1780 he was no longer eligible,
and for the first time a contest in the election of governor en-
sued. Abner Nash, who is generally reckoned as a Conser-
vative, was elected, but before his term was half gone the
radical Assembly seem to have repented of their choice, and
by an act creating a board of war deprived the governor of

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 425

most of the few powers which the Constitution had conferred
on him. Nash denounced the act as an unconstitutional
change in the form of government. "When you elected me
Governor of the State," he wrote, " you presented me the
Bill of Rights and the Constitution, at the same time you
presented me with the Sword of State as an emblem of the
power I was invested with for the protection of the Constitu-
tion and the rights of the people, and in a solemn manner
you bound me by an oath to preserve the Constitution invio-
late ; and yet four months after my election the very same
Assembly deprived me of almost every power, privilege and
authority belonging to my office. I have no doubt

that the secret Enemies of our Free Constitution exult at the
introduction of such innovation and rejoice at seeing the first
office in the State rendered useless and contemptible." De-
claring that the creation of the Board of War left the gov-
ernor nothing "but an empty title," he declined to permit
himself to be considered for re-election. To succeed him,
therefore, the Conservatives nominated Samuel Johnston,
the Radicals, Thomas Burke. Burke was elected, but during
his term, he was captured by a band of Tories and sent to
Charleston, then held by the British, as a political prisoner.
Unfortunately for his fame he broke his parole, made his es-
cape and returning to North Carolina reassumed the duties
of his office. Although he insisted that the cruelties and the
illegal treatment to which he had been subjected justified his
action, nevertheless it ruined his political career and com-
pelled him to retire to private life.

In the election of 1782, at which Burke's successor was to
be chosen, party spirit rose to a height greater than it had
yet attained in the State. Five candidates were in nomina-
tion, but the real contest was between Samuel Johnston and
Alexander Martin. The Conservatives had good grounds for
anticipating victory when their hopes were dashed to pieces
by the course of Richard Caswell who threw all of his great
influence in the scale with Martin. His action was decisive
and Martin was elected. Johnston and his friends brought
out of the contest a bitter grudge against Caswell, and eager-
ly awaited an opportunity for retaliation. It came sooner
than they could have expected. In 1783, Caswell,, again eli-
gible under the Constitution, appeared "with all his interest
and address" in the field against Martin. The Conserva-
tives in the Assembly, now under the aggressive leadership
of the able but vitriolic Maclaine, threw themselves into the

Governor Abnek Nash
From a portrait in the Governor's office, Ealeiali

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 427

contest for Martin with all the eagerness of avengers of
imaginary wrongs. "Among others," wrote Maclame, "I
interested myself warmly for the present Governor, not
only from principle, but in opposition to a man who had base-
ly abandoned his important trusts, and deserted his colors
in the hour of distress. ' ' 4 Caswell himself describing the
contest in a letter to his son, William Caswell, wrote: "Ten
days ago Governor Martin was re-elected by 66 Votes against
49 who voted for me. Mr. Johnston and General Ruther-
ford were in nomination, but neither was Voted for. The
Edenton and Halifax men with a very few exceptions Voted
for Governor Martin, saying I had crammed him down their
throats last year and they were now determined to keep him
there." In this election there appeared for the first time
in our history the tendency, which so long prevailed in North
Carolina, to divide in political matters along sectional lines.
The West supported Martin, while the East, with the excep-
tion of the men of the Edenton and Halifax districts, who
were moved by the motive mentioned by Caswell, and a few
Cape Fear men, who wanted the help of the West in making
Cross Creek the capital of the new State, supported Cas-
well. The contests, which have been described, show clearly
that bv 1783, the unanimitv and harmonv that had prevailed
among the patriots in 1774 and 1775 had disappeared, that
the factions of 1776 had become stronger and more clearly
defined, and that they needed only the struggle that was yet
to come over the Federal Constitution to turn them into full
fledged political parties. Never again was North Carolina
to enjoy that political unity and harmony that marked the
opening ("ays of the Revolution.

At the very time that the factions in the patriot party
were becoming more and more irreconcilable, the Loyalists,
recovering somewhat from their crushing defeat at Moore's
Creek Bridge, were beginning to show signs of activit}r. In
the summer of 1776, disaffection openly manifested itself in
Guilford County; to General Rutherford's request for
troops from the Hillsboro brigade for his expedition against
the Cherokee, the Council of Safety returned a refusal be-
cause of "the many disaffected persons in that district and
neighborhood;" while in Surry County the Tories were ac-

4 Probably referring to Caswell's action in resigning his com-
mission after the battle of Camden in resentment at the appoint-
ment of General Smallwood of Maryland to the command of the
North Carolina militia.

428 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

tually in arms against the provisional government. The in-
auguration of the new state government in April, 1777, was
the signal for renewed activity on the part of the Loyalists.
A Loyalist conspiracy in the Albemarle region was discov-
ered just in time to prevent an uprising. About the same
time ''many evil persons" in Edgecombe and neighboring
counties "joined in a most wicked conspiracy" against the
new government. Disaffection was suppressed at the time,
but continued to smoulder and two years later broke out
again in a still more violent form. A large number of per-
sons in Edgecombe, Nash, Johnston, and Dobbs counties en-
tered into an association by which they "obligated them-
selves to prevent the Militia from being drafted," to aid and
protect deserters from the American army, and to resist the
civil officers in the discharge of their duties. In the Cape
Fear section, too, a militia officer reported to the governor
that he "was alarmed by these dam rascals, the Tories," and
Colonel John Ashe felt it advisable to take extraordinary
precautions to prevent a descent upon Wilmington by the
"Scotch Tories and others from Cross Creek and Bladen."
In September, 1777, Governor Caswell wrote to Cornelius
Harnett: "We have been alarmed with the rising of Tories
and forming of conspiracies : the former among the High-
landers and Regulators and in the county [Chowan] in which
you had the honor to draw your first breath, and in Bertie
and Martin." In the West the situation was quite as bad,
perhaps worse than in the East. Officers of Anson reported
"many disaffected persons in our County." Try on County
was a hotbed of Tories. In the spring of 1779 a noted Tory
leader, named John Moore, embodied 300 men in Tryon,
forcibly prevented the execution of the draft, and spread
terror throughout that region. Farther west, the conditions
in Burke County might easily have been duplicated in Surry,
Rowan, Guilford, and other western counties. In July, 1779,
General Rutherford reported that bands of Tories were or-
ganized in Burke "who publicly Rob all the Friends of Amer-
ica:" that "British Officers were actually recruiting in that
County;" and that the Tories openly boasted that "immedi-
ately after harvest they were to take up Arms and put to
death the principal Friends to the Cause and March off to the
Enemy. '; Indeed, in every section, in every countv, in al-
most every neighborhood large numbers of the people were
disaffected and only wanted a favorable opportunity to raise
their hands against the new government.

The presence of the Tories not only menaced the peace

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 429

of the State and the stability of the government, but also
weakened the financial and military resources of the State.
They refused to pay taxes or to contribute in any other way
to the support of the government, and the civil authorities
were compelled to use the militia for collecting the revenues
of the State. An even more insidious and effective form of
Loyalist propaganda was directed at the credit of the State.
In 1779 Samuel Ashe, one of the judges of the Superior Court
called the General Assembly 's attention to the steady depreci-
ation in the value of the State's bills of credit, adding,
'•nor can they without the immediate effectual interposi-
tion of the legislature continue at their present stand against
the constant endeavours of the mongrel Tory Traders and
others among us to destroy their Credit." The Tories of-
fered an equally effective opposition to recruiting, and at
times actually took up arms to prevent the enforcement of
the draft. The State, therefore, was compelled to hold in re-
serve a considerable force for any emergency that might arise.
The presence of these inveterate domestic enemies, there-
fore, not only cost the State considerable sums of money
sorely needed by both state and continental treasuries, but
retained at home many regiments of fighting men who should
have been with Washington and Greene.

The policy of the State with respect to the Loyalists was
one of the first questions that came up for consideration.
The Whigs at first were inclined to be conciliatory. Al-
though many Tories had but recently been "in actual Arms
against the liberties of the LJnited States of America," and
in numerous other ways had given aid and comfort to the
enemy, yet the Convention of 1776, hoping "that such Per-
sons are now become sensible of the Wickedness and Folly'
of their conduct, and eager to win for the new state govern-
ment as much support as possible, determined to throw wide
open the door of reconciliation. It therefore directed the
governor to issue a proclamation offering free pardon to all
who would take the oath of allegiance within ninety days.
This generous offer the Loyalists seem to have interpreted
as evidence of weakness in the new government and but few
took advantage of it. Accordingly the Assembly at its first
session entered upon a sterner policy. It adopted a test
which held out to all the alternative of allegiance to the
State or banishment. True to their principles most of those
who were Loyalists from conviction accepted the latter choice
and however much we may deprecate their mistaken judg-
ment we cannot withhold our admiration from men who pre-

430 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

f erred exile to apostasy. Many of these exiles were people
of wealth, intelligence and character. In July, 1777, a large
vessel sailed from New Bern carrying "a great number of
Tories," with their families, " mostly Gentlemen of Consid-
erable Property." Among them was Martin Howard, last
chief justice of North Carolina under the Crown. Many
others departed from Bertie, Chowan, and Halifax coun-
ties. Samuel Johnston testified that those who went from
Chowan were "men of fair character and inoffensive in their
conduct. ,: The Scotch Highlanders departed in large num-
bers. "Two-thirds of Cumberland County intend leaving this
State," reported the colonel of the militia of that county in
July, 1777. "Great Numbers of these infatuated and over-
loyal People," said the North Carolina Gazette, in October,
1777, "returned from America to their own Country," among
whom was Flora MacDonald. Others found new homes in
Nova Scotia. Among the prominent Highlanders who left
North Carolina in 1777 was John Hamilton, "a merchant of
considerable note," who sailed from New Bern on a "Scotch
transport, having on Board a Number of Gentlemen of that
Nation." Hamilton afterwards organized these Highland-
ers into a Loyalist regiment which on numerous battlefields
in the South worthily maintained the high reputation of their
race for its fighting qualities. This exodus of the Highland-
ers from North Carolina in 1777 was comparable to their
exodus from Scotland after Culloden. The policy which was
responsible for it was perhaps the only course open to the
new State ; nevertheless one may be permitted to regret that
circumstances compelled North Carolina to drive from her
borders so many men and women of this strong, virile race.

As the war progressed feeling against the Tories grew
more bitter. Trials for treason became frequent and the As-
sembly entered upon more vigorous measures. In Novem-
ber, 1777, it determined upon a policy of confiscation, and in
January, 1779, passed the first of a long series of confisca-
tion acts. A still more sweeping act was passed in October
of that year. This act not only confiscated the property of
Loyalists generally, but mentioned by name a long list of the
more prominent members of that party among whom were
William Tryon, Josiah Martin, Edward Brice Dobbs, Ed-
mund Fanning, Henry Eustace McCulloh, and John Hamil-
ton. Its provisions excited such strong opposition that fif-
teen members of the House of Commons, under the lead of
Willie Jones, entered a vigorous protest against it declar-
ing tliat it involved "such a Complication of Blunders and

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 431

betrays such ignorance in Legislation as would disgrace a
Set of Drovers." Their objections were, first, that it vio-
lated the conditions of the Treason Act of 1777 under which
many Loyalists had left the State, and, second, that it re-
pealed the provisions made in the Confiscation Act of Jan-
uary, 1779, for "such unfortunate and Innocent Wives and
Children resident in the State, who had been abandoned by
their Fathers and Husbands, and also for aged parents in
particular Cases." The harshness of the act, and the vigor
with which it was enforced, reveal the intensity of the
feeling which the Tories had aroused against themselves.
North Carolina, therefore, was not prepared to accept grace-
fully the clause in the Treaty of 1783 which stipulated that
Congress should recommend to the several states the resti-
tution of this confiscated property to its original owners.
The State had not only received large sums from this source,
but had guaranteed the title to the property sold under the
confiscation acts upon which many of the purchasers had
spent considerable sums. The treaty, therefore, was alarm-
ing both to the State which had sold the property and to the
hundreds of individuals who had bought it. However the
delegates from North Carolina in the Continental Congress
took pains to call the governor's attention to the fact that
the provision -was "but a promise of a recommendation,"
which the Assembly could comply with or not, and the Assem-
bly thus re-assured treated it with silent contempt.

To the weakness of the executive, the intensity of party
spirit, and the menace of the Tories, must be added a fourth
cause of the failure of North Carolina to throw her full
strength into the war for independence, i.e., the breakdown
of her finances. The State entered upon its independent ca-
reer with an empty treasury, without credit, and with no in-
tercolonial or foreign commerce as a basis of credit. The
necessities of the new government and the demands of war
imposed upon the people financial burdens and responsibili-
ties beyond anything they had ever experienced. If they did
not solve their financial problems with the same wisdom and
success with which they solved their political problems, they
were not alone in their failure. No other state, nor the United
States, obtained any better results.

The principal sources from which North Carolina derived
her means for support of the war were issues of paper money,
taxes, loans, and the proceeds of the sale of confiscated prop-
erty. Paper money the people of North Carolina had been fa-
miliar with from long experience and the Provincial Congress

432 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

naturally resorted to it as the means for financing the war.
In September, 1775, Congress issued $125,000, and in May,
1776, $1,000,000, in bills of credit. To maintain their value
and provide for their redemption the faith of the province
was pledged and a poll tax levied to begin, for the redemp-
tion of the first issue, in 1777 and to run for nine years, for
the redemption of the second, in 1780 and to run for twenty
years. The delay in the levy and collection of these taxes
and the uncertainty as to the sums they would ultimately yield
had a bad effect on the credit of the province. This fact cou-
pled with the sudden expansion of the currency, the counter-
feits with which the colony was immediately flooded, and the
effect of the unfavorable comparisons which the Tories were
at pains to make between the bills of the Provincial Congress
and those issued under authority of the British government,
resulted in rapid depreciation. The General Assembly, there-
fore, thought it advisable to retire both these issues, and in
August, 1778, passed an act issuing $2,125,000 of new bills,
making them a legal tender, and directing that $1,575,000 be
used to redeem the old bills. But this mandate was not car-
ried into effect because as the demands upon the treasury in-
creased from year to year, the Assembly postponed the date
at which the old bills were to be redeemed. The old bills,
therefore, remained in circulation, but the failure of the
Assembly to keep faith with their holders .by refusing either
to redeem them or to levy and collect the taxes promised for
their redemption, had an unfortunate effect upon their value,
as also upon the credit of the State. As the war progressed
other issues of paper currency became necessary. In 1779
$1,250,000, in 1780, $3,100,000, and in 1783, $250,000 were
emitted. All of these bills were made a legal tender, but
except in case of the last no tax was levied for their redemp-
tion.

In spite of every effort to sustain the value of the cur-
rency depreciation set in early and progressed rapidly. In
December, 1778, the decline in value was about 5 per cent;
a year later it was 30 per cent. In January, 1779, Samuel
Ashe declared in a communication to the General Assembly,
"that the great depreciation of our Bills of Credit and the
rapid and extravagant rise in price of every necessary arti-
cle," made it impossible for him to live on his salary. "The
Depreciation of our Bills," he said, "is a matter of such no-
toriety that every one knows and feels it. Their value at
this time bears not the proportion of twelve to one of their
original value.' The rapidity with which depreciation pro-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 433

gressed may be seen by comparing Ashe's statement with the
prices quoted by Richard Cogdell of New Bern in August,
1780. "Corn," he wrote, " [is] £100 per Bble., Meal £20 per
bushel, Beef £48 per pound, Mutton £4 per lb., and every
thing in proportion.- A String of Fish which used to cost
12d is now 1920d, or 20 Dollars. What a horrible prospect
this exhibits ! ' ' But the worst was not yet. By the close of
the year the Assembly itself was compelled by law to rec-
ognize a depreciation in its currency of 800 per cent.

As early as 1777, the General Assembly began to realize
that it could not carry on the government indefinitely on a
paper currency and that it must sooner or later resort to
taxation. Although convinced of its necessity, the legisla-
ture approached this policy reluctantly and entered upon it
timidly. No ad valorem tax had ever been levied in North
Carolina, and what the effect of such a tax would be, no
man could tell. But it had to come, and at the April session,
1777, the Assembly directed that a general assessment be
made of all property in the State, levied upon it a tax of
half -penny in the pound, and provided machinery for its col-
lection. This act fixed the future policy of the State. As the
expenses of the war increased and the currency depreciated,
the Assembly gradually increased the rate of taxation, but
the yield from this source was never very large. In 1786
after eleven years of trial the estimated receipts from taxa-
tion were less than £65,000. Loose methods of assessment,
inefficiency of administration, and corruption among officials
consumed a large per cent of the revenues. In 1781 Governor
Burke discussed these matters at length in his annual mes-
sage, urged the Assembly "to provide effectually for calling
to speedy account and payment all public collectors and other
accountants," and declared that "the numberless hands at
present employed in the collecting of the public revenues ex-
haust much of the product and create perplexities and diffi-
culties without and in the public accounts. ' '

In 1780 the tide of war rolled back once more upon the
South. Georgia and South Carolina were quickly overrun
by the enemy, who then threatened North Carolina with im-
mediate invasion. An army of defense had to be immedi-
ately raised, equipped and supplied. But Governor Nash
informed the General Assembly that the treasury was empty
and the financial resources of the State exhausted. How to
obtain means of supplying the army was accordingly an
urgent problem. The Assembly had found that the continued
emission of paper money had a "tendency to increase the

Vol. 1—26

434 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

prices of necessaries" which was "greatly injurious to the
public." No relief could be expected from taxation. "The
public money is unaccounted for," Governor Burke told the
Assembly, "the taxes uncollected or unproductive, *
and the Treasury totally unable to make payment." Even
had the State had the money, the high prices of all necessities
would have been practically prohibitory. In this emergency,
therefore, the Assembly hit upon two new methods of supply-
ing the public needs, i. e., a specific tax and loans. The for-
mer payable in Indian corn, wheat, flour, oats, rye, rice, pork
and beef, was continued through 1782. Warehouses were es-
tablished and stored with supplies which were distributed to
the army. The system was primitive, cumbersome and waste-
ful, yet it is difficult to see how the army could have been sup-
plied without it. But some money was absolutely necessary.
In September, 1780, therefore, the Assembly determined upon
a system of loans. The treasurers were authorized to issue
loan certificates bearing interest at 5 per cent and exempt
from all taxation, and to appeal to the people to lend the
State money on them. The same act levied a tax "equal to
double the amount of the public tax," i. e., 12 pence in the
pound, for the redemption of these certificates when due.
Another source of revenue was the confiscated property of
the Loyalists which in 1783 was pledged to redeem the issue
of $250,000 of bills of credit, authorized for the payment of
the dues to soldiers.

North Carolina's failure to meet her financial obligations
to the Confederacy was even more conspicuous than her fail-
ure to meet her own obligations. In this respect, however,
the State was not peculiar since the same statement may be
made of all the states. At the beginning of the struggle the
rule was adopted that the states should meet all expenses
incurred for purely state purposes, but those incurred in the
common cause should be met out of a common or continental
treasury. The chief sources from which the continental treas-
ury drew its revenues were bills of credit, domestic loans, for-
eign loans, and requisitions on the states. During the war the
Continental Congress issued bills of credit to the amount of
$242,000,000, which it apportioned among the states for re-
demption on a basis of population. The several states pledged
their faith to redeem this currency, but none kept its pledge,
and the continental currency having no other basis of value
depreciated even more rapidly than the state currency. To
say that anything was "not worth a continental" became a
common expression for describing its utter wTorthlessness.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 435

In 1776 Congress decided to supplement its bills of credit
with loan certificates and accordingly established loan of-
fices for soliciting loans for which it issued certificates bear-
ing at first 4 per cent interest, later 6 per cent. By 1783,
$65,000,000 had been raised in this way of which North Caro-
lina had contributed but $1,200,000, an amount below the
State's proportion whether estimated on a basis of wealth
or of population. After the consummation of the alliance
with France in 1778 foreign loans became the principal item
in continental finances, and from 1779 to the close of the war
interest on these loans constituted one of the most pressing
demands upon the Continental Treasury. Congress having
no power of taxation was compelled to look to the states to
supply the funds to meet these demands, and it looked in
vain.

The case of North Carolina was but typical; from 1781
to 1784 the State was too exhausted financially to make any
contribution toward the payment of the interest on the pub-
lic debt. For the same reason the State fell badly behind in
its general contributions to the support of the war. Con-
gress had adopted population as the basis for its requisi-
tions on the states both for men and money, and while this
was not quite fair for the southern states with their large
negro population, yet they had readily accepted it. The
North Carolina Congress of August, 1775, had unanimously
pledged the full support of the colony to the continental cause
on this basis, but as the war progressed and its burdens in-
creased, the State found itself increasingly unable to redeem
this pledge. In August, 1781, it was indebted to the Con-
tinental Treasury $18,230,000 ; while at the beginning of 1784
three other requisitions had been made on which the State
had paid nothing. But here again North Carolina's case was
not peculiar, for none of the states had met their quotas.
From November 22, 1777, to October 6, 1779, for instance,
there were four requisitions on the states calling for $95,000,-
000 in paper money, on which the payments amounted to less
than $55,000,000 ; while three specie requisitions from August
26, 1780, to March 16, 1781, amounting to more than $10,000,-
000, yielded but little more than $1,500,000. The basis of
assessment was obviously inequitable, and each state was
so afraid that it would contribute more than its just share
that it took pains to contribute less.

With all these obstacles and difficulties, and numerous
others scarcely less serious, how was it possible for the "men
of '76" to carry their cause through to its final triumph I

436 HISTOKY OF NORTH CAROLINA

The answer to this question is certainly to be found in the
reality of the existence of those intangible and spiritual
forces which so many modern historians, recognizing only
material forces in shaping the affairs of mankind, refuse to
consider as proper subjects for historical notice. Devotion
and loyalty to their ideals, confidence in the justice of their
cause, and faith in its ultimate triumph were quite as real to
the Revolutionary patriots as were the material obstacles
with which they had to deal, and it was the reality of these
spiritual forces that enabled them to overcome difficulties, to
endure sacrifices and hardships, to rise superior to disaster,
and to wring victory out of defeat. Xo man not a profes-
sional cynic can read the public or private correspondence
of the public men of that time without feeling the truth and
justice of these observations. Had North Carolina been able
to set up an efficient government, had all her people been in
"a perfect good agreement," had there been no vigilant do-
mestic foe nestling in her bosom, had she enjoyed a substan-
tial financial credit, the task of her leaders would have been
far easier and simpler, but it would not have called forth
that daring in action, that constancy in good and in ill for-
tune, that fortitude in suffering, that faith which shown
brightest in the darkness of defeat which entitles them to
the admiration and gratitude of all succeeding generations.
"While every community and section of the State was more
or less divided in sentiment, it is to the honor of the public
men of that period that no representative of the people, no
man who had been honored with their confidence flinched when
the test came or failed to move steadily forward through the
gloom and obscurity of the doubtful and hazardous issue."5

5 Clark. Walter: Prefatory Notes to State Records of Xorth Caro-
lina, Vol. XI. p. xvii.

CHAPTER XXIV
MILITARY AFFAIRS

From 1775 to the close of the Revolution military affairs
were of course the most urgent concern of the government
and people of North Carolina. The Indians on the frontier,
ever ready to take up the hatchet ; the Tories in the interior,
always lying in wait for favorable opportunities for revolt;
the British on the coast, constantly threatening invasion from
the sea, menaced the State from three directions. Besides
providing for her own defence against these dangers, North
Carolina was expected to contribute her proportionate part
to the common defence. The chief problems of the new State,
therefore, during the first seven years of its existence were
those which concerned the raising, organizing and equipping
of troops, their maintenance in camps, and their operations in
the field.

For home defence North Carolina depended chiefly upon
her minute men and militia. Organizations of these classes
of troops were first authorize 1 by the Congress of August,
1775, which provide;! that the colony should be divided into
six military districts in each of which should be raised one
battalion of minute men. Their field officers were to be elected
by the Congress, their company officers by the companies.
The minute men were placed under the orders of the Pro-
vincial Council and when in active service were to be subject
to the same discipline as soldiers on the continental establish-
ment. They were enlisted for six months only and at the
expiration of their term were disbanded by order of the
Provincial Congress. In that brief time, however, they fought
and won the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. The Provincial
Congress also authorized the organization of companies of
independent volunteers, light horse troops, rangers, and
artillery. All these organizations, however, like the minute
men, were temporary, existing only during the period of the
provisional government.

North Carolina's first line of defence was her militia.
The right to bear arms in defence of the State is one of the

437

438 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

fundamental rights secured to the people of North Carolina
by their Bill of Rights, adopted in 1776. Accordingly Chap-
ter I, Laws of 1777, passed by the first Assembly held under
the new Constitution, is "Anj Act to Establish a Militia in
this State." Several other acts relating to the militia were
subsequently passed during the Revolution but they did not
materially change the main features of the first act which was
based largely upon the militia law of the colonial government.
Under its terms all effective men in the State from sixteen to
fifty years of age, inclusive, were embraced in the militia, and
subject to draft. When called into service each man was to
be "furnished with a good Gun, shot bag and powder horn,
[and] a Cutlass or Tomahawk."

The basis of the organization of the militia was the county.
Every county was required to enroll its militia into companies
of not less than fifty men each, exclusive of commissioned offi-
cers. The men of each company were divided by lot into four
classes, each of which was to be called in its turn into active
service. Company musters were required to be held at least
once a month. All the companies of each county were organ-
ized into one or more regiments, or battalions which were
required to hold two general musters a year. In each of the
six military districts the battalions formed a brigade under
the command of a brigadier-general. All general and field
officers were elected by the General Assembly. Under the
Constitution the governor was the commander-in-chief of the
militia with power, during the recess of the Assembly, to call
them into active service. No accurate muster rolls of the
militia during the Revolution were kept, and the records of
their services are very meager. In 1782, Governor Alexander
Martin reported the total militia of the State at 26,822, but
how many of these saw active service it is impossible to say.
As a rule during the Revolution the militia justified the con-
tempt which professional soldiers have always felt for militia ;
yet justice requires that it be said that when well led the
militia often displayed fighting qualities which might well
excite the envy of veteran regulars. No troops ever fought
better than Dixon's North Carolina militia at Camden, while
it must not be forgotten that it was the militia of Virginia and
the Carolinas that struck the blow at King's Mountain that
turned the tide of the Revolution and assured the ultimate
triumph at Yorktown.

In 1775 the Continental Congress determined to raise a
Continental Army to which it asked the several states to con-
tribute in proportion to their populations. At first the men

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 439

were to be enlisted for one year only although Washington
repeatedly pointed out the folly of such a policy, warning Con-
gress that "no dependence could be put in a militia," or
other short-term troops and expressing his earnest conviction
"that our liberties must, of necessity, be greatly hazarded, if
not entirely lost, if their defence be left to any but a perma-
nent army." His warnings made but little impression until
reinforced by the military disasters of the summer of 1776,
which culminated in his defeat on Long Island, on August
27th. Alarmed by these events, in September, Congress re-
solved to raise a regular army enlisted "for the war," to be
composed of eighty-eight battalions.

North Carolina's quota was nine battalions. Six of these
had already been organized by authority of the Provincial
Congress. As we have already seen the Congress of August,
1775, raised two battalions of 500 men each on the conti-
nental establishment, and placed them under command of
Colonel James Moore and Colonel Robert Howe. They be-
came the first and second North Carolina Continentals. Four
additional battalions were provided for by the Congress of
April, 1776. The third was placed under command of Colonel
Jethro Sumner, the fourth under Colonel Thomas Polk, the
fifth under Colonel Edward Buncombe, and the sixth under
Colonel Alexander Lillington. To complete the State's quota,
the Congress of November, 1776, authorized the raising of
three more battalions to be commanded by Colonel James
Hogun, Colonel James Armstrong, and Colonel John Wil-
liams. These three completed the quota on paper. Neverthe-
less, in April, 1777, the General Assembly directed the rais-
ing of a tenth battalion to be commanded by Colonel Abraham
Sheppard and requested the Continental Congress to place it
on the continental establishment. The request was granted
and Sheppard 's became the tenth battalion of the North Car-
olina Continental Line.

North Carolina Continentals saw their first service outside
their own province in the defence of Charleston in the sum-
mer of 1776. As soon as Sir Henry Clinton's purpose to
strike a blow at the South became known the Continental
Congress created the Southern Department consisting of Vir-
ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and
assigned the command to General Charles Lee. Lee, who was
at New York when notified of his assignment, set out imme-
diately, March 7, 1776, for his department, arriving at
Charleston almost simultaneously with Clinton. He was accom-
panied by Howe who, together with Moore, had been promoted

440 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

to the rank of brigadier-general and ordered to report to Lee.
Moore himself remained at Wilmington to keep watch over a
small British fleet which still lingered in the Cape Fear, but
he dispatched four of his continental battalions to the de-
fence of Charleston. An account of the brilliant defence of
that city, and the disastrous repulse sustained by the British
fleet and army on June 28th, forms no appropriate part of this
narrative. Of the 6,522 troops which Lee gathered there under
his command, 1,400 were North Carolina Continentals. These
troops bore a conspicuous part in the battle winning high
praise from their commanding officer. "I know not which
corps I have the greatest reason to be pleased with," wrote
Lee to the president of the Virginia Council, "Muhlenberg's
Virginians, or the North Carolina troops; they are both
equally alert, zealous, and spirited." To Washington he re-
ported that Thompson's South Carolina rangers, "in con-
junction with a body of North Carolina Regulars," twice
repulsed determined attempts by the enemy to land on Sulli-
van's Island, adding: "Upon the whole, the South and North
Carolina troops, and the Virginia Rifle Battalion we have
here, are admirable soldiers."

TTpon their promotion, Moore and Howe were succeeded in
command of their battalions by Francis Nash and Alexander
Martin. Lee having been recalled, Howe succeeded him in
command of the Southern Department. He retained under
his command the third and some companies of the first and
second North Carolina continental battalions ; the others re-
joined Moore at Wilmington. The troops under Moore were
organized into a brigade and in January, 1777, ordered to
join Washington's army in Pennsylvania. While preparing
for this movement, Moore died and Nash, who had recently
been promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, was assigned
to the command of the brigade. Nash immediately marched
northward and joined Washington on July 1st. His brigade
took part in the maneuvres which led up to the battle of
Brandywine, September 11, 1777. Only a small part of the
brigade took part in that battle. The first battle in which the
brigade participated as a unit was the battle at Germantown,
October 4, 1777. Its heavy losses bear witness to its gallantry
on that field. Nash himself while leading his men into action
fell mortally wounded. He died three days later universally
lamented as an officer of ability and a sincere patriot. The
brigade passed the winter at Valley Forge and in the summer
of 1778 formed part of the army with which Washington pur-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 441

sued Clinton across New Jersey into New York. On June 29
it participated with credit in the battle of Monmouth.

Nash had been succeeded by Gen. Lachlan Mcintosh of
Georgia under whose command the brigade passed the winter
at Valley Forge. By the spring of 1778 losses in battle,
from disease, and by desertion had so decreased the enrol-
ment in the brigade that Congress resolved to reduce the
six battalions to three by consolidating the sixth, fourth,
and fifth with the first, second, and third. A little later
Colonel Shcppard arrived with the tenth thus adding a fourth
battalion to the brigade. The appointment of General Mc-
intosh had wounded the state pride of the troops and hurt
their morale, because they felt that the appointment of any
one other than a North Carolinian was a reflection on the
State. "They imagine," declared Harnett, "that they ap-
pear contemptible in the eyes of the Army, not having one
General Officer from our State." "Our troops are uneasy,"
he wrote at another time, "at not having, a General Officer
of our State to command them. * * * Our Officers are
exceedingly anxious about it. Colonel Sumner writes to me
that it is absolutely necessary." Nevertheless more than a
year passed before the Assembly acted. Finally on January
9, 1779, upon the nomination of the Assembly, Congress pro-
moted Colonel Sumner to the rank of brigadier-general, as-
signed him to the command of the North Carolina brigade,
and ordered him south to the defence of Georgia and South
Carolina.

In the meantime some of the officers who had lost their
commands by the consolidation of the battalions in May, had
been at work in North Carolina raising and organizing four
new battalions of nine months' Continentals which the As-
sembly, in April, 1778, had directed to be enlisted. The first
of these new battalions, numbering 600 men, was placed
under command of Colonel Hogun who in the fall of 1778
marched it to join Washington at White Plains. The others
were sent south to reinforce Sumner. On January 9, 1779,
Congress promoted Hogun to the rank of brigadier-general
and placed him in command of a new brigade composed of all
the North Carolina Continentals then in Washington's army.
On July 19th 200 volunteers from the brigade, under com-
mand of Major Hardy Murfree, took part in the storming of
Stony Point. In this assault, one of the most brilliant epi-
sodes of the war, they won high praise from their commanding
general, "Mad Anthony" Wayne, for their "good conduct and
intrepidity" in action. As the summer of 1779 advanced the

442 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

situation in the South hecame so critical that on September
20th the Continental Congress requested Washington to send
Hogun's brigade, numbering about 700 effectives, to the aid
of General Benjamin Lincoln at Charleston. Hogun reached
Charleston on March 3, 1780, and shared the fate of that un-
happy city. Its surrender carried with it North Carolina's
entire Continental Line except a few officers, including Gen-
eral Sumner, who happened to be absent at the time on other
duties.

North Carolina was never able to recruit her Conti-
nental Line up to its full strength. Some of the reasons for
this failure — viz., the weakness of the executive authority,
the divided counsels of the Whigs, the presence of the Tories,
and the financial breakdown of both State and United States
— have already been pointed out. Another cause was the gen-
erosity with which the State permitted South Carolina and
Georgia to recruit their battalions in North Carolina. As
early as December, 1776, the North Carolina Council declared
that the State was greatly handicapped "in making up her
quota of men in the continental service" because so many
of the militia she had sent to the defence of Charleston were
enlisting, with the consent of their officers, in the service of
South Carolina and Georgia ; and the Council found it nec-
essarv to forbid such enlistments from the organized militia
of the State except by express consent either of the executive
or the legislative authority. A fifth cause was the influence
of politics in determining military appointments. Governor
Caswell, writing in April, 1777, says: "The recruiting serv-
ice goes slowly, owing in a great measure to the negligence,
want of abilities, or want of influence in the officers." But
the chief cause of the thin ranks of North Carolina's conti-
nental battalions was the failure of the General Assembly
to pass an effective draft law. In 1775, Moore and Howe had
no difficulty in raising their battalions because they had the
full advantage of the wave of enthusiasm which swept the
colony into rebellion; but by 1777 that wave had spent its
force. Recruiting officers, therefore, found it difficult to in-
duce men to volunteer "for the war" when they could satisfy
both the law and their consciences by an occasional brief serv-
ice in the militia. Nor were men eager to enlist in units that
would take them away from their homes to service in distant
states. The North Carolina continental battalions, there-
fore, never went into battle with anything like their full com-
plement of men. This fact occasioned great mortification to
both the political and military representatives of the State.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 443

The delegates in the Continental Congress were urgent in
their appeals to the General Assembly to adopt "spirited
measures" to fill up the State's battalions. In December,

1777, Harnett begged his colleague, Burke, then at home at-
tending the session of the legislature, to inform him "of the
temper you find our Assembly in. Are they inclined to pur-
sue spirited measures? For God's sake, fill up your Battal-
ions, ' ' he exclaimed, ' ' lay taxes, put a stop to the sordid and
avaricious spirit which [has] affected all ranks and condi-
tions of men. All our foreign intelligence indicates
that Europe will soon be in a flame. Let us not depend upon
this. If we have virtue, we certainly have power to work
out our own salvation, I hope without fear or trembling."

But the Assembly, though aware of the necessity, lacked
either the wisdom or the courage to adopt and enforce the
"spirited measures" required. It never gave the State a
consistent, effective military policy. When it met in April,

1778, the returns submitted to it by the governor showed
the North Carolina brigade short of its quota by 2,648 men.
The Assembly declaring that since it was "absolutely neces-
sary" to complete the battalions and experience had demon-
strated that it was "impracticable to obtain that End in the
common Mode of recruiting," made its first effort at a draft
law. It provided that the men were to be drafted by lot from
the militia, placed on the continental establishment, and en-
listed for nine months. The act failed to accomplish its pur-
pose because the machinery for enforcing it was defective.
Accordingly when the Assembly met a year later, the State's
continental battalions were still short 2,000 men, and the
Assembly could think of no better way of filling the gaps than
by offering to every ten militiamen who should furnish one
continental recruit for eighteen months exemption from mil-
itary service for that period except in case of actual invasion
or insurrection. It is difficult to imagine a more vicious piece
of legislation. It not only failed to raise the men needed, but
it also thoroughly disorganized the militia. In order to secure
the 600 continental recruits which it produced, it was neces-
sary to exempt 6,000 other men from military service for
eighteen months. Accordingly when it became necessary for
the governor in the summer of 1780 to call out 2,000 militia,
the organizations which had been built up with so much care
and labor were found to be completely undermined by the
operations of the act of 1779.

In 1780, the Assembly, again faced with the same problem,
decided to try the effect of more liberal bounties. To volun-

444 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

teers in the continental service it offered $500 at the time of
enlistment; $500 at the end of each year's service; 200 acres
of land and one prime slave, or his value in currency, at the
end of three years, or of the war; and it solemnly set aside
and dedicated to this purpose immense tracts of the State's
western lands. But the promise of liberal bounties brought
no better results than the promise of exemption from serv-
ice, and in 1781, the Assembly finding- it impossible to fill up
its continental battalions, adopted the advice of the Conti-
nental Congress, reduced their number to four, and again re-
sorted to an ineffective draft to fill their ranks. But none of
these expedients succeeded; the State's continental battalions
were never full. At Germantown, Nash led to battle a brigade
of less than 800 men. On December 23, 1777, the brigade,
which should have numbered 6,552 officers and men, num-
bered only 881, of whom but 434 were present and fit for duty.
The published roster of North Carolina's ten continental bat-
talions contains a total of 5,454 names, and this number in-
cludes all those who had died, all who had been made prison-
ers, all who had been discharged, and all who had deserted;
and this last class numbered not less than 10 per cent of the
whole.

Throughout the Revolution the State retained immediate
control over its militia and ultimate control over its Conti-
nentals. The militia were raised, organized, armed, paid and
maintained solely by the State ; their field officers were elected
by the General Assembly; their commander-in-chief was the
governor. The authority of the State over its militia was
complete whether in or beyond its borders. Over its Conti-
nentals it was only less complete. The State raised and organ-
ized them and appointed their battalion officers, but their
general officers were appointed by the Continental Congress
upon the recommendation of the legislature. When actually
forming a part of the Continental Army under command of
Washington, or other Continental generals, the State's con-
tinental troops were subject to the orders of the command-
ing general, but even then the commanding general exercised
only a delegated authority. The State never surrendered its
ultimate authority over them. It not only raised and organ-
ized them in the first instance, but recruited their ranks, cre-
ated new units or consolidated old units as it saw fit, censured,
suspended or removed officers and appointed new ones, pun-
ished deserters, and exercised all these and other powers
over them even when they were under the immediate com-
mand of Washington himself. In 1777, the General Assembly

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 445

conferred upon the governor authority "to give such orders
as he may think necessary for the removal, marching or dis-
position of the Continental Troops in this State or any of
them. ' '

This assertion and exercise by the several states of the
right of control over their continental troops was one of the
most serious defects of the continental government. It pos-
sessed not that centralization of authority and power so
necessary to secure military efficiency. The Continental Con-
gress could suggest, advise, and request the use of the con-
tinental troops for continental purposes, but it could not com-
mand them. The ultimate authority lay with thirteen differ-
ent states, each claiming and exercising the powers of sov-
ereignty, jealous of their rights, and quick to resent any act
of the general government that suggested encroachments
upon them.

Throughout the Eevolution, North Carolina troops, both
Continentals and militia, in common with the troops of the
other states, endured cruel suffering, hunger and sickness,
and loss of physical vitality which diminished their fighting
capacity by reason of the failure of State and United States
to equip and maintain them properly. On January 31, 1778,
out of a total of 992 men and officers enrolle 1 in the North
Carolina brigade at Valley Forge, 249 were reported unfit for
duty for lack of clothes and shoes, and 323 were sick. This
condition continued all the winter, reaching its climax on
March 30th when the returns showed 360 on the sick list and
only 352 present and fit for duty. "I am very sorry to have
to report to you," wrote their commanding general to Gov-
ernor Caswell, in March, "that the men of my Brigade here
have suffered severely this winter for want of clothing and
other necessaries. Fifty of them died in and about Camp
since the beginning of January last, and near two hundred
sick here now besides as many more reported sick absent in
different Hospitals of this State and Jersey, a most distress-
ing situation!"

Valley Forge is, of course, the synonym for suffering and
heroic endurance, and its story is known to all the world ;
but Valley Forge was not the only place at which men suf-
fered and endured every extreme of cold and hunger and
disease for the cause of American independence. When Gen-
eral Greene took command of the American army at Charlotte
in December, 1780, he at once reported to Washington the
condition of his army, "if," he adds, "it deserves the name
of one. Nothing can be more wretched and distressing," he

446 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

continued, "than the condition of the troops, starving with
cold and hunger, without tents and camp equipage." The
Virginia troops were "literally naked and a great part to-
tally unfit for any kind of duty." "A tattered remnant of
some garment," wrote Greene evidently depressed at the con-
dition of his men, "clumsily stuck together with the thorns of
the locust tree form the sole covering of hundreds, *
and more than 1,000 are so naked that they can be put on duty
only in case of desperate necessity." Moreover he found 300
of them without arms or ammunition. Nor were these condi-
tions confined to the enlisted men. In 1779, General Hogun
wrote that his officers were "in 'great want," it being out of
their power to purchase clothes and other necessities "at the
exhorbitant prices" prevailing. On account of the deprecia-
tion of the currency in which their salaries were paid, the con-
dition of the officers of the Continental Line became so des-
perate that they threatened to resign in a body unless the
General Assembly came to their relief.

In general these distressing conditions were due less to
official indifference or incapacity than to the inability of the
government to mobilize the resources of the State. Before
1775 there were no manufactures in North Carolina, and when
war broke out the provincial government of course found the
source of supply of manufactured articles suddenly cut off.
To encourage industrial enterprises in the colony, the Pro-
vincial Congress in September, 1775, offered premiums rang-
ing from £25 to £750 to persons who would establish factories
for making saltpeter, gunpowder, cotton, woolen and linen
goods, and other needed articles. But in North Carolina the
Revolution was a civil war which produced such internal con-
ditions as made it impossible for such enterprises to be devel-
oped with any great success. As in the great Civil War of
1861-1865, therefore, the State was compelled to look abroad
for most of her supplies. But during the Revolution, North
Carolina had no credit, and no such universally needed prod-
uct as cotton on which to base a credit. In 1780, Benjamin
Hawkins, the State's agent for purchasing military stores,
bought at St. Eustatia several hundred stand of arms for
the State for which he was obliged to pledge his personal
credit. "I could procure nothing," he reported, "on the
faith of the State." When these and other difficulties, some
of which have already been discussed, are duly weighed and
considered the thing which impresses one is not so much the
failure as the astonishing success which attended the efforts

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 447

of the State to equip and supply her troops in the Revolu-
tion.

As the war progressed the State established factories for
making arms an 1 ammunition, set up salt works, and em-
ployed large numbers of non-combatants to make shoes and
clothes for the soldiers. Other means for raising supplies
were purchases from private persons, impressments, and the
levying of specific taxes. In every section of the State the
government constantly had agents laying in supplies of pork,
beef, flour, and other provisions for the army. In letters to
Burke and Washington, both written February 15, 1778, Cas-
well gives us some idea of his activities in this work. To
Burke he wrote: "I am to buy leather and skins, shoes and
other clothing, procure manufactures, set them to work, pur
chase salt and provisions, and procure boats and wagons for
sending those articles on. All this I am really constantly, al-
most busily [daily?] employed about myself." "The dis-
tresses of the Soldiery for want of clothing," he wrote to
Washington, "are truly alarming, and the feelings of every
man of the least sensibility must be wounded on receiving
the information of their unhappy circumstances. Since I was
favored with your Excellency's account of their sufferings,
I have been happy in purchasing for our Troops about 4,000
yards of woolen Cloth, 300 Blankets, 1,500 yards of Osnaburgs,
some Shoes and Stockings. I have also purchased a consid-
erable quantity of Tanned leather and Deerskins, all which
will be sent on to the Clothier General as soon as I can pro-
cure wagons. A considerable quantity of salt and salted pro-
visions have been also purchased under my directions."

Unfortunately many of the agents employed in this busi-
ness were inefficient and corrupt. Money entrusted to them
was squandered on their personal wants or lost at gambling
tables ; while large quantities of supplies which they purchased
never reached the commissaries. In 1780, the General Assem-
bly declared that "many persons have been intrusted with
large sums of public money for the use of the State, and also
public property, for which they have never accounted, but
have abused the trust reposed in them by misapplying the
same, to the great injury of the public credit," and created
a board of auditors to investigate the accounts of all such
agents and require them to settle with the State. Another
species of corruption was practiced by "sundry persons who
have lately," according to the Assembly of 1782, "stiled
themselves State Commissaries, Quarter-masters, [and] Su-
perintendents," and by such misrepresentations "committed

448 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

great abuses and waste, by making unlawful impressments
and misapplication of public stores." A special act was
therefore passed to reach and punish this class of grafters
and robbers.

The chief sources from which North Carolina, like many of
the other states, received military supplies were the French,
Spanish and Dutch West Indies. No sooner had war begun
than the harbors of Ocracoke, Edenton, Beaufort, New Bern
and Wilmington became white with the sails of merchantmen
and privateers. "The contemptible Port of Ocracoke," wrote
former Governor Martin, in January, 1778, "* * has

become a great channel of supply to the Rebels.
They have received through it and continued to receive at
that inlet * * as lately as the beginning of this month,

very considerable importations of the necessaries they most
want for the purpose of carrying on their Warfare from the
Ports of France and the French West Indian Islands. ' ' This
trade though hazardous held out prospects of large profits.
Enterprising merchants invested their fortunes in it. To sea-
men they offered "such exhorbitant pay," that the State
found it difficult to find crews for the public ships. The State
itself engaged in this business on a large scale. It carried on
its negotiations both through French agents and agents of its
own. In 1779 the Assembly appointed Benjamin Hawkins
agent to purchase military supplies both at home and abroad.
The next year, in order to introduce more system in the busi-
ness, it appointed Richard Caswell, Robert Bignall and Ben-
jamin Hawkins commissioners "for the express purpose of
carrying on a trade for the benefit of this State," empow-
ered them to hire, purchase, and build ships, to load them
with naval stores, tobacco and other North Carolina products,
"for the purpose of importing or procuring arms and other
military stores for the army, as well as for the importation of
salt and all kinds of merchandize" for general use.

This trade was a great stimulus to ship building. Ship-
yards sprang up at Edenton, Beaufort, New Bern and Wil-
mington and were busy throughout the war building and
launching almost every kind of river craft and seagoing ves-
sel. Some of the noted ships built at these yards were the
armed brigs, King Tammany and Pennsylvania Farmer,
which were built at Edenton for the State, and the Governor
Burke, "a fine, fast sailing Brig," also built at Edenton; the
Eclipse, a 14-gun brig built at Beaufort; the armed brigan-
tine, General Washington, built and fitted out at Wilming-
ton; and the Betsey, the Heart of Oak, the General Cas-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 449

well, the General Nash, and the Sturdy Beggar, ''allowed
to be the handsomest vessel ever built in America," all
built at New Bern. These and many other fast sailing
vessels slipped through the inlets of Eastern North Carolina,
ran down to the West Indies, or crossed the Atlantic to
France and Spain, sold their cargoes, and successfully elud-
ing the British cruisers that patrolled our waters, returned
to our ports laden with all manner of articles from heavy
artillery and West Indian rum to French laces, silk stock-
ings, and night caps. In June, 1776, the Polly and the
Heart of Oak arrived at New Bern with "2,000 weight
of gunpowder and 20 stand of small Arms, Compleate with
Iron ramrods [and] bayonets," which their owner offered
to the province at "a reasonable profit." In March, 1778,
several vessels arrived at New Bern from the Bermudas
with cargoes of salt, "which 'tis hoped," said The North Car-
olina Gazette, "will bring down the extravagant price of that
article." The next year the Holy Heart of Jesus imported
from France twenty-three cannon for which the State paid 140
hogshead of tobacco. The Ferdinand, also from a French
port, brought into Lookout Bay a large cargo including silk
stockings, woolen and thread night caps, silk gown patterns,
silk and thread handkerchiefs, "plumes for ladies and offi-
cers," and numerous other articles of equal military value.
Most of the vessels engaged in this trade were privateers
sailing under letters of marque and reprisal. Although those
who engaged in it were liable if captured to be hanged as pi-
rates, the profits were so enormous, the life so stimulating and
the results so invaluable to the country that many an adven-
turous youth, who preferred the excitement of the quarter-
deck to the dull drudgery of the army camp, eagerly enlisted
in this service. When the General Gates was lost in 1778
great anxiety was expressed at Edenton for the fate of "six
young gentlemen of the first families and best expectations in
this part of the country, who went [on her] volunteers to try
their fortunes." The service was important not only for the
supplies obtained, but also for the damage inflicted on British
commerce. In the fall of 1777, the Lydia, 12 guns and 50
men, took a large British slaver with a cargo of negroes just
from Africa "worth between Twenty and Thirty Thousand
Pounds." At about the same time the Nancy captured the
Invermay bound from Jamaica to Pensacola "with Rum
and Slaves, said to be worth £35,000 Proclamation," and the
Severn, bound from Jamaica to Bristol, with a cargo val-
ued at £40,000. In September, 1778, the Bellona, 16 guns,

Vol. 1—29

Cannon Purchased by Governor Caswell During the Revolution

(Now in Capitol Square at Raleigh flanking Houdon's
Statue of Washington)

Inscription on the Tablets

Bought in France by Richard Caswell

Mounted at Edenton, 1778.

Ite -mounted 1861. Captured by U. S. Force

1862. Trunnion broken off.

Presented by Edenton to the

State of North Carolina, 1903.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 451

returned to New Bern "from a short cruize" with four prizes
containing among other valuable commodities "a considerable
sum in specie." The enormous losses of provisions and mil-
itary stores occasioned by Gates' defeat at Camden, in
August, 1780, was nearly made good in September by the ar-
rival at Wilmington of the General Nash wTith two prizes con-
taining almost everything needed by the army, one valued at
£10,800 sterling, the other at £40,000. This latter prize was
declared to be "the most valuable Cargo ever imported into
this State. " ' ' The enemy, ' ' wrote Governor Nash, in Decem-
ber, 1780, "have not been entirely free of trouble off Charles-
ton and on the coast in that quarter during this summer. They
have suffered very considerably by our privateers, particularly
by open row boats. These boats, with 40 or 50 men aboard,
take in almost everything that comes their way. Two that
wTent out in company returned here [New Bern] this week,
after a leave of about 20 days, in which time they took and sent
in 12 valuable prizes, besides burning, I think, four."

All the victories, however, were not wTon, nor were all the
prizes taken by the Americans. Early in the war British
cruisers and privateers began to patrol our coast and keep
vigilant watch over our inlets. They frequently crossed the
bars, cut out merchantmen which had taken refuge behind
them, landed raiding parties, and plundered the country al-
most with impunity. "The coast," so runs a report to Gov-
ernor Caswell, in 1778, "is much infested at this time with
the enemy which are constantly landing men and plundering. ' '
In April, 1778, a British privateer captured two French ves-
sels which were loading behind Ocracoke Bar "with a consid-
erable quantity of Tobacco." "Thus has a small sloop with
4 guns and 30 men," commented The North Carolina Gazette,
lamenting the lack of protection to the inlets, "robbed this
State of two fine vessels with more than 100 hogshead of
tobacco and a considerable quantity of salt." In 1780 a ves-
sel carrying 3,000 stand of arms to the American army in the
South "was chased ashore in Virginia by one of the Enemy's
privateers." The climax came in 1781 when Major James H.
Craige with an insignificant force sailed up the Cape Fear
River and occupied Wilmington without opposition.

Most of these disasters could have been prevented had the
Assembly provided adequate coast defences. In 1777, after a
visit of "some men of war" to the Cape Fear, during which
they did "what mischief they transiently could," Samuel Ashe
wrote to Burke: "These visits might bo rendered disagree-
able, if not altogether prevented, would your Western mem-

452 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

bers lay aside their local prejudices, and consider the True
interest of the whole State, and suffer us to have a fort here."
"God send our Assembly may have wisdom enough to fortify
their seaports," wrote Cornelius Harnett from the Conti-
nental Congress. "I am distressed beyond measure," he de-
clared in a letter to Caswell, "to find our seacoast so much
neglected. '; "Mr. Maclaine writes me," he wrote at another
time, "he had hopes of getting our river [Cape Fear] forti-
fied, but I have despaired of it long ago; if the Assembly
should agree to it, I shall believe that miracles have not yet
ceased." But so far as the Assembly gave evidence to the
contrary miracles had ceased. As so often happens, the peo-
ple's representatives saved their constituents' money, and the
people paid the price in blood and suffering.

One reason why North Carolina's battalions were always
short of men and equipment was the liberality with which
the State stripped herself in aid of her sister states. What-
ever may be said of the public men of North Carolina of the
Revolution, it cannot be denied that in their public conduct
they were inspired by a spirit that knew no boundaries be-
tween colonies struggling in the common cause. And so we
find that in the summer of 1779, at the very time North Caro-
lina militia were fighting among the palmettoes on the Stono,
North Carolina Continentals were storming the rocky
promontory of Stony Point on the Hudson.

It was to her immediate neighbors that North Carolina
rendered the greatest service in the Revolution. When Vir-
ginia threatened by the Indians in the West appealed to her
for aid, she promptly sent 300 of her western militia to
Virginia's assistance. In the East, too, as we have seen,
North Carolina Continentals under Howe assisted the Vir-
ginia troops in expelling the British from Norfolk. In 1777,
a British fleet of one hundred sails entered Chesapeake Bay
and Lieutenant-Governor John Page, anticipating an immedi-
ate invasion, appealed to Governor Caswell for help saying,
"we hope to receive considerable assistance from you, having
on a former occasion experienced the readiness with which
North Carolina furnished it." Caswell promptly ordered the
commanding officers of the first and second brigades ' ' to hold
themselves in readiness to march at the shortest notice." In
other chapters of this history something has been said of the
bad feeling which existed between North Carolina and Vir-
ginia in early colonial times ; it is a pleasure, therefore, to be
able to record now the incidents that obliterated the last traces
of such feelings between the two commonwealths and laid the

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 453

foundation for that mutual esteem and respect in which they
have now for nearly a century and a half held each other.
Acknowledging Governor Caswell's prompt action, Governor
Page wrote : ' ' I cannot refrain from acknowledging the obli-
gations I think the State is under to you, Sir, for the orders
you issued for one third of your Militia to hold themselves
in readiness to march to our assistance on the late alarming
occasion, and to the good people of North Carolina for the
readiness they have always shown to assist us. May an affec-
tionate mutual attachment between Carolina and Virginia
ever increase, to the Honor and security of the United States
in general, and of these contiguous sister States in particu-
lar."

From the beginning of the war both South Carolina and
Georgia drew largely upon the superior resources of North
Carolina. In 1776, President Harnett of the North Carolina
Council of Safety assured President John Rutledge of South
Carolina that North Carolina would "upon all occasions
afford South Carolina every possible assistance." This
promise was made good. During the invasion of 1776, North
Carolina poured troops, arms, ammunition and supplies into
South Carolina with a liberality that "left this colony almost
in a defenceless state, defenceless and very, very alarming,"
declared the Council, "as we have every reason to expect Gen-
eral Clinton's return here should he fail in his Expedition
against South Carolina." Early in the war both South Car-
olina and Georgia sought permission to recruit their battal-
ions in North Carolina. The Convention of 1776, considering
that "the Defence of South Carolina is of the last Importance
to the Well being of the United States," not only granted the
request, but also offered to raise two additional brigades of
volunteers to be sent to her assistance. A similar response
was given to Georgia's request. "We have given every facil-
ity and assistance to the recruiting officers from the State
of Georgia," wrote the Council of Safety to the North Car-
olina delegates in the Continental Congress, "and have the
pleasure to acquaint you that they have met with great suc-
cess." Indeed, so great was their success that John Penn
thought it would "be prudent to stop the officers of the neigh-
boring States from inlisting any more men in North Carolina
untill we have compleated our Quota."

But such prudence did not appeal sympathetically to the
men then directing the affairs of North Carolina. They cared
little whether the men were enlisted in the service of North
Carolina, South Carolina, or Georgia, provided only they

454 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

were in the service of the United States. Consequently
Northi Carolina became the "recruiting ground for the entire
South," and many a soldier who followed the flag of another
State thought, as he struck down his country's enemies, of
his little cabin nestling among the pines of North Carolina. It
was the manifestation of this spirit that led Charles Pinckney
of South Carolina, during the invasion of that colony in
1779, to write with pardonable exaggeration: "As to further
aid from North Carolina they have agreed to send us 2,000
more troops immediately. We have now upwards of 3,000
of their men with us, and I esteem this last augmentation as
the highest possible mark of their affection for us and as the
most convincing proof of their zeal for the glorious cause in
which they are engaged. They have been so willing and ready
on all occasions to afford us all the assistance in their power,
that I shall ever love a North Carolinian, and join with Gen-
eral Moultrie in confessing that they have been the salvation
of this country. ' '

But North Carolina's policy toward her sister states was
not altogether altruistic. Her statesmen of course realized
that her fate was involved in the fate of all and recognized the
wisdom of the policy of defending North Carolina on the soil
of Georgia and South Carolina. Harnett gave expression to
the general feeling when, "urging that the utmost exertions be
made to aid Georgia and South Carolina, he said: "I am one
of those old Politicians who had much rather see my neigh-
bour's house on fire than my own, but at the same time would
lend every assistance in my power to quench the flame." The
progress of events proved the wisdom of this policy. When
it finally came North Carolina's turn to suffer invasion the
enemy was so exhausted by his efforts to conquer Georgia and
South Carolina that after his Pyrrhic victory at Guilford
Court House he was unable to maintain the struggle and soon
departed from the State. Thus was North Carolina saved
from the unhappy fate which had befallen her two neighbors.

CHAPTER XXV
THE WAR IN THE SOUTH

North Carolina was able to send generous military assist-
ance to her sister states because from 1776 to 1780, except
for the Tories in her midst, her own soil was free from the
enemy. A similar immunity was enjoyed by the other south-
ern states for more than two years after Clinton's repulse at
Charleston, but in the winter of 1778 this happy situation came
to an end. The royal governors of North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia had never ceased to represent the
people of those states as Loyalists at heart, eagerly awaiting
the arrival of a British force which would enable them to
overthrow the rebel governments and restore the royal author-
ity. Accordingly having failed in the North, in the summer of
1778, Sir Henry Clinton determined to transfer the seat of
war once more to the South. "If the rebellion could not be
broken at the center, it was hoped that it might at least be
frayed away at the edges; and should fortune so far smile
upon the royal armies as to give them Virginia also, perhaps
the campaign against the wearied North might be renewed
at some later time and under better auspices." 1

The first blow fell on Georgia. In December, 1778, a Brit-
ish force of 3,500 men, under Colonel Archibald Campbell, con-
voyed by a British squadron, landed near Savannah, routed
General Robert Howe's army of 1,200 Americans who at-
tempted to resist their movement, and entered the city in tri-
umph. In January, 1779, General Augustine Prevost with
2,000 regulars from Florida reached Savannah, took command
of the united forces, and dispatched Campbell into the interior
of the State. Campbell drove the militia before him, occupied
Augusta without opposition, and established posts in various
parts of Western Georgia. Within six weeks from the time
of Campbell's arrival at Savannah, the conquest of Georgia
was so complete that the royal governor was invited to return
from England to resume his government.

Fiske : The American Revolution, Vol. II, p. 163.

455

456 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

The Americans, however, were not ready to acknowledge
defeat. General Benjamin Lincoln, who had superseded Howe
in command of the Southern Department, arrived at Howe's
camp on January 2d, and took command, Howe going north to
join Washington's army. Lincoln had collected at Charles-
ton about 7,000 men, of whom a third were North Carolina
militia under command of General John Ashe and North Car-
olina Continentals under General Sumner. Feeling strong
enough to assume the offensive, Lincoln dispatched Ashe with
1,500 men against Augusta, but on March 3d, at Briar Creek,
Ashe permitted his army to be surprised and routed. His men
were so badly scattered that only 450 of them rejoined Lin-
coln's army. Ashe's defeat destroyed all hope of recovering
Georgia at that time. Indeed a movement of Prevost com-
pelled Lincoln to retire from Georgia and hasten to the de-
fence of Charleston. Movements in and about that city cul-
minated on June 20th in the battle of Stono Ferry m which
Lincoln made a determined but unsuccessful attack on the
enemy. North Carolina troops under Sumner formed the
right and the Continentals under General Isaac Huger the
left of the attacking force, while Hamilton's North Carolina
and South Carolina Loyalists were in the front of the British
line. The Americans lost heavily in killed and wounded.
Among the wounded was a brilliant young cavalry officer,
Major William R. Davie, twenty-three years of age that day,
who was destined to win renown as a soldier and statesman.
Although able to parry this blow, Prevost deemed it wise to
abandon his attempt against Charleston and withdraw to Sa-
vannah. The intense heat and sickly season of July and Au-
gust put a stop to further operations during that summer.

In this interval Lincoln planned an attempt to recapture
Savannah and recover Georgia in co-operation with the French
fleet under Count d'Estaing who wras then cruising among
the West Indies. Accordingly on September 1st, D'Estaing
with an army of 6,000 men convoyed by a fleet of thirty-seven
ships appeared off Savannah while Lincoln with 6,000 troops
invested the town from the land side. Prevost defended the
city with about 3,000 men. Prompt action and intelligent
leadership would probably have forced him to surrender, but
the allies displayed neither. Failing to reduce the place after
a three weeks' seige, on October 9th they undertook to carry
it by storm. Again North Carolina Continentals led by Colonel
Gideon Lamb and North Carolina Loyalists under Hamilton
fought gallantly on opposing sides. The assault failed,
D'Estaing weighed anchor and sailed away, and Lincoln was

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 457

forced to fall back on Charleston leaving Georgia in the hands
of the enemy.

The British had struck their first blow against Georgia
because it was the weakest of the thirteen states, and its
conquest would give them the necessary base for operations
against the Carolines. "Georgia should be taken first,"
Germain had written to Clinton, "and the passage into South
Carolina will then be comparatively easy." Clinton, now
commander-in-chief of the British armies in America, had
never ceased to cherish hopes of taking Charleston and re-
covering the prestige which his repulse there in 1776 had
cost him; and keeping an observant eye on the operations in
the South he saw in the conquest of Georgia the opportunity
for which he had been waiting. With Savannah as its base
an army could easily march overland and attack Charleston
in the rear while a fleet assailed the city in front. Clinton
resolved, therefore, upon operations against Charleston under
his own command, and on the day after Christmas, 1779,
saited from New York with an army of 8,500 men, convoyed
by a fleet of five ships of the line and nine frigates manned
by crews numbering about 5,000. Later he was joined at
Charleston by 2,500 men under Lord Rawdon whom he had
ordered to follow him from New York. These together with
the troops ordered up from Savannah raised Clinton's army
to about 13,000 men. Not only were these troops the flower of
the British army in America, but they were led by a group
of extraordinarily able officers. Conspicuous among them
were Lord Cornwallis, Lord Rawdon, Colonel James Webster,
Colonel Patrick Ferguson and Colonel Banastre Tarleton.
Confident of the outcome, Clinton approached his task with the
utmost deliberation, planning every operation carefully before
he finally opened the seige on March 29, 1780. In the meantime
Lincoln had been making the utmost exertions to defend the
city, throwing up works and gathering behind them all the
troops he could summon to his aid. On March 3d, he was
joined by 700 North Carolina Continentals under Hogun
whom Washington had dispatched from his own army. He
had also 1,000 North Carolina militia under Lillington, but
about 800 of these departed during the seige ; later, however,
this loss was partially made good by the arrival of 300 other
North Carolina militia. Altogether Lincoln gathered in the
doomed city about 6,000 men. Military policy dictated the
abandonment of the city and the preservation of the army;
but the civil authorities of both State and city would not listen
to such a proposal. The result was that after withstanding a

458 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

seige of over a month, on Mav 12th both city and army were
forced to capitulate. Seven generals, 290 other officers, and
more than 5,000 rank and file laid down their arms. The
surrender carried with it the entire North Carolina Con-
tinental Line, numbering 815 officers and men, including Gen-
eral Hogun, and about 600 North Carolina militia.

The fall of Charleston stripped South Carolina of her
organized defenders and opened the way for the conquest of
the State. All the strategic points on the coast — Georgetown,
Charleston, Beaufort and Savannah — were already in the
hands of the enemy, and nothing prevented their occupying
those in the interior at will. Of these the most important were
Augusta, "the gateway to Georgia;" Ninety-Six which dom-
inated the line of communication between Augusta and the
backwoods settlements of North Carolina; and Camden, "the
key between the North and the South," in which centered the
principal inland roads by which South Carolina could be en-
tered from the north. The line of communication between
Camden and Ninety-Six, a distance of eighty miles, was com-
manded by the smaller post of Kocky Mount. Northeast of
Camden was Cheraw, controlling the northeastern section
of South Carolina and overlooking the settlements of the
loyal Highlanders in North Carolina. Immediately after the
surrender of Charleston, Lord Cornwallis advanced inland
and seized all of these points. No resistance was offered ; the
several posts were easily "possessed, fortified and garri-
soned; all the immediate country was submissive, and pro-
testations of loyalty resounded in every quarter." The in-
terior secured, Cornwallis returned to Charleston to complete
the restoration of the civil authority in South Carolina and
to prepare for the invasion of North Carolina.

Confident that Georgia and. South Carolina were subju-
gated beyond recovery, on June 5th Clinton sailed for New
York leaving Cornwallis with 8,345 men to hold those states
and complete the work in the South by the conquest of North
Carolina and Virginia. Clinton had no doubt of Cornwallis'
ability to accomplish these tasks. The surrender of Charles-
ton, he thought, "insures the reduction of this and the next
province." He had ample grounds for his confidence. British
troops held all the strategic points in South Carolina and
Georgia. The way into North Carolina was open, and that
State was helpless to prevent invasion. Her resources were
exhausted. Her organized forces had been sacrificed in the
defence of Charleston. Her people were dispirited and
alarmed, her enemies jubilant, arrogant, and confident.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 459

Whigs and Tories alike anticipated the immediate invasion
of the State, the former with dread and apprehension, the
latter with enthusiasm and hope. Had Cornwallis advanced
promptly, he would certainly have laid North Carolina at his
feet, but pleading the intensity of the heat, the necessity of giv-
ing his men rest, and the lack of provisions and stores, he de-
cided to spend the summer at Charleston and enter North
Carolina at his leisure in the fall.

The chief reason for his decision was the confidence which
lie placed in the representations of former Governor Martin
and other fugitive Loyalists as to the general loyalty of the
people of North Carolina. "Our hopes of success in offensive
operations," he wrote, "were not founded only upon the
efforts of the corps under my immediate command, which
did not much exceed three thousand men; but principally
upon the most positive assurances given by apparently cred-
itable deputies and emissaries that, upon the appearance of a
British army in North Carolina, a great body of the inhabi-
tants were ready to join and co-operate with it, in endeavoring
to restore his Majesty's Government." Accordingly from
Charleston he established communications with the Tories of
North Carolina to whom he sent emissaries to bid them attend
to their harvests, collect provisions, and remain quiet until
the king's army was ready to enter the State in August or
September.

The very completeness of the British victory proved Corn-
wallis' ruin. It conspired with the exaggerated representa-
tions of the loyalty of the Carolinas which the exiled Loyalists
unceasingly poured into his ears to produce a feeling of over-
confidence which the real situation did not warrant. After
the surrender of Charleston, Clinton had issued a proclama-
tion offering pardon to all persons, except those guilty of
crime, who would return to their allegiance to the king; and
many of the people, looking upon the cause of independence
as hopeless, tired of war and eager for peace, hastened to take
advantage of his offer. Clinton reported to Lord Germain,
secretary of state for the colonies, that "the inhabitants from
every quarter repair to the detachments of the army, and to
this garrison [Charleston] to declare their allegiance to the
King." "A general revolution of sentiment seemed to take
place, and the cause of Great Britain appeared to triumph over
that of the American Congress."2 But Clinton was not sat-
isfied with passive obedience, and just before departing for

2 Tarleton : Campaigns, p. 25.

460 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

New York, issued a second proclamation discharging all
paroles, except prisoners captured in battle, and command-
ing all persons to take an active part in the restoration of
the royal government upon pain of being treated as rebels
and enemies. The folly of this action became immediately
apparent. It "produced a counter-revolution in the minds and
inclinations of the people," says Stedman, the British his-
torian, "as complete and as universal as that which succeeded
the fall of Charlestown. " 3 The people of South Carolina re-
fused to become the instruments of their own subjugation;
they rose again in rebellion, organized themselves into bands
of partisans under the leadership of James Williams, Andrew
Pickens, Thomas Sumter, and Francis Marion, and opened a,
form of fierce guerrilla warfare upon the enemy's outposts
which made it impossible for Cornwallis to advance with
safety into North Carolina.

North Carolina took advantage of the British general's
procrastination to reorganize her scattered forces and prepare
for resistance. Caswell, who had been appointed to the com-
mand of the militia with the rank of major-general, concen-
trated the eastern militia at Cross Creek to overawe the High-
landers. In the West, Rutherford, Davie, Davidson, Francis
Locke and other bold and aggressive partisan leaders aroused
the Scotch-Irish of Mecklenburg, Rowan, and surrounding
counties, and by the middle of June, had assembled 900 men
under Rutherford near Charlotte, and 400 under Locke and
other officers near Ramsaur's Mill. Though short of ammu-
nition and "obliged to turn their implements of husbandry
into those of war by hammering up their scythes and sickles
and forming them into swords and spears," 4 they more than
made good their deficiency in equipment by the fierce and
warlike zeal with which they rallied to the defense of their
homes.

These partisan bands were too weak in numbers, too loose
in discipline, and too short of equipment for extended cam-
paigns, but for the sudden gatherings and hasty dispersions,
the quick advances and the rapid retreats of guerrilla warfare
they were unsurpassed. For this kind of service no troops
ever had more skillful leaders. Rutherford, Davie, Davidson
and Locke of North Carolina worked in complete harmony and
co-operation with Williams, Pickens, Sumter and Marion of

3 History of the American War. Vol. 2, p. 198.

4 Moultrie, William :' Memoirs of the American Revolution, Vol.
II, p. 213.

IirSTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 461

South Carolina. No foraging party escaped their vigilance.
No Tory gathering was safe from their sudden onsets. No
British post was immune from their attacks. Though not
always successful, they were a source of constant annoyance
and apprehension to the British, while their activity and dar-
ing kept alive the spirit of resistance among the patriots dur-
ing the dark days of the summer of 1780.

The story of their exploits resembles rather the romances
of knight errantry than the sober facts of history. At sun-
rise in the morning of June 20th, Locke with a band of 400
men surprised and routed 1,300 Tories whom emissaries of
Cornwallis, contrary to his lordship's orders, had embodied
at Ramsaur's Mill in Lincoln County preparatory to joining
the British at Camden. Davie's cavalry arriving after the
battle had begun, pursued the fugitives, killing and capturing
many of them and completely dispersing the rest. On July
2d, Davie surprised and captured a convoy of provisions and
clothing on its way to the British garrison at Hanging Rock.
A few days later, July 21st, Davidson with 160 light horse
from Rutherford's brigade attacked 250 Tories under Colonel
Samuel Bryan, one of the most active of the Tory leaders, at
Colston's Mill on Pee Dee River, killed and captured about
fifty, "and put the rest to flight," reported Major Thomas
Blount to Governor Nash, "with more precipitation than we
fled from Bryar Creek." Ten days later, under the very
eyes of the British garrison at Hanging Rock, Davie fell upon
three companies of Bryan's Loyalists returning from an ex-
cursion, cut them to pieces, captured 100 muskets and 60
horses without the loss of a man, and before the British gar-
rison recovered from their consternation sufficiently to beat to
arms was safely beyond their reach. Emboldened by the suc-
cess of these and many other similar exploits, on August 6th
Davie and Sumter united forces for an attack on Hanging-
Rock itself. Its garrison numbered 500 men of whom 160 were
of Tarleton's famous legion. The attacking party consisted
of about 500 North Carolinians under Davie and Colonel Irwin
of Mecklenburg County, and 300 South Carolinians under
Sumter. Taking the enemy by surprise, they drove th rough
the British camp and were on the point of winning a brilliant
victory when some of Sumter's men stopping to plunder the
camp threw the American lines into confusion. The British
rallied and Sumter and Davie were compelled to draw off
their forces having, however, inflicted a heavier loss upon
the enemy than they themselves sustained. These exploits are
cited here not because they were more important than others.

462 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

but because they were typical of many such enterprises too
numerous to mention.

Such an outburst of activity among a people whom he had
thought completely subjugated astounded Cornwallis, while
the boldness and success of the Americans thoroughly cowed
the great mass of Loyalists and neutrals in the two Carolinas.
Cornwallis declared that he had not expected any hostile dem-
onstrations in North Carolina and having "much business to
do atCharlestown,"was arranging his affairs in that city quite
satisfactorily "when our tranquility was first disturbed by
the accounts of a premature rising of our friends [at Ram-
saur's Mill] in Try on County, North Carolina, in the latter
end of June, who having assembled without concert, plan or
proper leaders, were two days after surprised and totally
routed. * * * Many of them fled into this Province,
where their reports tended much to terrify our friends and
encourage our enemies." So too Bryan's men fleeing from
Colston's Mill did not halt "until they reached the Enemy's
next Post at the Waxhaws, where they threw the whole into
the utmost confusion and Consternation." The British soon
found their grip on South Carolina slipping. In August the
whole country between the Pee Dee and the Santee rivers was
"in an absolute State of Rebellion." Hostilities were con-
stantly breaking out "in different parts of the frontier"
where, wrote Cornwallis, "General Sumpter [sic], an active
and daring man, was constantly Menacing our

small posts." Then, too, "reports industriously propagated
in this Province of a large Army coming from the Northward
had very much intimidated our friends, encouraged our
enemies, and determined the wavering against us." Before
the summer was over Cornwallis became convinced that if he
did not advance into North Carolina and subjugate that State
he "must give up both South Carolina and Georgia, and retire
within the Walls of Charlestown. "

In the meantime the critical situation of the Carolinas
had aroused both Washington and Congress to action. Early
in the summer Washington had dispatched from his own army
2,000 excellent Delaware and Maryland troops under Baron
de Kalb to reinforce Lincoln at Charleston. Kalb arrived at
Hillsboro on June 20th. Everywhere he found an utter lack
of preparation to meet the crisis, and complained bitterly
that he was compelled to subsist his army by his own efforts.
He could obtain supplies from the people only by military
force and in his efforts received "no assistance from the legis-
lative or executive power" of the State. Governor Nash de-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 463

fended himself by pointing out his lack of power under the
Constitution which he declared to be totally "inadequate to the
public exigencies." However, Kalb's presence greatly en-
couraged the Whig leaders. Caswell in command of Gregory's
and Butler's brigades of North Carolina militia and General
Edward Stevens in command of the Virginia militia hastened
to put themselves under the baron's command. Rutherford,
too, with his command and Colonel William Porterfield then
near the South Carolina border with 400 Virginia Continen-
tals, prepared to join the main army. Kalb was planning an
advance into South Carolina when on July 25th, he was super-
seded in command by General Horatio Gates. After the sur-
render of Charleston, Congress had unanimously chosen
Gates, still masquerading as the conqueror of Burgoyne, to
succeed Lincoln in command of the Southern Department.
Notifying Gates of his appointment, Richard Peters, secretary
of the Board of War, wrote: "Our affairs to the Southward
look blue; so they did when you took Command before the
Burgoynade. I can only now say 'Go and do likewise.' " But
Gates ' friend Charles Lee, who had formed a juster estimate
of Gates' military capacity, cynically warned him to beware
lest his northern laurels should change to southern willows.
However, there were few who then doubted Gates' title to his
northern laurels, and his appointment was, therefore, hailed
with joy by the Americans and with apprehension by the
British and Tories.

Gates began with a blunder and ended with a. disaster.
He took command at Hillsboro, July 25th. His objective was
Camden, the chief British post, held by Lord Rawdon. Two
roads led to Camden. Kalb, who had studied the situation
carefully, advised the route through Salisbury and Charlotte
which though the longer of the two ran through a region in-
habited by friends and abounding in provisions. The short-
er and more direct route ran through a barren region, thinly
settled and generally hostile. Every consideration urged
the choice of the former, yet Gates rejecting the advice of
all his generals and pleading his eagerness to meet the enemy,
chose the latter and on July 27th put his army in motion. On
the march he was joined by Porterfield with 400 Virginia
Continentals, Stevens with 700 Virginia militia, and Caswell
with 1,200 North Carolina militia. When he encamped ten
miles from Camden on the afternoon of August 15th, Gates
had under his command 3,052 men of whom more than half
were untrained militia. On their long march green corn and
unripe fruit had been their principal diet, and dysentery and

4G4 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

cholera morbus had wrought such havoc with their health
that they were in no condition for a battle. Nevertheless
Gates on the evening of August 16th, moved out of his camp
to attack Lord Rawdon at daybreak.

Gates had scorned the use of cavalry and consequently was
entirely ignorant of the situation in the enemy's camp. Lord
Rawdon who knew every movement made by his adversary
had called in the garrisons from the smaller posts scattered
throughout the interior and concentrated his forces at Au-
gusta, Ninety-Six and Camden. Moreover at his request Corn-
wallis had come with reinforcements from Charleston arriv-
ing at Camden unknown to Gates on August 14th. The com-
bined forces under his command were but little more than
2,000 but they were seasoned troops. Among them were two
regiments of North Carolina Loyalists. Although aware of
his numerical inferiority to Gates, Cornwallis, relying upon
the superior discipline and greater experience of his troops,
determined to take the offensive.

Unknown to each other Gates and Cornwallis both
planned a night attack. About 2 o'clock in the morning of
August 16th, their advance guards came in contact about five
miles from Camden. In the skirmish that followed the
Americans were routed. From prisoners Gates now learned
for the first time that Cornwallis had arrived at Camden with
regulars and was himself in command. In a panic he thought
only of retreat. He had in the first instance stubbornly taken
the wrong road that he might hasten to meet the enemy, now
in the presence of the foe both his eagerness and his courage
vanished. Calling a council of war, he asked what should be
done. Silence greeted his query until General Stevens ex-
claimed, "Well, gentlemen, is it not now too late to do any-
thing but fight!" Each side having now lost the advantage of
a surprise, both drew up their forces for battle, about 200
yards from each other. Gates placed the Delaware regiment
and the second Maryland brigade on his right under Kalb,
the North Carolina militia under Caswell in the center, and
Stevens with the Virginia militia on his left. The first Mary-
land brigade, under General William Smallwood, was held in
reserve. The British left opposed to Kalb was under com-
mand of Rawdon, their right opposed to Caswell and Stevens
was led by Colonel James Webster. Tarleton's cavalry
hovered in the rear, ready to give aid where needed.

At daylight Cornwallis opened the battle with a vigorous
attack on the Carolina and Virginia militia. As Webster's
regulars in perfect formation swept down upon them, the un-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 465

trained militia were seized with a panic. The Virginians
without firing a shot threw down their arms and fled. Cas-
well's militia immediately followed suit. Breaking through
the first Maryland brigade, they threw it into confusion and
catching Gates up in the fleeing mass swept him along with
them. As they fled, Tarleton's horse fell upon them like an
avalanche cutting them down in large numbers. One regiment
of North Carolina militia, under command of Major Hal Dixon,
attaching itself to the brave Marylanders on its right, refused
to join in the shameful rout. "None, without violence to the
claims of honor and justice," wrote "Light Horse Harry"
Lee in his "Memoirs," 5 "can withhold applause from Colonel
[sic] Dixon and his North Carolina regiment of militia. Hav-
ing their flank exposed by the flight of the other militia, they
turn with disdain from the ignoble example ; and fixing their
eyes on the Marylanders, whose left they became, determined
to vie in deeds of courage with their veteran comrades. Nor
did they shrink from this daring resolve. In every vicissitude
of the battle, this regiment maintained its ground, and when
the reserve under Smallwood, covering our left, relieved
its naked flank, forced the enemy to fall back.': Gregory's
North Carolina militia also acquitted themselves well. Formed
immediately on the left of the Continentals, they kept the field
while they had a bullet to fire ; and many of those who were
captured had no wounds except from bayonets. On the Ameri-
can right the Delaware and Maryland troops under the gallant
Kalb fought like veterans for nearly an hour, and did not
break until Kalb was killed, and Webster's regulars had at-
tacked them in the rear. The whole line then gave way and
the rout became general.

The American army was destroyed. Its colors, artillery,
ammunition wagons, military stores, baggage and camp equip-
age, and 2,000 muskets fell into the hands of the enemy. More
than 800 Americans were killed, including a third of the Con-
tinentals, and 1,000 were captured. Among the killed were
Porterfield, Gregory and Kalb ; among the captured Ruther-
ford. "The taking of that violent and cruel incendiary, Gen-
eral Rutherford," wrote Cornwallis, "has been a lucky cir-
cumstance." "None were saved," wrote Lee, "but those who
penetrated swamps which had been doomed impassable. ' : All
along the line of retreat evidences of the completeness of the
British victory were abundant. "The road was heaped with
the dead and the wounded. Arms, artillery, horses, and bag-

5 P. 186.

Vol. 1—30

466 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

gage were strewed in every direction; and the whole adjacent
country presented evidences of the signal defeat." The
laurels of Saratoga had indeed changed to the willows of
Camden.

Four hundred of North Carolina's militia had been killed,
wounded and captured, the rest completely dispersed. Again
the State lay open to invasion; again Cornwallis had but to
advance to reap the fruits of his victory; again he let the
opportunity slip from his grasp. His delay gave the Ameri-
cans a breathing spell in which to rally their broken forces.
Undismayed at their misfortune they set themselves to the
task with determination. Gates at Hillsboro was all activity
but being " execrated by the officers, unrevered by the men
and hated by the people," he could accomplish but little. Cas-
well was more successful. On the retreat from Camden, he
stopped long enough at Charlotte to order out the militia of
Mecklenburg, Rowan and Lincoln counties ; while from Hills-
boro he directed three regiments of the eastern militia which
fortunately had not reached him in time for the battle to ren-
dezvous at Ramsay's Mill in Chatham County, organized
them into a brigade under- General Jethro Sumner, and led
them to the camp which General Smallwood had established at
Salisbury. Smallwood had under his command "the shattered
remains of the Maryland Division," numbering about 270
cavalry and infantry. He also was active in getting out the
militia. "I have used every exertion," he wrote, "to encour-
age and induce the militia to assemble at Charlotte and am
happy to acquaint you that they have turned out in great
numbers, seem spirited and desirous of being commanded by
some Continental officer." Governor Nash called out the sec-
ond draft of militia and directed them to embody at Hillsboro,
Salisbury and Charlotte. On September 6th Gates reported
to Washington that ''1,400 of the Second Draught of the
Militia of this State are marched to cover Salisbury and the
country from thence to Charlotte, where Colonel Sumpter has
a command. Three hundred Virginia Riflemen un-

der Colonel Campbell and Militia from the back Counties are
marching to the East Bank of the Yadkin at the ford, and
General Stevens, with what have not run home of the other
Virginia Militia is at Guilford Court House. The Maryland
division and the Artillery are here to be refitted. The former
will be put into one strong Regiment, with a good Light In-
fantry Company under Colonel Williams. * * Gen-
eral Muhlenburg acquaints me that near Five Hundred Regu-
lars are upon their march from Petersburg!! to this place;

HISTORY OP NORTH CAROLINA 467

these with the Marylanders above mentioned will make us
stronger in Continental troops than I was before the action."

There were men enough under arms in North Carolina to
repel an invasion could they but be organized, equipped, and
properly led. At Salisbury Smallwood's men were "in a most
wretched situation for want of cloaths of all kinds.' ; "^Vhen
Sumner took command of his new brigade at Ramsay's Mill
he found the arms in bad order, a shortage of ammunition,
no organized commissary, and one-third of his soldiers scat-
tered about at various farm houses threshing out wheat. The
Continentals at Hillsboro were "in want of everything except
arms," many "almost naked," and large numbers unable to
take the field for want of shoes. The General Assembly which
met at Hillsboro August 23d undertook to relieve this situa-
tion. Governor Nash had so strongly represented his lack
of authority without the Council, and complained so bitterly
of his councilors' neglect of their duties, that the Assembly
determined to confer all the war powers of the governor and
Council upon a board of war composed of Alexander Martin,
John Penn and Oroondates Davis. To this board was given
extra-constitutional powers for raising, organizing and equip-
ping troops. Most important of all was the finding of a com-
petent commanding officer. Gates' reputation was irrevocably
lost but the Assembly had no control over him. Caswell's
reputation had suffered only less than Gates', and over Cas-
well who commanded the state militia the Assembly exercised
complete authority. The only general officer who survived
the rout at Camden with an increased reputation for courage
and military talent was Smallwood, and although he was a
Marylander, the necessity was so urgent that the Assembly,
sinking all state pride, offered him the command of the North
Carolina militia, with the rank of major-general. Thereupon
Caswell indignantly withdrew from the service, resigned his
place on the Board of Trade, and retired to the privacy of his
home at Kingston.

After Camden Cornwallis, strangely enough, repeated the
blunder he had committed after the fall of Charleston. Tarle-
ton and other officers urged upon him the advantages of an
"immediate advance of the King's troops into North Caro-
lina," ° but Cornwallis was less impressed by these advantages
than he was by "the number of sick in the hospital, the late
addition of the wounded, the want of troops," "the deficiency
of the stores, the heat of th" climate, the scarcity of provisions

0 Tarleton 's Campaigns, p. 155.

468 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

in North Carolina," and the other hardships incident to war
which he seems to have expected to avoid. But again his
chief reason for delay was over-confidence. He believed that
at Camden he had struck the American cause its death blow.
Former Governor Josiah Martin, who was with Cornwallis, re-
flected his views in a letter to Lord Germain in which he de-

*

clared the victory was so "glorious, compleat and critical,"
that "it could receive no additional splendour. * It

is consequential to the Nation, my Lord, in proportion to the
importance of America to Great Britain, for her cause and
Interests on this continent depending, as I conceive, absolutely
on the issue of this action, may be fairly said to be rescued,
saved, redeemed and restored." In England the impression
was created that "North Carolina was only considered as the
road to Virginia." 7 Cornwallis was confirmed in his view of
the situation not only by the confusion and disorganization of
the American army, but also by the protestations of loyalty
and assurances of support which again poured in upon him
from the North Carolina Tories. Unwittingly these men did
the cause of independence a great service for their profes-
sions, together with other reasons, confirmed Cornwallis in his
determination to delay his march into North Carolina until
his plans were perfected to the last detail.

Consequently it was not until September 8th that he broke
camp at Camden and set out on his invasion of North Caro-
lina. His advance was far from being the triumphant pro-
cession his friends had led him to expect. Partisan bands
hung upon his flanks and so harassed his movements that he
did not reach Charlotte until September 25th. On Septem-
ber 20th, Davie, who had recently been appointed to the com-
mand of the cavalry with the rank of colonel, with 150 men
surprised an enemy detachment of 300 men at Wahab's plan-
tation, killed and wounded 60 of their number, routed the
rest, and brought off 120 stand of arms and 96 horses. On the
morning of September 26th, Davie posted a small force be-
hind the courthouse in Charlotte, which stood in the center
of the village where its two streets intersected, and when
the head of the British column appeared, composed of Tar-
leton's famous legion of dragoons, greeted it with so ef-
fective a fire that it recoiled three times and Cornwallis was
obliged to ride up and rally the troops himself. "The whole
of the British army," says its historian Stedman, himself an
officer under Cornwallis, "was actually kept at bay for some

7 Annual Register, Vol. 24, p. 54.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 469

minutes by a few mounted Americans, not exceeding twenty
in number."

Thus the British army entered Charlotte, where on Octo-
ber 3d Josiah Martin, who accompanied Cornwallis, issued
his proclamation announcing the triumph of the king's arms,
the suppression of the rebellion, and the restoration of the
royal government, and calling upon all faithful subjects to
rally to the defence of the royal standard. Seriously as Mar-
tin took this proclamation, Cornwallis must have known that
it was the merest bombast. It had not taken him a whole
week to realize that he was in the "Hornets' Nest" of the
Revolution. "It is evident" he wrote, "that

Mecklenburg and Rowan Counties are more hostile to Eng-
land than any [others] in America." The situation of the
British at Charlotte, wrote the Board of War, "hath been
rendered very troublesome by the close attention paid them
by Davidson and Davie." These active young officers with
their sleepless bands patrolled the surrounding country day
and night, watching every movement of the enemy, break-
ing up his foraging parties, capturing his scouts, and cutting
off his messengers so effectively that nearly a week passed
after the event before Cornwallis, who was anxiously await-
ing intelligence of "Colonel Ferguson's movements to the
westward," heard of his defeat and death at King's Moun-
tain.

When Cornwallis began his movement from Camden into
North Carolina he sent Colonel Patrick Ferguson, one of his
best and most trusted officers, into the Ninety-Six District to
arouse the Tories to action and to secure his left flank from at-
tack by some bands of over-mountain men who, under Charles
McDowell, Isaac Shelby and John Sevier, were showing signs
of activity in that region. On July 30th they captured Thick-
etty Fort, a Tory stronghold on a tributary of Broad River. A
few days later they were themselves defeated at Cedar
Springs on the Pacolet River. On August 19th, they had just
won a particularly brilliant action at Musgrove's Mill on the
Enoree when they received intelligence of the defeat of Gates
at Camden, which compelled them to retire into North Car-
olina. It was primarily to protect his flank against these men
that Cornwallis dispatched Ferguson to the borders of Tryon
County, with a force of 200 regulars and 900 Tory militia who,
according to Cornwallis, had been "got into very tolerable
order." Ferguson boldly pursued the mountain-men as far as
Gilbert Town in Rutherford County, whence he sent them
a contemptuous message declaring that unless they speedily

Isaac Shelby

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 471

dispersed and desisted from further resistance to the king's
troops, he would cross the mountains, hang their leaders, and
lay waste their settlements with fire and sword.

Shelby and Sevier answered this challenge by calling the
mountain men to arms. In its suddenness and its numerical
strength the response to their call resembled a rising of the
Scottish clans when the "fiery cross" was dispatched through
the Highlands. To the rendezvous at Sycamore Shoals on Wa-
tauga River, September 25th, came Shelby with 240 men from
Sullivan County, Sevier with 240 from Washington, McDowell
with 160 from Burke and Rutherford, and William Camp-
bell with 400 Virginians. Without delay, they set out in
search of their enemy, and on the march were joined by 350
men from Wilkes and Surry under Benjamin Cleaveland and
Joseph Winston. As there was some rivalry among the North
Carolina colonels, Campbell was asked to assume the lead-
ership of the expedition. During their long and arduous
march over the mountains many of the men dropped out and
only about 700 finally reached Cowpens where they camped
on October 6th. There, however, they were joined by Fred-
erick Hambright with 50 men from Lincoln County and Ed-
ward Lacey and James Williams with 400 South Carolinians.

Although Ferguson affected to despise his enemies as "a
set of mongrels," still upon learning of their approach he
dispatched a messenger to Cornwallis calling for aid and
himself sought refuge on the southern extremity of King's
Mountain, a ridge about sixteen miles long, running from
a point in what is now Cleveland County, North Carolina,
southwest into York County, South Carolina. The spur
reached by Ferguson is in York County, one and a half miles
from the North Carolina line, and six miles from the highest
elevation of the mountain. About 600 yards in length, it rises
from a base of 250 yards to a top of from 60 to 220 yards wide,
and commands a wide view of the surrounding country. The
crest can be approached from three sides only; on the north
it is an unbroken precipice. On the summit of this ridge
Ferguson sought safety from his enemies. To his mind,
trained in European methods of warfare, the steep ascent,
together with the thick shrubbery and underbrush which cov-
ered the rugged mountain sides, seemed to make his position
impregnable, and he boasted that all the rebels out of hell
could not drive him from it. But he forgot that he was deal-
ing with men who were used to climbing mountains and fol-
lowed other rules of warfare than those laid down by Euro-
pean text-writers.

472 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

On October 6th, while at Cowpens, the American officers
selected from their several bands 920 picked men, confirmed
the choice of Campbell as their leader, and set out for King's
Mountain. Reaching the foot of the ridge about 3 o'clock in
the afternoon of October 7th, they organized in three col-
umns, and prepared for an immediate assault. On the north
side of the mountain were the bands of Shelby, Hill and
Lacey, under Shelby's command; on the south, those of Camp-
bell, Sevier, and Joseph McDowell, led by Campbell; while
across the northeast end were the men of Cleaveland, Ham-
bright, and Winston, commanded by Cleaveland. So quickly
were these dispositions made that Ferguson first learned of
them by the fire of the attacking parties. His own force con-
sisted of nearly 1,000 men, of whom 200 were regulars of
his old corps, 430 were North Carolina Loyalists, and 320
were South Carolina Loyalists. He arranged his men in two
lines along the height, one to resist attack by volleys of
musketry, the other under his immediate command to charge
the enemy with bayonets.

The attack was opened by Campbell whose men ascended
the most difficult part of the ridge. Near the summit, Fer-
guson repulsed them with a bayonet charge, but before he
could regain his position, he was assailed in the rear by
Shelby's men advancing up the opposite side of the mountain.
Turning upon these new assailants, he drove them back in
their turn, but while he wras thus engaged, not only did Camp-
bell's men rally and return to the attack, but Cleaveland 's
men also came into action. The Americans were unerring
marksmen and advancing with the utmost deliberation from
tree to tree and from rock to rock, firing with great precision,
they made easy marks of Ferguson's men whom they picked
off by the score. The British on the other hand from their ele-
vated position fired wildly over the heads of their elusive foes,
while their bayonet charges were broken up by the thick un-
derbrush, trees, and rocks which covered the mountain. Though
assailed first from one side and then from another; though
repulsing Campbell only to be attacked in the rear by Shelby;
though turning on Shelby only to have his flank fiercely as-
saulted by Cleaveland, nevertheless Ferguson sustained his
high reputation as a gallant and skillful officer. Mounted on
his white charger, making his presence known by a silver
whistle, he fearlessly exposed himself in order to animate the
drooping spirits of his men. Twice they raised the white flag,
twice he struck it down with an oath that he would never sur-
render to such a damned set of banditti. Finallv a bullet

Colonel Joseph McDowell, of "Quaker Meadows'

474 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

pierced his heart and saved him from the disgrace of having to
hoist the white flag. His second in command, Captain Abra-
ham De Peyster, seeing the hopelessness of further resistance,
thereupon raised the symbol of surrender.

The battle had lasted about an hour. No victory could
be more complete. Ferguson's corps was entirely wiped out.
Himself and 119 of his men were killed, 123 wounded, and 664
captured. This signal achievement had cost the Americans
28 killed, 62 wounded. It was the first ray of light to pierce
the general gloom which had enveloped the country since the
fall of Charleston. Washington saw in it "a proof of the
spirit and resources of the country;" Clinton lamented it as a
" fatal catastrophe." Everywhere patriots hailed it as the
turning point in the struggle. "The victory at King's Moun-
tain," says Bancroft, "which in the spirit of the American
soldiers was like the rising at Concord, in its effects like the
successes at Bennington, changed the aspect of the war. The
Loyalists of North Carolina no longer dared rise. It fired
the patriots of the two Carolinas with fresh zeal. It en-
couraged the fragments of the defeated and scattered Amer-
ican army to seek each other and organize themselves anew.
It quickened the North Carolina legislature to earnest efforts.
It inspirited Virginia to devote her resources to the country
south of her border. "s It "Threw South Carolina (wrote
Clinton) into a state of confusion and rebellion." It "totally
disheartened" the Tories, disconcerted Cornwallis' plans, and
nwle his position at Charlotte untenable. Deserted by his
"friends" and threatened by fresh swarms of enemies, Corn-
wallis thought no longer of conquest, but of flight, and on
October 12th hastily abandoning Charlotte, fled "with great
precipitation" to Winnsboro, South Carolina. The fugitives,
reported the Board of War to the governor, were closely pur-
sued "by Davidson and Davie, who, with Colonel Morgan,
are now hanging on and greatly distress them." Thus was
the soil of North Carolina once more freed from the invader.

8 History of the United States, (ed. 1888), Vol. Y, p. 400.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE INVASION OF 1780-1781

The rapidity with which the patriots of the two Carolinas
rallied from the disaster at Camden was proof enough that
they possessed both the physical force and the spirit to de-
fend their country if only they could have competent leader-
ship. Congress had tried its favorites — Howe, Lincoln, Gates,
— and had lost two states by the experiment. In a chastened
mood, therefore, it now turned to Washington and requested
him to select a commander for the Southern Department.
Both Congress and the army knew well enough who Wash-
ington's choice would be for he had urged the appointment
of Nathanael Greene when Congress selected Gates. "In
every campaign since the beginning of the war," says John
Fiske, "Greene had been Washington's right arm; and for
indefatigable industry, for strength and breadth of intelli-
gence, and for unselfish devotion to the public service, he
was scarcely inferior to the commander-in-chief."1 Con-
gress promptly ratified Washington's choice and conferred
upon Greene every power, subject to the control of the com-
mander-in-chief, necessary to carry on the war in the South
and recover the conquered states.

Greene arrived at Charlotte and took command Decem-
ber 2d. He found there "only the shadow of an army.' On
paper it numbered 2,000 men, but fully half of them were;
untrained militia, 300 were without arms, 1,000 too naked to
take the field, and only 800 sufficiently armed and equipped for
active service. Upon reviewing the situation, Greene's heart
sank, but he did not despair. His message to Washington —
"I will recover the country or die in the attempt" — truly ex-
pressed his indomitable purpose. His quick intelligence dis-
cerned in his men, beneath their tattered clothes, a spirit like
his own, and in the unorganized mass before him he saw the
raw material of a great army. To organize, train, and equip
it, and to inspire it with his own unconquerable spirit, was

1 The American Revolution, Vol. IT, p. 250.

475.

476 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

his first task. In this task he had the help of as brilliant
a group of subordinates as ever surrounded a general, — Kos-
ciusko, the able Polish engineer; Smallwood of Maryland;
Daniel Morgan, "always a host in himself," William Wash-
ington and "Light Horse Harry" Lee of Virginia; Sumner,
Davidson and Davie of North Carolina ; Isaac Huger, Pickens,
Sumter and Marion of South Carolina. The services of most
of these men had been available to Gates, but he did not know
how to use them and looked with contempt upon their ir-
regular methods of warfare. Greene, on the contrary, fully
appreciated their value, while they recognized in him their
master genuis.

From the beginning general and subordinates felt for
each other complete confidence and gave each other unstinted
support. Greene's most pressing need was supplies. His
quick eye had already discerned the merits of Davie whom
he induced reluctantly to become his commissary-general.
Colonel Edward Carrington, of South Carolina, was ap-
pointed quartermaster-general. To the tireless energy and
patriotic sacrifices of these two officers, who cheerfully gave
up their commands in the field with their opportunities for
military renown to accept the drudgery of less conspicuous
but more important positions, Greene owed much of the suc-
cess of his southern campaign, which he acknowledged with
generous appreciation. Gates rejecting the advice of those
who knew the country had plunged headlong down the wrong
road to destruction at Camden, but Greene followed an en-
tirelv different course. Trusting nothing to chance, he studied
carefully every detail of the topography of the probable field
of his operations. He sent Carrington to map the Dan, Ste-
vens the Yadkin, and Kosciusko the Catawba, and so com-
pletely did he master their maps that afterwards in a dis-
cussion of the fords of the Catawba during the retreat across
North Carolina, Davidson exclaimed in admiration, "Greene
never saw the Catawba before, but he knows more about it
than those who have been raised on its banks."

Greene determined upon a daring plan of operations. Since
his army was too small to take the field against Cornwallis,
he resolved to divide it into two strong partisan bands to
operate against the smaller posts held by the British in the
interior. One consisting of 1,100 troops, under Huger, which
he himself accompanied, he ordered to Cheraw on the Pee
Dec River to support Marion's movements in Eastern South
Carolina and to threaten Pawdon at Camden. The other,

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 477

consisting of about 1,000 men under Morgan he ordered to
cross the Catawba, join Sumter and other partisans operat-
ing in that region, and threaten the British hold on Ninety-
Six and Augusta. Morgan's command was made up of 320
Maryland Continentals, 200 Virginia militia, 60 Virginia
dragoons under Washington, 300 North Carolina militia un-
der Joseph McDowell, and enough militia of South Carolina
and Georgia to bring his force up to 1,000 men. To cover
as much territory as possible, he pitched his camp on the
Pacolet Elver. Thus the twTo detachments of the Ameri-
can army were 140 miles apart with Cornwallis at Winns-
boro between them. Greene was playing a hazardous game
for Cornwallis, whose force was superior to both the Ameri-
can detachments combined, might easily have crushed either
of them before the other could come to its aid. But such a
movement required a quickness of comprehension and ag-
gressiveness of character which Greene believed his lordship
did not possess, and events proved that he had correctly fore-
cast what Cornwallis would do. Reinforced by the arrival of
General Alexander Leslie with 2,500 men, Cornwallis had in
South Carolina a total of more than 11,000 men, but they
were so scattered among the garrisons of the several posts
throughout the State that he had not more than 4,000 under
his own command. Upon learning of Greene's movements,
he still further weakened his force, as Greene had foreseen,
by dividing it. Ordering Leslie to Camden to protect that
post against Huger, he sent Tarleton with 1,100 men to pur-
sue Morgan, while he himself kept his main army idle at
Winnsboro.

When Morgan learned of Tarleton 's movements, he fell
back upon Cowpens on Broad River, and there prepared for
battle. He threw out first a skirmish line of 150 picked Geor-
gia and North Carolina militia under Major John Cunning-
ham and Colonel Joseph McDowell. These men were to
fire two volleys "at killing distance" and then retire. Be-
hind them was the main body of militia, 270 in number, under
Pickens. The third line, 150 yards farther back, was com-
posed of 290 Maryland Continentals and 140 experienced Vir-
ginia, and Georgia militia. Still farther in the rear, 125
dragoons under Washington formed the reserve. Behind the
whole flowed the Broad River. Except for his legion of
New York Loyalists, who were veterans of several years' ex-
perience, Tarleton 's command was composed entirely of reg-
ulars from the British line. Tarleton reached Cowpens at

478 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

about 8 o'clock in the morning of January 17th, and rushed
precipitately into battle, expecting to drive Morgan's un-
trained militia into the Broad River, which flowed behind his
lines, and to capture or destroy the rest of his force. But
the militia met the enemy's assault with several volleys
at close range, and after doing terrible execution, retired in
good order to make way for the Continentals. Mistaking
their movement for the retreat which they had expected, the
British charged impetuously only to be met by an unexpected
fire from the Continentals at a range of thirty yards. As
the enemy recoiled, the Continentals dashed forward in a
bayonet charge. Thrown into confusion by this unexpected
onset, the British troops became panic stricken when Wash-
ington's dragoons, appearing suddenly from behind the Con-
tinentals, swept down upon their flank. Most of them threw
down their arms and surrendered at discretion, the rest fled,
pursued by Washington's dragoons. Tarleton himself after
a desperate hand-to-hand fight with Washington escaped cap-
ture only by the fleetness of his horse. But 270 of his men
found their way back to Cornwallis's camp; 230 were killed
or wounded, 600 captured. The loss of this corps, following
hard upon the loss of Ferguson's corps at King's Mountain,
was a blow from which Cornwallis never recovered. "Had
Lord Cornwallis had with him at the action at Guildford
Courthouse, those troops that were lost by Colonel Tarleton
at the Cowpens, on the fifteenth of March, 1781," says Sted-
man, "it is not extravagant to suppose that the American
colonies might have been reunited to the empire of Great
Britain."2

Morgan lost no time in rejoicing over his victory. With
Cornwallis only twenty-five miles away, his situation was
too dangerous for delay, and his first thought was to secure
his prisoners, save his own army, and unite with Greene and
Huger before Cornwallis could overtake him. Before his
cavalry returned from the pursuit, therefore, he started for
the fords of the Catawba to put that stream between himself
and the enemy. Cornwallis, stung to unwonted celerity by
the great disaster which had befallen the British arms, set
out in hot pursuit. On January 25th, he reached Ramsaur's
Mill, but in the meantime Morgan had crossed the Catawba
at Sherrill's Ford about twenty-five miles away.

<)u the same day that Cornwallis reached Ramsaur's

2 American War. Vol. II, p. 346.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 479

Mill, Greene at Cheraw learned of Morgan's victory and re-
treat. His quick mind took in the situation at once and he
prepared his plans accordingly. Directing Huger to move
rapidly up the Yadkin to the vicinity of Salisbury, he him-
self struck out across the country to lay his plans before Mor-
gan. Traversing the intervening distance of 125 miles in
three days, he joined Morgan at Sherrill's Ford on January
30th, and there these two consummate leaders completed the
details of their campaign. They would draw Cornwallis as
far as possible from his base of supplies and uniting their
two armies turn upon the enemy and destroy him. On Janu-
ary 31st, accordingly, they took up their retreat from Sher-
rill's Ford with Cornwallis following twenty-five miles in the
rear. Greene's management of this retreat entitles him to
a place among the first soldiers of his age. No detail of
routes, marches, supplies, or camps ; no means of facilitat-
ing his own movements or of obstructing those of the enemy
escaped his active and restless mind. From the maps of
his engineers he had acquired accurate knowledge of the
country, its roads, streams and fords, and had sent out parties
to scour the streams and collect at designated fords all the
boats that could be found, while he posted guards at every
ford to delay the passage of the enemy. His personal par-
ticipation in the dangers and hardships of the retreat was a
constant inspiration to his men whose suffering and heroic
endurance equalled if it did not surpass that of Washing-
ton's men in the Trenton campaign. In was the depth of
winter. The weather was wet and cold. The roads were
knee-deep in mud and ice. Drenched with constant rain
and sleet; often compelled to wade waist-deep through foam-
ing rivers ; without tents, without blankets ; pinched with
hunger; half naked; marking the line of their march with
the blood which flowed from their bare feet ; constantly fight-
ing rear-guard actions, Greene's men outmarched, outma-
neuvered, and outfought their better-equipped adversaries,
and when, after a continuous retreat of twenty- two days, they
finally united forces with Huger at Guilford Court House,
the British at Salem twenty-five miles distance were no
nearer to them than thev were on the dav of Morgan's vie-
tory at Cowpens.

Cornwallis of course realized the importance of overtak-
ing Morgan before he could unite with Huger. Accordingly
at Eamsaur's Mill he stripped his army of its heavy baggage,
wagons, and all other material that might encumber the move-

480 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ment of his troops. He fully appreciated the danger of the
course he was pursuing, but he also realized that it was
too late to turn back. The prize he sought was great enough
to justify the hazard he took. From the time he left Ram-
saur's Mill, he put aside all hesitation and on January 28th
his army, stated by Clinton to be " considerably above three
thousand, exclusive of cavalry and militia," moved fonvard
with most soldier-like precision and swiftness. On January
31st, he reached Beattie's Ford of the Catawba and feinting
there with his main force, sent General O'Hara to force a
crossing at Cowan's Ford four miles below, which Davidson
guarded with a small body of militia. At daybreak on Feb-
ruary 1st, O'Hara's men forced the passage, killing the gal-
lant Davidson, and dispersing his men. Taking up the pur-
suit again, on February 3d, the British reached Trading Ford
on the Yadkin, seven miles from Salisbury, just in time to
see the last of Morgan's men safely over. After their passage
a sudden rise in the river made it impassable and again Com-
wallis was baffled. Bealizing that he could not now prevent
the union of Morgan and Huger, Cornwallis endeavored by
a rapid march to prevent Greene's crossing the Dan by tak-
ing possession of the upper fords ; but again he was defeated
in his object by Greene's forethought in collecting enough
boats to enable him to transfer his army at Irwin's Ferry
seventy miles from Guilford Court House which Cornwallis
had dismissed from consideration since it could only be
crossed by ferry.

Greene had now placed an impassable river between him-
self and his enemy. He had not only saved his own army,
he had led his enemy into a trap from which he could extri-
cate himself only at great sacrifice. For Cornwallis was 230
miles from his base; in the enemv's countrv in dead of win-
ter; without supplies; among timid friends, and with an
ever increasing hostile militia swarming in his rear. Greene's
campaign elicited the highest praise from both enemy and
friends. "Every movement of the Americans during their
march from the Catawba to Virginia," wrote Tarleton, "was
judiciously designed and vigorously executed." "The rebels
conduct their enterprises in Carolina," declared Lord Ger-
main, "with more spirit and skill than they have shown in
any other part of America." But assuredly the praise that
Greene and his ragged heroes valued most were the judicious
words that came from their great commander-in-chief. "Your

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 481

retreat before Cornwallis," wrote Washington, "is highly
applauded by all ranks."

Balked of his prey, Cornwallis abandoned the pursuit and
retired to Hillsboro to rest his army and rally the Tories
to his support. His men were exhausted and badly in need
of supplies. During the march he had lost 250 men and he
now hoped to make the loss good by recruits from the Loyal-
ists. On February 20th, therefore, he issued a proclamation
declaring his purpose to rescue the king's loyal subjects in
North Carolina "from the cruel tyranny under which they
have groaned for several years," and inviting "all such faith-
ful and loyal subjects to repair, without loss of time, with
their arms and ten days provisions, to the Royal Standard
now erected at Hillsborough." Five days later a band of
300 Tories, under Colonel John Pyle of Chatham County, at-
tempting to reach Hillsboro in response to Cornwallis 's proc-
lamation, were surprised by "Light Horse Harry" Lee's bat-
talion of dragoons and utterly cut to pieces. Nearly 100
were killed, most of the others wounded, and but few escaped.
Lee did not lose a man. News of this disaster, together with
the startling news that on February 23d the defeated Greene
had actually re-crossed the Dan and was moving on Guilford
Court House, decidedly dampened the enthusiasm of the
Tories for rallying to "the Royal Standard." "Our situa-
tion," wrote Cornwallis, [was] "amongst timid friends, and
adjoining to inveterate Rebels." Accordingly when, on Feb-
ruary 26th, he moved out of Hillsboro to meet Greene, his
army was numerically weaker than it was when he set out
from Ramsaur's Mill in pursuit of Morgan.

Greene had been more fortunate. The skill with which
he had conducted his retreat had inspired confidence in his
leadership, and the "Whigs now rallied to him. From Virginia
Steuben sent him 400 Continentals and a force of militia.
Pickens was busy rallying the militia which had been dis-
persed by Cornwallis 's passage of the Catawba. The Gen-
eral Assembly recalled Caswell to the command of the North
Carolina militia and placed him at the head of the Council
Extraordinary which, having superseded the Board of War,
was bestirring itself to furnish Greene with men and sup-
plies. Governor Nash was exerting himself to get out the
militia. From all these sources reinforcements poured into
Greene's camp. When he crossed the Dan on February 13,
in his retreat, his army consisted of 1,430 exhausted troops;
three weeks later it had been increased to more than 5,000

Vol. 1—31

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Nathanael Greene

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 483

troops of whom 1,715 were Continentals. Even before all
these reinforcements had reached him, Greene felt strong
enough to recross the Dan, and challenge Cornwallis to battle.

Both generals were eager for the contest. With Corn-
wallis, 230 miles from his base and in the enemy's country,
nothing less than an out-and-out victory would suffice. Greene
on the contrary could afford to fight a drawn battle; even a
defeat, which inflicted serious damage on the enemy and left
his own army intact, might have beneficial results. During
his retreat he had selected the battleground, near Guilford
Court House, and now having decided to fight, by a series of
skillful maneuvers he succeeded in drawing the enemy thither.
His force numbered 4,404 men, most of whom had never seen
a battle. Exclusive of officers, Cornwallis Had 2,253 men, at
least 2,000 of whom were seasoned veterans. When to
Greene 's numerical superiority is added the advantage of his
position, which he had selected with great care, the odds
were about even.

Greene posted his North Carolina militia in front, flank-
ing them on the right with Virginia militia and on the left
with Virginia and Delaware troops. About 300 yards behind
them was a line of Virginia militia whose flanks were pro-
tected on the right by Washington's cavalry, on the left by
Lee's. The third line, 550 yards in the rear of the second,
was composed of the Continentals. Cornwallis opened the
battle with a slight cannonade a little after noon on March
15th, after which the whole British line advanced with ad-
mirable precision, their bayonets glittering in the bright sun
of a cloudless day. The North Carolina militia, who were
to receive the first shock, had no bayonets ; they were armed
only with hunting rifles which took three minutes to load.
Thev had never before been under fire, but as thev were ex-
pert marksmen they were expected to fire two volleys with
telling effect and then to retire. These orders they carried
out effectively. Their first fire was delivered at 150 yards;
their second at forty, and wrought, according to the Brit-
ish historian, Lamb, who was there, "dreadful havoc" in
the British ranks, but failed to check their advance. There-
upon, while attempting to retire according to orders, the
untrained militia broke and retreated in confusion. The sec-
ond line in turn was attacked with great vigor and after a
gallant defence forced to retreat. Then the British regulars
eame in contact with the Continentals, and the fighting was
stubborn and bloorly. Twice the British were repulsed with

484 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

heavy losses, and Cornwallis was compelled to rally them
in person. Having restored his lines and brought up fresh
troops, he prepared for a final assault with the seven bat-
talions which he still had. But Greene, determined not to
risk the destruction of his own army, and satisfied with the
damage inflicted upon the enemy, withdrew from the field
leaving Cornwallis in possession. Greene had lost 78 killed,
183 wounded, and 1,046 militia who were missing; but he had
inflicted upon Cornwallis a loss of 93 killed, 413 wounded,
and 26 missing, which was more than 25 per cent of his total
strength.

Retiring to a strong defensive position about ten miles
from Guilford, Greene awaited his opponent's next move with
confidence. In spite of their victory, no such feeling of con-
fidence prevailed in the camp of the British, or among their
friends. Cornwallis announced his victory in a proclamation,
called upon "all loyal subjects to stand forth an 1 take an
active part in restoring good order and government, ' ' and of-
fered pardon and restoration "as soon as possible to all the
privileges of constitutional government" to all rebels who
would surrender themselves to the royal authorities. But
Cornwallis was whistling to keep up his courage and none
knew it better than the Tories, who were not minded to risk
their necks on the strength of a victory by proclamation.
"Many of the Inhabitants rode into Camp," wrote Cornwallis,
"shook me by the hand, said they were glad to see us, and to
hear that we had beat Greene, and then rode home again. ' ' He
was in a dilemma. Though victorious, his losses had been too
heavy to justify his resuming the offensive, while his posi-
tion was too precarious to admit of his doing nothing. He
must move, but whither? A march to Wilmington seemed
to be the most feasible step. Wilmington was already in pos-
session of a British force under Major James H. Craige. It
was in close touch with the Highlanders upon whom Corn-
wallis placed his chief dependence. Moreover at Wilming-
ton he would have the aid of the British fleet. If he could
draw Greene after him, with his army refitted he might again
turn upon the Americans, defeat them, and re-establish the
prestige of British arms. To Wilmington, therefore, Corn-
wallis determined to go, and on March 18th, abandoning his
wounded, the victorious general broke camp and beat a hasty
retreat to the Cape Fear.

Greene followed his retreating foe as far as Ramsay's
Mill, stopping there to watch his further movements and to

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 485

reorganize his own army. When assured that Cornwallis
really intended to go to Wilmington, Greene resolved to dis-
miss him from further consideration and to turn his own
attention to the recovery of South Carolina and Georgia. He
discharged his militia, whose time was up, and with his army
thus reduced to about 1,500 Continentals of the Maryland
and Virginia lines, and the cavalry of Washington and Lee,
he broke camp and again turned his face southward. On his
march he was joined by about 500 North Carolina Continen-
tals, composed of the militia whom the Council Extraordi-
nary, by a curious order, had "sentenced to twelve months'
duty as Continentals," because of their precipitate flight at
Guilford Court House. Disciplined, trained, equipped, and
skillfully led, these men on many a hard-fought field in South
Carolina demonstrated that their conduct at Guilford was
chargeable to other causes than cowardice. Thus reinforced,
and further strengthened with occasional additions of militia,
Greene began that remarkable series of movements in which,
losing every battle, but winning every campaign, he suc-
ceeded in wrenching Camden, Augusta, Ninety-Six, and all
other posts in the interior, and Georgetown on the coast,
from the grasp of the enemy.

North Carolina troops took part in all of these campaigns.
There were 248 North Carolina militia at Hobkirk's Hill,
and more than 200 of the new North Carolina Continentals
at the seige of Augusta. At Eutaw Springs, September 8,
about half of Greene's army of 2,300 men were North Caro-
linians. A few were militia, the rest, brigaded under Gen-
eral Jethro Sumner, were the "Guilford runaways," now
serving on the continental establishment. Discipline and
training had turned them into excellent soldiers and at Eutaw
Springs they completely recovered the prestige which they
had lost at Guilford Court House. The North Carolina
militia forming the center of Greene's front line, after fight-
ing gallantly fell back before the charge of the British regu-
lars. As they retired Sumner's Continentals rushed forward
in a charge which Greene himself declared "would have
graced the veterans of the great King of Prussia," and re-
stored the line. "I was at a loss which to admire most,"
said Greene, "the gallantry of the officers or the good con-
duct of the men." The battle of Eutaw was practically won
when the hungry Americans, having captured the British
camp, stopped to regale themselves with delicacies with which
they had long been strangers, and thus gave the retreating

486 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

foe a chance to rally and return to the attack. Though finally
forced to relinquish the field, thus giving his enemy the right
to claim the victory, Greene brought off his army in good
order saving his wounded and prisoners. Again he had in-
flicted a greater loss upon his enemy than he himself sus-
tained, and as a result forced him to abandon his last strong-
hold in the interior of South Carolina and seek safety within
the British fortifications at Charleston.

After Eutaw there was no further serious fighting in
either South Carolina or Georgia. The British then held
only Charleston and Savannah from which without sea power
the Americans could not hope to drive them, but elsewhere
throughout those two states the American governments were
firmly re-established.

It had not occurred to Cornwallis that Greene would alto-
gether disregard his movements and dismiss him from fur-
ther consideration. Consequently when he reached Wilming-
ton, April 7th, and found that Greene had gone to South
Carolina, his situation was extremely humiliating. "My
situation here is very distressing," he wrote; "Greene took
the advantage of my being obliged to come to this place, and
has Marched to South Carolina." "My present undertak-
ing," he confessed to Clinton, "sits heavy on my mind."
What should he do next? He could not remain idle at Wil-
mington. To transport his army to Charleston, and begin
his work all over again, he declared, "would be as ruinous
and disgraceful to Britain as most events could be." The
only alternative seemed to be to march into Virginia, unite
his forces with those of General Phillips, whom Clinton had
recently sent thither, and overrun that State. Accordingly
again proclaiming the conquest of North Carolina, he left
Josiah Martin at Wilmington to administer the royal govern-
ment, and on April 25th set out on his march to Virginia.

The Whigs had no force with which to oppose Cornwallis'
movements had they desired to do so ; indeed, those were for-
tunate who could save themselves by abandoning their prop-
erty and hiding in the woods and swamps until the British
columns had passed. Cornwallis, himself a kindly, humane
man, waged war only with the armed forces of his enemy, and
kept his soldiers under strict discipline, severely punishing
those found guilty of pillage and abuse of the inhabitants;
but he could exercise no such control over the Tories and
camp followers in the wake of his army. They plundered
with impunity every plantation along their route. "The whole

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 487

country was struck with terror," wrote William Dickson
of Duplin County, an eye witness to the scenes he describes,
"almost every man quit his habitation and fled." "Not a
man of any rank or distinction or scarcely any man of prop-
erty has lain in his house," wrote Benjamin Seawell on
May 13th, "since the British passed through Nash County.
We are distressed with all the rogues and vagabonds that
Cornwallis can raise to pester us with." However there was
no disposition on the part of Cornwallis, or of his subordi-
nates, to condone abuses and crimes. Near Halifax, records
Stedman, "some enormities were committed that were a dis-
grace to the name of man;" while "Bloody" Tarleton ordered
that a sergeant and a private, "accused of rape and robbery,"
be arrested and "conducted to Halifax, where they were con-
demned to death by Martial law," and immediately exe-
cuted.3

The departure of the main armies left North Carolina
in the grip of numerous loosely organized, undisciplined
bands of armed men, both Whigs and Tories, who during the
next year carried on in every county, in almost every neigh-
borhood, a relentless civil war. During this period North
Carolina was the victim of a carnival of pillage, rapine and
murder that surpasses that of the Era of Reconstruction.
Each side having no authority to restrain its excesses com-
mitted abuses and crimes against its enemy which served
only to give the other excuse for retaliations. Bands of
robbers, masquerading under the guise of patriots or of
Loyalists as suited their purpose, took advantage of the situa-
tion to inaugurate a reign of terror in many communities.
Plantations were plundered, houses were burned, men were
murdered, women were outraged. The Tories were primarily
responsible for these conditions. They were probably guilty
of no greater crimes as individuals than the Whigs, but as
a party they kept up the strife long after it could serve any
useful purpose, either military or political, and obviously
could have no other result than to desolate the country and
impoverish or destroy its inhabitants.

Their course was due chiefly to the presence at Wilming-
ton of Major James H. Craige who with 450 British regulars
had occupied that town in January, 1781. Craige was a bold
and aggressive soldier. His appearance on the Cape Fear
animated the spirits of the Tories and greatly discouraged

3 Campaigns, p. 290.

488 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

the Whigs. For four years the latter had slept in fancied
security as if they expected the victories of 1776 to be a
perpetual safe-guard against attack. Craige gave them a
rude awakening, forcing them to abandon their homes and
seek refuge in obscure retreats in the backwoods. But flight
could not save them from the restless energy of the British
troopers and their Tory sympathizers. The Tories espe-
cially scoured the country day and night in search of the
men who had so long lorded it over them. Typical of the
situation in all the eastern counties was that described by
William Dickson in Duplin. Immediately after the depar-
ture of Cornwallis "came on our greatest troubles," he wrote;
"for the Loyalists, or as we term them Tories, began to
assemble and hold councils in every part of the State, and
thinking the country already conquered, because the enemy
had gone through without being checked, they were audacious
enough to apprehend and take several of our principal lead-
ing men prisoners and carry them down to Wilmington and
deliver them to the guards. There were numbers of our
good citizens thus betrayed, perished on board prison-ships
and in their power. This so alarmed the inhabitants that
none of us dared to sleep in our houses or beds at night for
fear of being surprised by those blood-suckers and carried
off to certain destruction." Chief among those who were
thus betrayed by their old-time friends and neighbors were
John Ashe and Cornelius Harnett. Both were captured and
imprisoned at Wilmington; both were later paroled only to
die within a few days of their release, victims of the severity
of their inhuman treatment.

In numerous raids conducted out of Wilmington, Craige
laid waste wide stretches of country and spread terror among
the inhabitants. His most extensive raid was in August,
1781. Leaving Wilmington, August 1st, with 400 regulars
and eighty Tories he swept through Duplin, Dobbs, Jones,
and Craven counties, captured and plundered New Bern, and
returned without serious opposition to his base at Wilming-
ton. On their march, reported General William Caswell to
Governor Burke, the British "plundered every Plantation
that was in their way of all that they could find. It is im-
possible for me to inform Your Excellency of the ruin, ravage
and Distress committed on the Inhabitants of this Country."
The raid was effective for, except for a few small bands of
militia, it thoroughly subdued the people throughout the
invaded region. Craige required all men over fifty to take

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 489

the oath of allegiance to the king; and enrolled in his force,
or imprisoned all others, who did not make their escape.
Almost all the people between Kingston and New Bern, wrote
Caswell, "will be exceeding fond of becoming British Sub-
jects, and most of the Inhabitants of Beaufort and Hyde
Counties to the North of Newbern will join them.
Dobbs has part of it fallen into the Hands of the British,
and Three Companies out of Seven have to a Man joined
them." Between Wilmington and New Bern more than 400
Tories enrolled themselves under Craige.

These disasters, however, did not dismay the leaders of the
patriots. "I am determined to do every Thing that a Dis-
tressed Officer can do," wrote William Caswell, brigadier-
general of the New Bern District, ' ' and as long as Life lasts
defend the District." A similar spirit animated Alexander
Lillington, brigadier-general of the Wilmington District, while
James Kenan and Thomas Brown, colonels of Duplin and
Bladen counties, never relaxed their vigilance. To these four
men more than to any others is due the fact that the patriots of
Eastern North Carolina did not give up in despair during the
gloomy days of the summer of 1781. Their chief difficulty
was not to raise men, but to equip them. "Arms cannot be
had," reported Caswell, "to Arm as many men as may be
raised." Governor Burke, who rendered every assistance
in his power, which however was not much, thought it wise
to order lillington and Caswell to avoid a general engage-
ment with Craige 's force.

There were, however, many skirmishes, too numerous to
mention in detail, some of which rise almost to the dignity
of battles. In February, Craige with about 400 regulars at-
tempted unsuccessfully to dislodge 700 militia whom Lilling-
ton had posted at Great Bridge on the North East River,
twelve miles above Wilmington, to prevent incursions of the
enemy. He was more successful at Rockfish Creek Bridge,
which Kenan had seized with 330 militia. Craige had to
cross this bridge on his march to New Bern; on August 2d,
therefore, with a force numbering nearly 500 regulars and
Tories he attacked and dispersed Kenan's force. Although
but a trifling skirmish, this success so excited the ardor of
the Dnplin Tories that they rose in numbers, "gathered to-
gether very fast," and "were more cruel to the distressed
inhabitants than Cornwallis's army had been before." Their
triumph however was brief for as Dickson writes, "Craige
having again returned to Wilmington the Whigs again re-

490 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

sinned their courage and determined to be revenged on the
Loyalists, our neighbors, or hazard all; accordingly we col-
lected about eighty light-horsemen and equipped them as well
as we could; marched straight into the neighborhood where
the Tories were embodied, surprised them; they fled; our
men pursued them, cut many of them to pieces, took several
and put them to instant death. This action struck such ter-
ror on the Tories in our county that they never attempted
to embody again." A similar result in Bladen County fol-
lowed the battle of Elizabethtown in which, on August 29th,
400 Tories under Colonel John Slingsby were surprised in
a night attack, totally routed, and their commanding officer
killed, by 150 Whigs under Colonel Thomas Brown. "This
put an end to the disturbances in Bladen," wrote Dickson;
' ' the Tories never embodied there any more, so by this time
our two distressed counties of Duplin and Bladen began
to get the upper hand of their enemies."

Long after the other Tory leaders, recognizing the hope
lessness of their cause, had either submitted to the State or
gone into exile, and even after the last British soldier had
left the State, civil strife in North Carolina was kept alive
by the notorious David Fanning. As a partisan leader Fan-
ning had no superior on either side in the Carolinas. He
had all the dash and daring of Sumter, the fertility and dis-
patch of Marion, and the resourcefulness of Davie, without
possessing, however, those qualities of moral character which
made these men so much his superiors. Crafty and treacher-
ous, cruel and vindictive, sparing neither age nor sex, he
openly boasts in his published "Narrative" of the brutality
with which he destroyed his enemies and desolated their
country. It is but fair, however, to say that many of his
crimes were committed in retaliation for similar crimes com-
mitted by Whigs against his followers; but in every case
wherein Fanning undertook to cancel such debts of vengeance,
he repaid them with usury. Ashe thinks that had Fanning
been on the Whig side "his fame would have been more en-
during than that of any other partisan officer whose memory
is now so dear to all patriots."4 But something more than
a mere shifting of sides would be necessary to justify one
in ranking Fanning as the equal of the great Whig partisans.
Not only was his character far inferior to theirs, even his

4 David Fanning in Biographical History of North Carolina, Vol.
V. p. 93.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 491

work was of much less historical significance. The Whig
partisans directed their activities chiefly against the organized
forces of the enemy with the purpose of loosening his grip
on the country, always keeping in view their effects on the
movements of the main armies ; Fanning, on the contrary,
although performing his work with equal ability, never
aimed at the destruction of the enemy's organized forces, ex-
ercised no influence upon the ultimate outcome of the war,
and produced no other result than to increase the undying
hatred which thousands of Americans never ceased to feel for
the mother country.

Craige regarded Fanning as his ablest and most trust-
worthy lieutenant, and on July 5, 1781, commissioned him
colonel of the loyal militia of Chatham and Randolph coun-
ties. With his headquarters at Coxe's Mill on Deep River in
Chatham County, he harried the country far and wide. In
July with 150 men he swooped down on Pittsboro, broke up
a general muster of the Whig militia, and captured fifty-
three prisoners, including all the militia officers of the county
present and three members of the General Assembly. A few
weeks later, learning that Colonel Thomas Wade of Anson
County, had collected a band of Whigs for an attack on some
Tories on Drowning Creek, Fanning made a rapid and unex-
pected movement, fell upon Wade's force, and routed it,
killing twenty-three and capturing fifty-three of his men. He
continued his hostilities for six months after the surrender of
Cornwallis, breaking up Whig gatherings, dispersing militia
musters, destroying his enemies individually and in bands,
and terrorizing all the region from Guilford to Cape Fear.

The most famous of his exploits occurred on September
12, 1781. Gathering at Coxe's Mill a band of 1,100 Tories,
he set out for an attack on a force of Whigs which General
Butler had assembled on Haw River; but Governor Burke
who was then at Hillsboro learned of Fanning 's movement
in time to warn Butler who made his escape. Thereupon
Fanning determined to put into execution a project he had
been turning over in his mind for some time, and turning
suddenly eastward, he dashed into Hillsboro early in the
morning, put to rout the Whig force guarding the town, killed
15 of their number, and captured 200 among whom was
the governor himself. Lingering just long enough for his
men to sack the town, Fanning put out for Wilmington. The
Whigs gathering in haste under General Butler attacked him
vigorouslv at Lindsav's Mill on Cane Creek, but were re-

492 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

pulsed. Both sides suffered heavy losses. Fanning himself,
was among the wounded and unable to continue his retreat,
but his next in command conveyed the governor and other
prisoners safely to Wilmington and turned them over to
Craige.

This exploit was the climax but not the conclusion of
Fanning 's career. He continued his activities well into the
year 1782 when he made overtures of peace to the state gov-
ernment. But the State rejected his advances, refusing to
regard him in any other light than as an outlaw and com-
pelled him to seek safety in flight. He never returned to
North Carolina for when the General Assembly in 1783 came
to pass "An Act of Pardon and Oblivion," offering amnesty
to Loyalists generally, it excepted from its benefits three no-
torious Tory leaders, and one of the three was David Fanning.

From Wilmington Governor Burke was sent to Sullivan's
Island. He regarded himself as a prisoner of war, but his
view was not shared by his captors, to whom he was a po-
litical prisoner. They denied him the right of exchange, kept
him in close confinement, and declared that they held him as
a hostage for the safety of Fanning. Burke protested so
vigorously against this treatment that his captors finally
paroled him on James' Island. But he soon found that he
had gained nothing by this change. On the island were many
North Carolina Tory refugees who had been driven from their
homes by the rebel government, and they regarded Burke,
as the head of that government, with an intense and bitter
hatred. They daily subjected him to unsparing indignities,
gross insults, and threats of personal injury, and on one
occasion fired into his quarters, wounding one man and kill-
ing another at his side. His appeals to General Leslie, com-
manding at Charleston, for protection were treated with such
studied indifference, that he became convinced that he had
been parolled among these venomous enemies as part of a
scheme to destroy him in such a way as to relieve the British
authorities of the responsibility and odium of his death while
their prisoner. Brooding over his unhappy situation, he
finally convinced himself that having given his parole in ex-
change for protection, the refusal to grant him protection
released him from his moral if not from his legal obligation
to keep his part of the contract and on January 16, 1782,
made his escape, returned to North Carolina, and resumed
his duties as governor. Afterwards he offered through Gen-
eral Greene to secure the release1 of anv officer in the hands

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 493

of the Americans whom the British general might designate
in exchange for himself; but the British general refused to
consider any proposal that did not involve the return to them
of their prisoner. This Burke refused to consider, and learn-
ing that many of the American officers, including General
Greene, condemned his course in violating his parole, he
finally withdrew all negotiations with the British. At the
expiration of his term as governor he retired to private life,
gave himself over to dissipation, and died within less than
two years.

During Burke's captivity, Alexander Martin, who, as
speaker of the Senate discharged the duties of the governor,
carried into execution plans which Burke had made for the
relief of the Cape Fear patriots, sending to their aid a force
of 1,100 men under Rutherford, who had been exchanged,
and Butler. Rutherford entered upon his work with that
vigor for which he was justly distinguished. He distressed
the Tories in every possible way, rivalling in this respect
the activities of Fanning, "with a view of drawing the troops
out of Wilmington to an engagement." In numerous skir-
mishes, scarcely deserving the name of battles, at Roekfish
Creek, at Moore's Plantation, at North East Bridge above
Wilmington, at Seven Creeks below Wilmington, he broke up
Tory gatherings, destroyed Craige's foraging parties, cut
off his supplies, and practically cleared the Cape Fear sec-
tion, outside of Wilmington, of the enemy.

While Rutherford was thus recovering Eastern Carolina,
and preparing an effort to drive the enemy out of Wilming-
ton, came news that aroused the Americans to a frenzy of
delight and sent Craige flying from North Carolina with all
the speed his crowded sails could bear him. Cornwallis had
surrendered! Swift express riders spread the glad tidings
throughout the country. Everywhere the war-wearied pa-
triots heard the news with unbounded joy and enthusiasm.
Correspondents hastened to exchange congratulations "on
this happy occasion." One good patriot rejoiced because the
good folk of Hillsboro could now "enjoy peace in their beds
without a dread of Mr. Fanning or his adherents." In many
places business was suspended in a riot of celebrations. The
judges could not attend their Edenton court because "upon
the confirmation of the news of the capture of Cornwallis,
we were all so elated, that the time elapsed in frolicking."
Rutherford paraded his men, proclaimed the glorious news
to them, and ordered suitable salutes. To the Cape Fear

494 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

patriots not the least glorious result was the evacuation of
their chief town by their hated enemy. On November 18th,
Craige embarked his troops and taking with him the last
representative of the British Crown who ever claimed po-
litical authority in North Carolina, Josiah Martin, and the
last British soldier within her limits, sailed for Charleston.

CHAPTER XXVII
PEACE

Except for the activities of Fanning, who did not leave
the State until May, 1782, the departure of Craige brought
the war to a close in North Carolina, although a year was to
elapse before peace was declared and the independence of
the colonies acknowledged. Six years of war had wrought
ruin and disaster in many sections of the State. Conditions
in North Carolina at the close of the struggle have nowhere
been better described than by Ashe.1 "The contest had been
doubtful," he says. "It brought many vicissitudes and much
suffering. The state as well as the continental currency had
ceased to have value. Many families had been utterly im-
poverished. Misery and desolation were diffused through
innumerable households. Civil war and carnage had raged
from Surry to Brunswick. Murder and pillage had stalked
through a large section of the State, and families expelled
from their homes had sought asylums in distant parts, and
were too impoverished to return. Many mothers and chil-
dren were bereft of their last support, their sacrifices in the
cause of independence being irreparable. In the desolated
region of the Cape Fear even the wealthiest of the patriots
were ruined by the ravages of the war. They had cheerfully
laid their all on the altar of their country. Hard had been
the conflict, but in the darkest hours the brave hearts of the
North Carolina patriots became still more courageous, find
in their adversity they bore their sufferings with resolution
and fortitude. At length the storm-clouds passed away, the
sky was no longer obscured, and hope gave place to assur-
ance. The ardent longing became a joyful realization."

The people of North Carolina, however, lost no time in
mourning over their losses or rejoicing over their victories.
The tasks of repairing the wastes of war, of providing for
the wants of the soldiers, and of solving the problems of

1 History of North Carolina. Vol. T, p. 722.

495

496 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

independence were too immediate and pressing to be post-
poned. The General Assembly met at Hillsboro, April 15,
1782. In an able address Governor Burke reviewed condi-
tions in the State and pointed out some of the problems which
called for immediate solution. He reminded the Assembly
that the war was not over, that British garrisons still held
Charleston and Savannah, and that "the Enemy have still
larger forces in our Country" than the Americans them-
selves, and urged therefore the importance of keeping up
the military establishment. "Though we have gained great
advantages," he said, "that is not enough, those advantages
are to be secured and ought to be improved into compleat
and indisputable success. Victory gives strength and energy.
Defeat imposes weakness and dismay. While our Arms are
prevailing is therefore the precise season for such actions
as remain to put us in possession of peace and prosperity."
He strongly emphasized the State's "indispensable duty to
support her. Quota of force, of expense and of Council" in
continental affairs. Her military laws needed strengthening.
Penalties should be imposed upon officers for failure to make
proper returns of drafts for recruiting the Continental Line,
the number of causes for exemption from militia service
ought to be reduced, and provisions made for better dis-
cipline of both militia officers and soldiers. Point was given
to this last recommendation by the conduct of Rutherford's
men upon their entering Wilmington after Craige's retire-
ment, which was still fresh in everybody's recollection; "they
seemed to regard the place as one carried by storm, a fair
theatre for plunder and the display of the worst passions of
our nature." 2

Among the important matters which Burke urged upon the
attention of the Assembly was that it should support not only
the State's quota of force and expense, but also "of Council"
in continental affairs. It was a timely recommendation. Fol-
lowing the Declaration of Independence Congress had taken
up the problem of a closer and more permanent union of the
thirteen states. Its discussion resulted in the Articles of Con-
federation. When the final vote was taken on this plan of
union North Carolina was represented in Congress by Thomas
Burke, John Penn, and Cornelius Harnett. Burke who was
absent in North Carolina at the time was opposed to the plan

2 McRee. G. J. : Life and Correspondence of James Tredell, Vol. I,
p. 562.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 497

which he laughed at "as a Chimerical Project." Perm and
Harnett favored it. "I think," wrote the latter, "that unless
the States confederate a door will be left open for Continental
Contention and Bloodshed, and that very soon after we are
at peace with Europe." The Articles were adopted by Con-
gress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratifi-
cation. "The child Congress has been big with these two
years past," wrote Harnett to Burke, "is at last brought
forth — (Confederation). I fear it will by several Legislatures
be thought a little deformed; — you will think it a Monster."
He thought it "the most difficult piece of Business that ever
was undertaken by any public Body," and regarded it as "the
best Confederacy that could be formed especially when we
consider the number of states, their different Interests, [and]
Customs." Harnett of course was solicitous as to the fate of
the Articles in North Carolina, but apparently without cause.
They were laid before the Assembly April 24, 1778, and
promptly ratified.

The Articles of Confederation required each State to be
represented in the Continental Congress by not more than
seven nor less than two delegates. But this obligation the
states failed to meet. After 1776 the Continental Congress
rapidly lost its early prestige. Most of the eminent leaders
who had given it distinction and influence had retired from its
halls to the councils of their own states, to foreign courts,
and to the battlefields. These now offered greater opportu-
nities for fame and service than Congress. Still there was
important work for Congress to do. The army was to be
maintained. The navy was to be created, organized and
manned. Congress alone represented the United States in
foreign affairs. In its name American ministers were re-
ceived at foreign courts. By its authority they negotiated
treaties. Upon its credit they borrowed money. It alone
could ratify the treaty which acknowledged the independence
of the thirteen states. Yet at home its authoritv had become
merely nominal. The states no longer treated its decrees with
respect, or its requisitions with obedience; and they became
increasingly more and more indifferent to maintaining their
delegations in it.

North Carolina had been among the worst offenders in this
matter. Her delegation had generally been composed of her
ablest and most distinguished leaders — among them Caswell,
Hooper, Hewes, Penn, Harnett, Burke, Johnston, Hugh Wil-
liamson, and Benjamin Hawkins. One of them, Samuel John-

Vol. 1—3 2

498 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

ston, had been elected president of the Congress, but had de-
clined to serve. After 1780, however, the State was seldom
represented in Congress by a full delegation and at times even
was not represented at all. From July 21 to September 21,
1781, William Sharpe alone represented the State. Then fol-
lowed an interval when no delegate from the State was pres-
ent. On October 4, 1781, Benjamin Hawkins took his seat and
alone represented the State until March 19, 1782, when he
departed, leaving the State again unrepresented until July 19
when Hugh Williamson appeared and took his seat. Accord-
ingly when the Assembly next met Governor Burke pointed
out its duty of "the appointing of Delegates to represent the
State in Congress and providing for their decent support
while employed in that high and important service." His
recommendation, however, seems to have had but little effect.
The State's delegates continued to attend only spasmodically.
Nor did the other states show any greater interest. In a Con-
gress entitled to ninety-one members, only twenty-three were
present, January 14, 1784, to vote for the ratification of the
treaty of peace which acknowledged their independence. Rep-
resenting North Carolina on that occasion were Hugh Wil-
liamson and Richard Dobbs Spaight.

In his message Governor Burke pointed out the necessity
for important reforms in the civil affairs of the State.
He called attention to the negligence and corruption that
prevailed among the specific tax collectors, commissaries
and quartermasters; the "disorder of the public accounts;"
the "insufficiency of the provisions for the Judges and
Attorney-General" which "has much embarrassed the Judi-
ciary Department of the Government and threatens to
leave the State altogether without Courts of Justice. ':
One of the most forcible passages in his address deals
with the evils of arbitrary impressments for public pur-
poses, which he had set himself "absolutely to restrain
and hoped finally to render them unnecessary." Perceiving
"that rendering the merchant's property precarious, and de-
priving him of the means of carrying on his trade by seizing
without payment his stock, must infallibly ruin our Impor-
tations and exportations, and leave us without foreign sup-
plies,'1 he recommended "to the patronage of the General
Assembly this important source of wealth, strength and popu-
lation." The message itself, in style, in spirit and in con-
tent was a strong document; the circumstances under which
it was delivered made it all the more impressive. All rea:

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 499

lized that it was the last act of a distinguished public career,
which had begun with brilliance and was closing under a dark
cloud of adversity.

The Assembly hastened to carry many of the governor's
recommendations into effect. It passed an act to complete
the State's continental battalions and imposed a penalty of
£50 upon any officer who failed to make proper returns. An-
other act required specific tax collectors, commissaries, and
quartermasters to make settlements of their accounts. The
war had produced unsettled business conditions. Titles to
property had become insecure because many persons in the
State "through the confusion of the times," had not been
able to prove and register deeds and other conveyances as
required by law, and because others had not completed build-
ings on town lots "within the time limited by law" on ac-
count of the "impossibility of procuring necessary mate-
rials for building occasioned by the present war
with Great Britain." The Assembly accordingly passed sev-
eral acts designed to give necessary relief from such condi-
tions, and to stabilize business. With the same purpose in view
it established a scale of depreciation for paper currency. An
important reform was made in the judiciary by granting
equity jurisdiction to the superior court judges. Several
acts were passed granting relief to towns from conditions
produced by the war. Illustrative of this kind of legislation
is an act relating to the election of commissioners for the
town of Edenton. By an act of 1745 the General Assembly
named the commissioners and conferred upon them the power
of self-perpetuation; this act was now declared to be "in-
consistent with the spirit of our present Constitution," and
the commissioners were made elective by the freeholders of
the town. Other acts resulting from the war provided for
the re-opening of the land office; for the sale of confiscated
property; and for the relief of the officers and soldiers of the
Continental Line.

One of the first problems to which the Assembly turned
its attention was to provide for the men whose sacrifices, en-
durance and courage had brought the struggle to its trium-
phant close. An act was passed to make good to the officers
and soldiers of the Continental Line the losses they had sus-
tained by reason of the depreciation of the currency, and a
commission consisting of John Hawks, James Coor, and Wil-
liam Blount was appointed to carry it into effect. In 1780,
it will be recalled, the Assemblv reserved an immense tract

7 v

500 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

of the State's western lands to be used as bounties for her
soldiers. At the April session, 1782, therefore, declaring
that it was "proper that some effectual and permanent re-
ward should be rendered for the signal bravery and persever-
ing zeal of the Continental officers and soldiers in the serv-
ice of the State," the Assembly passed an act providing for
the distribution of this land, allotting to each private soldier,
640 acres; to each non-commissioned officer, 1,000 acres; to
each subaltern, 2,560 acres; to each captain 3,840 acres; to
each major, 4,800 acres; to each lieutenant-colonel, 5,760
acres ; to each colonel, 7,200 acres ; to each brigadier-general,
12,000 acres; to each chaplain, 7,200 acres; to each surgeon,
4,800 acres; and to each surgeon's mate, 2,560 acres. Similar
allotments were made to the heirs of those who had been
killed in the service. To General Greene, "as a mark of the
high sense this State entertains of the extraordinary serv-
ices of that brave and gallant officer," the General Assembly
granted 25,000 acres. Absalom Tatom, Isaac Shelby, and
Anthony Bledsoe were appointed commissioners to lay off
these claims.

The Assembly also turned its attention to those citizens
of the State who were prisoners in the hands of the British.
Every war has its stories of prison brutalities and horrors,
and the war of the American Revolution was no exception.
Each side freely charged the other with intentional mistreat-
ment of its prisoners, and unfortunately each was able to cite
incidents which seem to sustain its charges. But even if we
dismiss from consideration all accusations of intentional mis-
treatment by either side, there remains a story of terrible
privations and sufferings. The British perhaps were more
blameable than the Americans since their resources and
means of alleviating suffering were greater. Stories of Brit-
ish prison-ships of the American Revolution find their par-
allel in the stories of Andersonville and Fort Delaware dur-
ing the Civil War. After the fall of Charleston the soldiers
of the North Carolina Continental Line who became prisoners
of war were placed on prison-ships in Charleston harbor;
many others were sent thither after Camden. Close confine-
ment, improper food, and ill-usage proved fatal to scores
of them. Others were sent to the West Indies where under
heavy pressure, amounting practically to compulsion, they
entered the British service against Spain. But many were
still in captivity when the Assembly met in 1782. The Gen-
eral Assembly accordingly adopted a resolution requesting

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 501

the governor to open negotiations with General Leslie, the
British commander at Charleston, for an exchange of these
captives for "such of our disaffected Inhabitants [who were]
guilty of Military offences only." Governor Martin com-
plied with this resolution with such success, through the me-
diation of General Greene, that when the Assembly met April
18, 1783, he was able to report that the exchanges had been
effected "and our late suffering people restored to their
friends and families."

Having provided rewards for its soldiers, and secured
the release of those in prison, the Assembly next sought to
adopt a policy that would tend to allay the bitterness which
the war had aroused. When the Assembly met, April 18,
1783, Governor Martin announced that the king had acknowl-
edged the independence of the United States, adding that to
the General Assembly "belongs the Task, that in sheathing
the Sword, you soften the horrors [of war] and repair those
ravages which war has made with a skillful hand, and thereby
heal the wounds of your bleeding Country. Our late revolted
Citizens who, through ignorance and delusion, have forfeited
tjieir lives but are endeavouring to expiate their crimes by
new proofs of fidelitv, have fresh claims to vour Clemencv

1 «/ 7 * ml

on this happy occasion." Following this advice and declar-
ing it to be the policy, "of all wise states on the termination
of civil wars, to grant an act of pardon and oblivion for past
offenses," the Assembly passed an act providing that all
treasons, misprision of treason, felonies, and misdemeanors,
committed since July 4, 1776, by any person or persons, should
be "pardoned, released, and put in total oblivion," but from
the benefits of this amnesty it excepted five classes of per-
sons. They were: (1), citizens of the State who had ac-
cepted commissions as officers and acted as such under the
king; (2), those who were named in the confiscation acts;
(3), those who had left the State with the British armies
and should fail to return within twelve months after the
passage of this law; (4), Peter Mallette, Samuel Andrews,
and David Fanning; and (5), persons guilty of deliberate
and wilful house-burning, murder, and rape. But in spite of
legislative leniency, the people of North Carolina never really
pardoned or forgave the men whose voices and hands had
been raised against them in their struggle for independence.
Many of the Loyalists returned expecting to resume their old
places in their communities, only to find themselves under
a ban socially and politically, and unable to bear the frowns

502 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

and contempt of their former friends and neighbors, finally
abandoned North Carolina to seek new homes in Canada,
Florida, or in the new regions to the south and west. A few
went to England where they spent the remaining years of
their lives in begging from an ungrateful government com-
pensation for the losses which they had sustained in its be-
half in America.

Its ''Act of Pardon and Oblivion" the Assembly wished
to be accepted as evidence of its " earnest desire to observe
the articles of peace. ' ' These articles, containing the acknowl-
edgment of the independence of the United States, the gov-
ernor laid before "the representatives of this free, Sovereign
and Independent State" on April 19, 1783, — the eighth anni-
versary of the battle of Lexington,— saying : "With impa-
tience I hasten to communicate the most important intelli-
gence that has yet arrived in the American Continent. His
Britannic Majesty having acknowledged the United States
©f America free, Sovereign and Independent, * * for

this most happy and auspicious event, which involves in it a
most precious inheritance for ages and all the blessings that
can flow from Independent Empire, with the most lively,
fervent and heart-felt joy, I congratulate you and through
you all my fellow-citizens of the State of North Carolina.
* * * Nothing now remains but to enjoy the fruits of un-
interrupted Constitutional Freedom, the more sweet and
precious as the tree was planted by [the] virtue, raised by the
Toil, and nurtured by the blood of Heroes."

7 %/

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Bassett, John S. : The Regulators of North Carolina,
1765-1771. (Report of the American Historical Asso-
ciation, 1894.)

Bassett, John S. : Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of
North Carolina. (Johns Hopkins University Studies,
14th Series, Nos. IV- V.) 1896.

Bernheim, G. D. : History of the German Settlements and
of the Lutheran Church in North and South Carolina.
1872.

Bernheim, G. D. and Cox, George A.: History of the
Evangelical Lutheran Synod and Ministerium of NortJi
Carolina. 1902.

Biggs, Joseph : History of the Kehukee Baptist Associa-
tion. 1830.

Bond, Beverly W., Jr.: The Quit Rent System in the
American Colonies. 1919.

Branson, E. C. (ed.) : County Government and County
Affairs in North Carolina. 1919.

Cheshire, Joseph B. : How Our Church Came to North
Carolina. (The Spirit of Missions, LXXXIII-5.)

Clewell, John Henry: History of Wachovia in North Car-
olina. 1902.

Connor, Henry G. : The Granville Estate and North Car-
olina. (University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 62-9.)

Connor, Henry G., and Cheshire, Joseph B., Jr.: The
Constitution of North Carolina Annotated. 1911.

Cooke, William D. (ed.) : Revolutionary History of North
Carolina. 1853.

Draper, Lyman C. : King's Mountain and Its Heroes.
1881.

508 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

Faust, Albert Bernhardt: The German Element in the
United States. 2 V. 1909.

Fiske, John: Old Virginia and Her Neighbours. 2 V.
1897.

Fiske, John : New France and New England. 1902.

Fiske, John: The American Revolution. 2 V. 1896.

Fitch, William Edward: Some Neglected History of
North Carolina. 1914.

Foote, William Henry: Sketches of North Carolina: His-
torical and Biographical. 1846; 1912.

Frothingham, Richard: The Rise of the Republic of the
United States. 1872.

Graham, George W. : The Mecklenburg Declaration of
Independence, May 20, 1775, and Lives of Its Signers.
1905.

Greene, Francis Vinson : The Revolutionary War and the
Military Policy of the United States. 1911.

Grimes, J. Bryan : The Great Seal of North Carolina,
1666-1909. (Publications of the North Carolina His-
torical Commission, Bulletin No. 5.)

Grissom, W. L. : History of Methodism in North Carolina
from 1772 to the Present Time. 2 V. 1905.

Hanna, Charles A. : The Scotch-Irish. 2 V. 1902.

Historic Sketch of the Reformed Church in North Caro-
lina. 1908.

Hoyt, William Henry: The Mecklenburg Declaration of
Independence. 1907.

Hughson, S. C. : The Carolina Pirates and Colonial Com-
merce. (Johns Hopkins University Studies. Series
XII. Nos. 2 to 7.)

Jones, Jo. Seawell: A Defense of the Revolutionary His-
tory of the State of North Carolina. 1834.

Knight, Edgar W. : Public School Education in North
Carolina. 1916.

Lossing, Benson J. : Pictorial Field Book of the Revolu-
tion. 2 V. 1851.

MacLean, J. P. : Scotch-Highlanders in America. 1900.

McPherson, O. M. (Compiler) : Indians of North Caro-
lina. (Senate Document No. 677, 63d Congress, 3rd
Session.) 1915.

Mooney, James: Myths of the Cherokee. (Nineteenth
Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Part I,
pp. 11-576.) 1898.

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 509

Moore, James H. : Defence of the Mecklenburg Declara-
tion of Independence. 1908.

Parkman, Francis: Montcalm and Wolfe. 2 V. 1903.

Paper, Charles Lee: North Carolina: A Study in English
Colonial Government. 1904.

Paper, Charles Lee: Church and Private Schools in
North Carolina. 1898.

Roosevelt, Theodore : The Winning of the West. 6 V.
1903.

Royce, Charles C. : The Cherokee Nation of Indians.
(Fifth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 129-378.)
1883-84. I

Schenck, David: North Carolina, 1780-81. 1889.

Sikes, Enoch Walter: The Transition of North Carolina
from, Colony to Commonwealth. 1898.

Smith, Charles Lee : The History of Education in North
Carolina. 1888.

Stewart, S. A. : Court System of North Carolina Before
the Revolution. (Trinity College Historical Papers, Se-
ries IV.) 1900.

Weeks, Stephen B : The Religious Development in the
Province of North Carolina. (Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity Studies, Tenth Series, Nos. V-VI.) 1892.

Weeks, Stephen B. : Church and State in North' Carolina.
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, Eleventh Series,
Nos. V-VI.) 1893.

Weeks, Stephen B. : The Press of North Carolina in the
Eighteenth Century. 1891.

Weeks, Stephen B. : Southern Quakers and Slavery.
1896.

Williams, C. B. : History of the Baptists in North Caro-
lina. 1901.

North Carolina Booklet: MacRae, James C. : The High-
land-Scotch Settlement in North Carolina (IV-10) :
McKelway, A. J. : The Scotch-Irish of North Carolina
(IV-11) ; Cheshire, Joseph B. : First Settlers in North
Carolina, Not Religious Refugees (V-4) ; Dillard, Rich
ard: St. Paul's Church, Edenton, and Its Associations
(V-l) ; Nash, Frank: The Continental Line of North
Carolina (XVII-3) ; Ashe, S. A.: Our Own Pirates
(11-2) ; McCorkle, Mrs. L. A.: Was Alamance the First
Battle of the Revolution (III-7) ; Haywood, Marshall
DeLancey : Number of North Carolinians in the Revo-
lutionary War (XIV-5) ; Clark, Walter: North Caro-

510 HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

lina in South America (The Cartagena Expedition)
(IV-6) ; Graham, William A.: Battle of Ramsaur's
Mill (IV-2) ; Hill, D. H. : Greene's Retreat (1-7) ; Clark,
Walter : Indian Massacre and Tuscarora War, 1711-13
(II-3); Noble, M. C. S. : The Battle of Moore's Creek
Bridge (III-ll) ; Ashe, S. A.: Rutherford's Expedition
Against the Indians, 1776 (IV-8) ; Waddell, Alfred M. :
North Carolina in the French and Indian War (VII-1) ;
Boyd, William K. : The Battle of King's Mountain
( VIII-4) ; King, Clyde L. : Military Organizations of
North Carolina During the American Revolution
(VIII-1); Carr, J. 0. : The Battle of Rockfish Creek
(VI-3) ; Raper, Charles Lee: The Finances of the
North Carolina Colonists (VII-2) ; Raper, Charles Lee:
Social Life in Colonial North Carolina (III-5) ; Pitt-
man, Thomas M. : Industrial Life in Colonial Carolina
(VII-1); Poe, Clarence: Indians, Slaves, and Tories:
Our 18th Century Legislation Regarding Them
(IX-1) ; Holladay, Alexander Q. : Social Conditions in
Colonial North Carolina (111-10) ; Grimes, J. Bryan:
Some Notes on Colonial North Carolina, 1700-1750
(V-2) ; Smith, Charles Lee: Schools in Colonial Times,
(VII-4) ; Haywood, Marshall DeLancey: The Story
of Queen's College, or Liberty Hall in the Province of
North Carolina (XI-3) ; Weeks, Stephen B.: Pre-Revo-
lutionary Printers of North Carolina: Davis, Steuart,
and Boyd (XV-2) ; Davis, Junius: Locke's Fundamen-
tal Constitution (VII-1) ; Battle, Kemp P.: The Lords
Proprietors of Carolina (IV-1) ; Sikes, E. W. : Our
First Constitution, 1776 (VII-2); Dillard, Richard:
The Historic Tea Party of Edenton (1-4) ; Waddell, A.
M. : The Stamp Act on the Cape Fear (1-3) ; Pittman,
Thomas M. : The Revolutionary Congresses of North
Carolina (II-6) ; McKoy, W. B. : Incidents of the
Early and Permanent Settlement of the Cape Fear
(VII-3) ; Boyd, William K. : Early Relations of North
Carolina and the West (VII-3); Clark, Walter: The
Colony of Transylvania (III-9) ; Nash, Francis: The
Borough Towns of North Carolina (VI-2).
James Sprunt Historical Publications: Rand, James
Hall: North Carolina Indians (XII-2) ; Oliver, David
D. : The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
the Province of North Carolina (IX-1) ; Nash, Frank:
The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 and Its Mak-

HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA 511

ers (II--) ; Guess, William Conrad: County Govern-
ment in Colonial North Carolina (II-l) ; Whitaker,
Bessie Lewis : The Provincial Council and Committees
of Safety in North Carolina (No. 8) ; Alderman, Ernest
H. : The North Carolina Colonial Bar (XIII-1) ; Cooke,
C. S. : The Governor, Council and Assembly in Royal
North Carolina (XII-1) ; Coulter, E. Merton: The
Granville District (13-1) ; Morgan, L. N. : Land Tenure
in Proprietary North Carolina (12-1) ; Nixon, Joseph
R. : German Settlers in Lincoln County and Western
North Carolina (11-2).

INDEX

"Act of Pardon and Oblivion." 502

Adams, James, 117

Adjournment of Second Provincial
Congress, 367

Ad valorem tax, 433

Alamance, battle of, 317

Albany Plan of Union, 268

Albemarle, 39; settlements on tbe,
27; originally within jurisdiction of
Virginia, 32; parent settlement of
North Carolina, 39; nucleus of
North Carolina, 63

Albemarle Sound, 22

Alexander, John M., 371
\ Allen, Eleazer, 150

Amadas, Philip, 9

American Cause, disaffection to, 372

Arehdale, county of, 76

Archdale, John, 74

Armstrong, James, 439

Army, Revolutionary, organization of,
373

Arrival of the English in "Virginia"
(illustration). 5

Articles of Confederation, 496

Ashe, John, 150, 316. 322, 348, 363, 488

Ashe, Samuel, 150, 371, 377, 412, 418

Ashley River settlement, nucleus of
South Carolina, 63

Augusta, siege of, 485

Assembly, .first, under the Constitu-
tion, 422

Authority of Governor under Pro-
prietary government, 40

Avery, Waightstill, 203,-371, 377, 418

Baptists, 195

Barnwell, John, 102

Bath, 123

Bath, County of, 76

Battle of Alamance, 317

Battle of Brandywine, 440

Battle of Camden, 464

Battle of Cowpens, 478

Battle of Germantown, 440

Battle of Guilford Court House, 483

Battle of King's Mountain, 472

Battle of Monmouth, 441

Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, 384

Beaufort, capture of, 265

Beneficial result of Indian war, 110

Berkeley, William, 32, 49

Bibliography, 503

Biggs, Timothy, 54, 74

Bill of Rights adopted, 413

Blair, John, 117

Blunt, Tom, 105

Board of Trade, 239

Vol. 1—32

Bonnet, Stede, 127

Boone. Daniel, 289; (portrait), 290

Boston Port Bill, 350

Boston Tea Party, 346

Boundary disputes, 72, 241; lines es-
tablished, 135

Boyd. Adam, 208

Braddock, Edward, 273

Braddock's defeat, 273

Brandywine. Battle of, 440

Brett, "Daniel 87

Brevard, Ephraim, 203

British rule, at an end in North Caro-
lina, 353

Bronze Tablet on State Highway near
Kinston (illustration), 420

Brunswick, 149; attack on, 265

Bryan. Samuel. 461

Buncombe. Edward, 439

Burgwin, John, 150

Burke, Thomas, 415, 425, 496; capture
of, 491; escape of, 492

Burrington, George, 129, 153, 213

Byrd, Valentine, 54

Cabots, The, 1

Caldwell (David) School, 204

Calloway, Caleb, 26

Camden, Battle of, 464

Campbell, Farquard, 336

Campbell, John, 232, 348, 412

Campbell, William. 471

Cannon purchased by Governor Caswell

during the Revolution (illustration),

450
Cape Fear, 1; Indians, 146; settlement

by Maurice Moore, 147; oldest grant

for land on the, 149 £'

"Cape Fear Mercury," 208
Capital at New Bern, 299
Carrinoton, Edward, 476
Cary Rebellion, 84
Cary, Thomas, 91
Caswell. Richard. 316, 348. 349, 373,

412, 415, 419; tablet marking grave,

420; cannon purchased by, during

Revolution (illustration), 450
Catawba Indians, 252
Catchmaid, George, 26
Cavendish, Thomas, 9
Character of early pioneers, 26
Charleston, Clinton's defeat at. 409;

defense of. 440; surrender of, 442,

458
Charter of 1663, issued by Charles II,

27
Cherokee Indians, 107, 254, 407

513

514

INDEX

Chief executive, first of North Carolina,
independent of British Crown, 377

Christian service, first by English
Protestants in United States, 15

Chowan Parish, 88

Chowanoc Indians, 250

Church, oldest, 88; question of an Es-
tablished, 84; early, 171; efforts to
promote education, 205

Circular letter of 1768, 331

Civil government, in Revolution, 374

Civil strife, 489

Clarendon, 39

Clarendon colony, 145

Class distinctions, Colonial North Caro-
lina, 180

Cleaveland. Benjamin, 355, 471

Clinton's defeat at Charleston, 409

Colonial currency, showing autograph
of Edward Moseley (illustration), 96

Colonial wars, 258

Colony, first English, 9, 10; evolution
of the, 24; expansion of under
Crown, 33; proprietary form of gov-
ernment adopted for, 34; society,
religion and education, 180; social
and industrial life during first sev-
enty-five years, 185; relations with
the Indian nations, 257

Colonization, Raleigh true parent of, in
North America, 19

Committees of Safety, 354

Concessions of 1665, 37

Confiscated property of Tories, 434

Confusion of early laws, 116

Conquest of Georgia, in Revolution,
455

"Conservatives," 402

Constitution of North Carolina as a
proprietary, 39

Constitution of 1776, 411; adopted,
413; first assembly under the, 422

Constitution makers, 415

Constitution-making, 414

Constitutional controversies, 210

Constitutional Convention, 412

Continental Army, 438; North Caro-
lina's quota, 439; sufferings of, 445

Continental Association. 321, 352

Continental Congress, 346, 354, 497;
adopted Declaration of Independ-
ence, 409

"Continental correspondence," 345

Continental currency, 434, 495

Continental movement, 335

Convention of 1776, 412

Coor, James, 377

Corn, 13

Cornwallis, Lord, 384, 457; surrender
of, 493

Council, early, 42; under the pro-
prietary government, 42

Council of Safety, problems of, 405

County of Bath, 76

County of Archdale, 76

Cowpens, 471; battle of, 478

Craven, 39

Cray. William, 422

Crowfield Academy, 204

Crown government, cause of dissen-
sion, 212; difference between Crown

government and Proprietary govern-
ment, 210

Crown lands, 33

Crown rule, beginning of, 139

Culpepper, John, 54

Culpepper's Rebellion, 52

Currency issued during French and In-
dian War (illustration), 271; change
from English pound to Spanish
milled dollar, 374; depreciation of
during Revolution, 432

Daniel, Robert, 74

Dare, Virginia, 15; fate a mystery, 16

Davidson College, 204

Davie, William R, 204, 456

Davis, George, 184

Davis, James, 207, 409

Davis, Oroondates, 467

Declaration of Independence, adopted,
348, 371; signers of, 400; Continental
Congress adopts, 409; officially pro-
claimed to people of North Carolina
at Halifax, 410

Declaration of war (Revolution), 373

Declaratory Act, 331, 339

Do Graffenried, Christopher, 79, 101

Delegates to First Congress, 348

Destruction of Fort Johnston, 366

Difference between Proprietary and
Crown Government, 210

Dinwiddie, Robert, 267

Dobbs, Arthur, 165, 231; (portrait),
166

Downfall of Royal Government, 338

Draft law (Revolution), 443

Drake, Francis, 12

Drummond, William, 41; first gov-
ernor, 29

Dry, William. 419

Dunmore, Lord, 383

Durant, George, 26, 54

Early church, 117

Early election, 411

Early governors, 50

Early laws, revision of. 113

Early missionaries, 117

Early newspapers, 207

Early pioneers, 25; character of, 26

Earlv plantations, general description
of* 187

Early political parties, 112

Early schools, 201

Eastchurch, Thomas, 41, 54

Eaton, Thomas, 377, 419

Eden. Charles, 124

Edenton, 123; seat of government in
early days. 123

Edtnundson, William, 85

Education, 199; Colonial North Caro-
lina, 180; marked impulse given to,
by Scotch-Irish and Germans, 203 ;
efforts to promote made by church,
205

Edwards, Morgan, 292

Elizabethan England, 2

Emigration, reason for Scotch-Irish,
164

English. Arrival of in "Virginia" (il-
lustration), 5

English colony, first. 9, 10

INDEX

515

English colonization, 3; Roanoke set-
tlement beginning of, 20

English pound, change from to Spanish
milled dollar, 374

English Protestants, first Christian
service in United States, 15

English settlement of North Carolina,
144

Established Church, question of, 84

Eu taw Springs, 485

Everard, Richard, 133, 212

Evolution of the Colony, 24

Panning, David, 490

Fanning, Edmund. 305

Famine, threatened Pane colony, 12

Ferguson, Patrick, 457

Finances, breakdown of in Revolution,
431

Financial controversies, 236

First Assembly under the Constitution,
422

First book published in North Caro-
lina, 207

First chief executive of North Caro-
lina independent of British Crown,
377

First Christian service by English
Protestants, 15

First classical school in North Caro-
lina, 204

First Congress, delegates to, 348

First English Colony, 9, 10

First German settlement, 174

First governor of Carolina, 74

First letter in English language from
New World, 10

First libraries, 206

First parish, 88

First preacher, 85

First press, 207

First professional teacher, 200

First school, 200

First survey, 136

First town, 77

Forbes, John, 276

Fort Johnston, 264; destruction of,
366

Fox, George, 86

Frankland, Thdmas, 150

French and Indian war, 258, 268; Cur-
rency Issued during (illustration),
271; part of North Carolina in, 285;
opening of region beyond Alle-
ghanies to settlement, 288

French danger to colonies, 258

French plans in Mississippi Valley. 260

French privateers, 263, 283

French Protestants. 76

Fundamental Constitutions, 37, 65

Gale, Christopher, 80; (portrait), 131

Gates, Horatio, 463

General Assembly, under the Pro-
prietary government, 43

Georgia, Conquest of, in Revolution,
455

German Protestants, 78

German settlements, first, 174

Germans, 162; give marked impulse to
education, 203

Germantown, battle of, 440

Gibbs, John, 64

Gilbert, Humphrey, 3

Glasgow, James, 419

Giover, William, 92

Gordon, William, 117

Government of Albemarle, Seal of (il-
lustration), 39

Governor, first, of Albemarle county,
29; first, of Carolina, 74; authority
of under Proprietary government,
40; last royal, of North Carolina,
387

Governors, early, 50

"Governor's Palace," 299

Granville District, 222; rioters. 225

Grant for land, oldest extant. 27

Great Deed of Grant, 30, 47, 227

Great Seal, 419

Greene, Nathanael, 475; (portrait), 4S2

Grenville, Richard. 9

Griffin. Charles, 200

Growth of Independence, 389

Guerrilla warfare, in Revolution. 460

Guilford Court House, battle of, 483

Halifax, Declaration of Independence
officially proclaimed to people of
North Carolina at, 410

Hambright, Frederick, 371

Hamilton. John, 430

Hariot, Thomas, 9

Harnett, Cornelius. 324, 336, 355, 363,
377, 412, 415, 419, 488, 496

Hart, Thomas, 314

Harvey, John, 26, 60, 348

Harvey, Thomas, 74

Hatteras Indians, 250

Hawkins, Benjamin, 446, 498

Hawley, William, 24

Haywood, William. 419

Heath charter of 1629, 28

Heath, Robert, 22; patent, 22

Henderson, Richard, 294

Hewes, Joseph, 348, 349, 355. 400, 401

Highlanders, exodus of from North
Carolina, 1777, 430

Hill, Whitmill. 377

Hillsboro Congress of August. 1775,
370

Hogan. James, 371, 439

Holt, Michael, 314

Hooper. William, 314, 347, 348, 349,
355. 390, 400; (portrait), 401

Hostility between Indian tribes. 252

House of Commons, under the Pro-
prietary government, 44

Houston, William. 322

Howard. Martin. 430

Howe, Robert. 316, 355, 363, 373. 439

Howell, Rednap, 304

Huguenots, 75

Hunter. .lames. 304- S',

Husband, Herman, 304

Hyde, Edward, 42, 97

Industrial life of colony during first
seventy-five years. 185

Illustrations: The Arrival of the Eng-
lish in ''Virginia," 5; Indian War-
riors of Roanoke. 11; Seal of the
Lords Proprietors of Carolina, 36;

516

INDEX

Seal of the Government of Albe-
marle and Province of North Caro-
lina, 166— to 1730, 39; St. Paul's
Church at Edenton, 89; Colonial
Currency Showing Autograph of Ed-
ward Moseley, 96; St. Thomas'
Church at Bath, 119; Orton, 151;
Seal of the Province of North Caro-
lina, 1739-1767, 211; Currency Is-
sued during French and Indian War,
271; Tryon Palace, 300; Bronze Tab-
let on State Highway near Kinston,
420; Cannon purchased by Governor
Caswell during the Revolution, 450

Immigration checked bv Indian wars,
108; German, 170; Scotch, 158

Imperial and Inter-Colonial Relations,
239

Indentured servants, 182

Independence of United States of
America, 502; growth of, 389;
North Carolina first colonies to vote
for, 389

Indian conspiracy of 1715, 259

Indian slaves. 100

Indian tribes, 250; hostility between,
252; attitude of during Revolution.
380

Indian troubles, 50, 70, 253, 280; dur-
ing Revolution, 406

Indian wars of 1711-1715, 100; check
immigration, 108; beneficial result,
110

Indian Warriors of Roanoke (illustra-
tion), 11

Indians, Lane's relations with, 10; in-
justice to, 100; Cherokee, 107, 254,
407; Yamassee, 105; Hatteras, 250;
Mattamuskeets, 250; Pottasketes,
250; Chowanocs, 250; Tuscarora,
250; Catawba. 252; relations with
the colonies, 256; removal of, 257;
effect on removal of French and
Spanish allies, 283

Innes, James, 262, 272

Inter-Colonial and Imperial relations,
239

Invasion of North Carolina, 468

Iredell, James, 418

Jarvis. Thomas. 26, 74

Jenkins. John, 26, 54, 60

Jones, Allen, 412

Jones, Thomas, 377. 412

•Tones, Willie, 316, 355, 377, 412, 416

Johnson, Nathaniel. 90

Johnston, Gabriel, 153, 156, 167, 218

Johnston, Samuel. 315, 348, 352, 367.
371, 377, 390, 412, 415; (portrait);
368

Journalism in North Carolina, 207

Judicial system, under the Proprietary
government, 45

Judiciary, control of. 241; under con-
trol of Crown, 241

Kentucky, 296
Kinchen, John, 377
King George's war. 258
King William's war, 258
King's Mountain. 471: batle of. 472:
turning point in Revolution, 474

Land and slaves, chief form of wealth.
186

Land bounties, 500

Land grant, oldest extant, 27

Land question, 67

Lane colony, threatened by famine, 12

Lane, Ralph, 8; relations with the In-
dians, 10

Last royal Assembly, 362

Last royal governor of North Carolina,

Laws, revision of early, 113; confusion

of early, 116
Lawson, John, 80, 101
Leech, Joseph 419
Legislation of 1715, 113
Libraries, first, 206
Lillington, Alexander, 150, 316, 373.

439
Lincoln, Benjamin, 456
Loan certificates, 434
London Company, 21
Long, Nicholas, 373
Lords Proprietors, 28; list of, 32;

Seal of (illustrations). 36
"Lost Colony," 18; fate of, 18
Loyalist conspiracy, 428
Ludwell, Philip. 64; (portrait), 66
Lutherans, 196

Maclaine, Archibald, 412, 418

Martin. Alexander, 203, 314, 361, 425.
440, 467, 493

Martin, Josiah, 318. 338

Mattamuskeets Indians, 250

McAden. Hugh, 194

McDowell. Charles, 469

McDowell, Joseph (portrait), 473

Mcintosh, Lachlan, 44l

-.Mecklenburg Declaration," 302

"Mecklenburg Declaration of Independ-
ence," 394

Mccklenberg Resolutions of May 31.
393

Meherrin Indians, 70

Methodists, 197

Military assistance to sister states, in
Revolution, 455

Military problems, 437

Militia.' 269, 354, 360. 437; basis of
organization, 438: during the Revo-
lution. 438

Miller. Thomas. 54 -**

Minute-men, 373, 437

Missionaries, early, 117

Money, paper, 431

Monmouth, battle of, 441

Moore, George, 150, 324

Moore, James. 105, 316. 373. 385, 439

Moore, Maurice, 106, 147, 150

Moore, Roger, 150

Moore's Creek Bridge, battle of. 384:
saved North Carolina from conquest,
388

Moseley, Edward. 94, 215; facsimile of
autograph, 96

Moseley, Sampson, 150

Nash. Abner, 316. 348, 355, 377; (por-
trait). 4 -.>•',
Nash. Francis, 316. 371, 440
Nashville, 296

INDEX

51'

Naval engagements during Revolution,
451

Navigation Act, 52

Negro slavery, 183

New Bern, 82, 123; capital at, 299

Newspapers, early, 207

Newtown, 153

Non-Importation Association, 334, 356

Norfolk, burning of, 384

North American colonization, Raleigh
true parent of, 19

North Carolina, first European known
to have described the coast, 1; first
permanent settlers from Virginia,
21; oldest grant for land extant, 27;
government during Proprietary pe-
riod, 37; constitution of as a Pro-
prietary, 39; Albemarle parent set-
tlement of, 39; Albemarle nucleus of,
G3 ; first governor of, 74; ceased to
be Proprietary colony, 138 ; becomes
Royal Colony, 141; English settle-
ment of, 144; population prior to
census of 1790, 178; boundary dis-
pute, 242; part in French and In-

• dian war, 285; grant of 1665, Ten-
nessee included in, 289; end of Brit-
ish rule, 353; first chief executive of,
independent of Britisli crown, 377;
last royal governor, 387; first col-
onies to vote for independence, 389 ;
political sentiment in 1774, 391; in-
dependent state, 411; exodus of
Highlanders from in 1777, 430; Con-
tinental Army quota, 439; military
assistance to sister states, in Revo-
lution, 455; invasion of, 468

"North Carolina Gazette," 207

"North Carolina Magazine," 207

"Nutbush Address," 306

Ohio Land Company, 207

Oldest church. 88; (illustration), 119

Oldest grant for land on the Cape Fear,

149
Orton. 150; (illustration), 151
Osborne, Adlai, 203

Palatines. The. 80

Palmer, Paul, 195

Paper money, 431

Parliamentary taxation, 321

Passing of the Proprietarv, 124

Penn. John, 371, 400. 467', 496

Permanent settlement, 25

Person. Thomas, 377, 402. 412, 419

Pilmoor, Joseph, 197

Pioneers, early, 25; character of, 26

Piracy, 125; destroyed in North Caro-
lina, 127

Pitt. William, 276

Plantations, early, general description
of, 187

Planters. ISO

Political and Constitutional contro-
versies, 210

Political parties, early, 112

Political sentiment in North Carolina,
1774. 391

Politics in early dnvs. 122

Polk. Thomas. '371.439

Pollock. Thomas, 103, 112

Population in 1730, 143; prior to cen-
sus of 1790, 178

Porter, Edmund, 214

Portraits: Sir Walter Raleigh, fron-
tispiece; Governor Philip Ludwell.
66; Christopher Gale, First Chief
Justice of North Carolina, 131; Ar-
thur Dobbs, 166; Augustus G.
Spangenberg, 172; Hugh Waddell
279; Daniel Boone, 290; Samuel
Johnston, 368; William Hooper.
401; Joseph Hewes, 401; Governor
Abner Nash, 420; Isaac Shelby, 470;
Colonel Joseph McDowell, 473; Na-
thanael Greene, 482

Potato, 13; cultivation introduced to
England by Raleigh, 13

Pottaskete Indians, 250

Preacher, first, 85

Presbyterians, 194

Press, first, 207; late in coming to
North Carolina, 206

Pricklove, Samuel, 26

Prisoners, Revolutionary war, release
of. 501

Prison-ships, 500

Privateers, French, 263; Spanish, 263;
in Revolution, 449

Problems of Reconstruction (after In-
dian war). 111

Property of Tories confiscated, 434

Proprietary government, I, 32 ; adopted
for new colony. 34; provisions of,
35; Carolina government during, 37;
authority of Governor under, 40:
Council. 42 ; General Assembly, 43 :
House of Commons. 44; judicial sys-
tem, 45; wars and rebellions under.
47; revolt against, 58; passing of
the, 124; North Carolina ceased to
be. 138; ended in 1729, 140: differ-
ence between Proprietary govern-
ment and Crown government, 210

Provincial Council. 367, 376: difficulties
of. 378

Provincial Congress. 354, 362; second,
adjournment of, 367

Province of North Carolina, Seal of
(illustration). 39; 1730-1767 (illus-
trations), 211

Quakers, 80, 193; expulsion of from

courts, Council and Assembly, '.M
Queen's College. 204
Queen Anne's war. 258
Quince, Richard. 336
Quit rents, 47: controversy, 214

Uncial (dements. 302

"Radicals," 402

Rainsford, (Jiles, 117

Raleigh, Walter, introduced tobacco
and potato into England, 13: true
parent of North American coloniza-
tion. 19: efforts to plant colony
failed. 21; (portrait), frontispiece

Raleigh's charter. 4

Ramsaur's Mill. 401. 47s

Rawdon, Lord, -457

Reconstruction, problems of (after In-
dian War), 111

Regulation, The, 306: ended, 318

518

INDEX

Regulation and Revolution, difference
between, 319

Regulators, 302

Relfe, Thomas, 26

Religion, 190; denominations, early,
87; in early days, 122; Colonial
North Carolina, 180; dissension, 192

Religious body, oldest organized in
North Carolina. 88

"Revisal of 1715," 113

Revision of early laws, 113

Revolt against proprietary govern-
ment, 58

Revolution and Regulation, difference
between, 319

Revolution in South Carolina. 140

Revolutionary war, preparations for,
359; beginning of, 359: organ;za-
tion of army, 373; civil government
during, 374; attitude of Indian
tribes during, 380; breakdown of
finances in, 431; depreciation of cur-
rency, 432: military problems, 437;
militia. 438; draft law. 443; war
bounties, 444; difficulty in obtaining
supplies, 447; privateers, 449; naval
engagements, 451: in the South,
455; guerrilla warfare, 460; King's
Mountain turning point in, 474;
after effects. 495; release of prison-
ers, 501

Rice. Nathaniel. 231

Rioters, Granville District, 225

Roads, early. 124; plans for. 122

Robertson, James. 291, 296

Roanoke colonies. 9; beginning of
English colonization in America. 20

Roanoke Island. 5

Rowan. Mathew, 167, 231

Royal Assembly, last. 362

Royal Colony, North Carolina be-
comes a, 141

Royal government, downfall of. 338

Roval governor, last, of North Caro-
lina, 387

Roval rule in North Carolina. 143

Rutherford, Griffith, 316. 412

Savannah, capture of. 455

Saw mills. 125

Schism Act. 198

School, first, 200: early. 201; first
classical in North Carolina, 204

Scotch Highlanders, 155

Scotch immigration, 158

Scotch-Irish, 162; reason for emigra-
tion. 164: give marked impulse to
education, 203

Seal of the Government of Albemarle
and Province of North Carolina,
166— to 1730 (illustration), 39

Seal of the Lords Proprietors of Caro-
lina (illustrations), 36

Seal of the Province of North Caro-
lina. 1730-1767 (illustrations), 211

Second Provincial Congress, 362; ad-
journment of, 367

Servants, white, 182; indentured. 182

Settlement, permanent, 25

Settlements on the Albemarle, 27

Sevier. John. 294, 469

Sharpe, William, 498

Shelby, Isaac, 469; (portrait), 470

Sheppard, Abraham, 439

Ship building. 448

Signers of Declaration of Independ-,
ence, 348, 371

Sims, George, 306

"Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colon v."
18

Slavery, 183; rapid growth, 184

Slaves, Indian, 100

Small farmers, 181

"Snow Campaign," 382

Smuggling, 125

Social and industrial life of the colony
during first seventy-five years. 185

Society, Colonial North Carolina, 180:
class distinctions. 180; planters. 180;
small farmers. 181; white servants,
182; indentured servants, 1S2; negro
slavery, 183

Sothel, Seth. 41. 61

South Carolina, conquest of. 458

"South Carolina Gazette, The," 207

Spaight, Richard D.. 498

Spangenberg. Augustus G. (portrait),
172

Spanish Armada. 16

Spanish danger to the colonies. 25.8

Spanish milled dollar, change to from
English pound. 374

Spanish privateers. 263

Spanish war, 260; first call for troops.
260

Spencer, Samuel, 203, 377, 412, 418

St. James, 154

St. Paul's Church at Edenton (illustra-
tion), 89

St. Phillips, 154

St. Thomas' Church at Bath (illustra-
tion), 119

Stamp Act, 321; first opposition to in
North Carolina, 321; repealed. 330

Starkey. Edward. 419

Stay law, 30

Stephens, Samuel, 29

Steuart. Andrew, 208

Stony Point. 441

Sufferings of Continental Army, 445

Sumner,' Jethro. 371. 439;^V7~2,

Supplies, difficulty in obtaining, Revo-
lutionary war, 447

Surrender of Charleston, 442

Survey, first, 136

Suther, Samuel. 196

Swann. Samuel. 232

"Swann's Revisal." 207

Swiss colony, 79

Tarleton. Banastre. 457

Tate's Academv. 204

Taxes, 109, 303, 321, 432: ad valorem.

433
Tavlor. Ebenezer, 118
Tavlor, William. 422
Teach, Edward. 127
Teacher, first professional. 200
Tennessee included in Carolina grant

of 1665. 289
Thackston. James. 373
Tobacco. 13; use introduced to English

bv Raleigh, 13: staple of colonies,

69

INDEX

519

Tories of North Carolina, 408, 427;

feeling against, 430; property of

confiscated, 434
Townshend Acta, 331
Trade relations, 246
Transylvania Company, 295
Treaty of Paris, 288
Treaty of 1783, 431
Troops, first call for, Spanish war, 260
Tryon Palace (illustration), 300
Tryon, William, 287
Tuscarora, 100; immediate cause of

war, 101
Tuscarora Indians, 250
Tynte, Edward, 97

Union sentiment, 335
United States of America, Independ-
ence of, 502
Urmstone, John, 117

Vail, Edward, 373

Valley Forge, 440

Verrazzano, Giovanni da, 1

Vestry act, 116

"Virginia," Arrival of the English in

(illustration), 5; hostile throughout

Proprietary period, 68
"Virginia Gazette," 207

Wade. Thomas. 373
Waddell, Hugh, 150, 276, 298, 316, 322;
(portrait). 279

Walker, Henderson, 74, 84

War bounties, during Revolution, 444

War in the South, 455

War of the Regulation, 302

Wars and rebellions, under Proprietary

government, 47
War with Spain, 260; first call for

troops, 260
Washingon, George, 267, 462
Watauga, 292
Watauga Association, 293
Wealth, land and slaves chief form of,

186
Webster, James, 457
Western settlements, 291
Westward expansion, 287
White, John, 9, 14
White servants, 182
Wilderness Trail, 295
Wilkinson, Henry, 41
Williams, John, 295, 439
Williamson, Hugh, 498
Wilmington, 153
Winston, Joseph, 371, 471
Woodward, Thomas, 73

Yamassee Indians, 105
Yamassee war, 259
Yeanians, John, 41
Yellow fever, 103
"Yellow Jacket, The," 207