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JOHN H. WHEELER.

Born, Hertford Co., No. Ca. Aug. 2d. 1802. Died, Washington, D. C. Dec. 7th. 1882. A. M. Univ. of No. Ca. 1826; State Treasurer, 1845. U. S. Envoy to Nicaragua, 1853. Author Hist. of No. Ca. and of Reminiscences of Eminent North Carolinians.

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REMINISCENCES AND MEMOIRS
OF
NORTH CAROLINA
AND
EMINENT NORTH CAROLINIANS,

BY

JOHN H. WHEELER,
AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA, AND MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL
SOCIETIES OF NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, GEORGIA,
AND PENNSYLVANIA.

" `Tis well that a State should often be reminded of her great citizens."

COLUMBUS, OHIO:
COLUMBUS PRINTING WORKS,
1884.

TO
HON. KEMP P. BATTLE, LL. D.,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA,
AS SOME EVIDENCE OF
PERSONAL REGARD OF THE AUTHOR, AND DEVOTION TO THE FAME
AND HONOR OF THEIR NATIVE STATE,
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED.

        It is well known to you that your venerated father encouraged the preparation and publication of this work. His letters to the author prove this. But he died before it was completed. Lest the same inevitable event should occur to the author now beyond the allotted period of human life, these Reminiscences and Memories, the labor and research of a life, are now given as a grateful legacy to his kind and generous countrymen, who will admire the generous traits exhibited, and imitate the noble examples of their forefathers.

PREFACE.

WASHINGTON CITY, No. 28, GRANT PLACE,
JUNE 10, 1878.

To Hon. William H. Battle, L.L.D., Chapel Hill:

        MY ESTEEMED SIR--Your recent letter as to "The Address on the Early Times and Men of Albemarle," has been received. For the kind opinion, that "the people of the State and especially those of the Albemarle County, owe a debt of gratitude for this and other contributions to their history," I sincerely thank you.

        Your letter further adds, that you "have seen in the Raleigh Observer, a handsome tribute to the value and usefulness of my History of North Carolina, expressing a wish for an early publication of a second edition, uniting yourself in a similar request.

        Like expressions have been received from many respectable sources.

        Recently, The News of Raleigh, The Democrat of Charlotte, and other papers call for the publication of the "Reminiscences of Eminent North Carolinians," and appeal to her sons for contributions "to the Grand Old History of North Carolina."

        It is hoped and believed this call will be heard and heeded.

        While Virginia on one side and South Carolina on the other, have presented to the world the glowing record of the patriotism, valor and virtues of their sons, North Carolina equally rich or richer in such reminiscences; and with traits of virtue, and honor, and sacrifices to patriotism, deserving of record, allows this record to be obscured by time, and to

                         "Waste its fragrance on the desert air."

        It has been truly said that no State of our Republic, has, from the earliest period of its existence, shown a more determined spirit of independence, and a more constant and firm resistance "to every form of oppression of the rights of man" than North Carolina. This is evinced on every page of her history, and exhibited on the battle field, and in the exploits of individual prowess. This patriotic spirit has been accompanied by noble traits of individual character; as integrity of purpose, a straightforwardness of intention, and by simplicity and modesty in demeanor.

        It was on the shores of North Carolina that the English first landed on this continent. It has been the refuge of the down-trodden, the oppressed and persecuted of every nation, and here they found that freedom denied to them in the old world--with gentle manners and resolute hearts, their whole history exhibits a firm devotion to liberty, a keen perception of right and a ready and determined resistance to wrong. For this and this only, was life desirable to them, and for this they were willing to die.

        The gallant patron, who first sent a colony to

our shores was the victim of tyranny and oppression. Her first Governor was sacrificed in defence of popular rights. Such seed could but produce goodly fruits. The character of this people was graphically described by one of the early Colonial Governors, as "being insolent and rebelliousimpatient of all tyranny and ready to resist oppression in every form."

        An early historian has recorded our people, as being "gentle in their manners, advocates of freedom; jealous of their rulers, impatient, restless, and turbulent when ruled by any other government than their own; and under that and that only were they satisfied."

        It was in the natural course of events and "the inexorable logic of circumstances" that the sturdy men of the age were ever ready to defend the cause of right; and in defense of liberty to pour out their life blood, as at Alamance; on the Cape Fear, to beard the minions of power, and cause their oppressor to leave the State and seek refuge elsewhere, and that the men of Mecklenburgh in advance of every other State, should thunder to the world the eternal principles of Independence and Liberty.

        The acts and characteristics of these illustrious men, and of their descendants, we wish to preserve.

        We enter upon this "labor of love" with earnestness and pleasure. "Let it not be thought says a learned writer, on a similar subject, "that we are working for ourselves alone, nor for those now living. Let us remember that thousands yet unborn will respect and bless the patient and pious hands, that have rescued from oblivion these precious memorials."

        The Memories of the last fifty years or more, cover an interesting period of our history.

        We shall leave the history of the earlier events to some faithful historian, and be it our task to take up the biographies of the leading men who have done "the State some service" with reminiscences of their times and give the biography and genealogy of each, as far as attainable. Biography presents a more minute and accurate view of the lights and shadows of character, than general history. One is general, and the individual is a mere accessory; the other is minute, and directed to a single object. We often have a clearer idea of any event, when the motives and the character of the chief actors are minutely described. We have in the "Life of Washington," by Marshal, the best history of the American Revolution. As to our genealogy, this is the first attempt to present the record of families in our State.

        This untried path involved much research and labor. It is hoped it will be acceptable, and prove useful. We are far behind the age, on this subject. In England, Burke's great work (The Genealogical and Heraldric Dictionary of the British Empire) is a hand-book in every well appointed library.

        In New England, "Whitmore's American Genealogy" is valuable; the Genealogical Society of Massachusetts is in full vigor, sustaining a Quarterly Magazine. Every locality and family in that section has preserved and published such materials; these are commemorated by annual domestic gatherings; thus strengthening the ties of affection and refreshing the memories of the past. In many cases genealogy is valuable in preserving property to the true owners of estates, and the ties of kindred that otherwise would be forever buried, and broken.

        Some, with phlegmatic indifference may ridicule this attempt; exhibiting a supreme contempt for such vanity, as they call it; but surely no one with a discreet mind and a sound heart can be insensible to the laudable feeling of having descended from an honest and virtuous ancestry, and having industrious and intelligent connections of unsullied reputation. Such a thought instills a hatred of laziness and vice, and stimulates activity and virtue.

        Such is a grateful oblation to departed worth. Not only is this a duty discharged to the dead,

but a moral benefit may result to the living. It acts as an incentive to others, while they admire his services and brilliant career, to emulate his patriotic example.

                         "Oh, who shall lightly say that Fame
                         Is nothing but an empty name,
                         While in that name there is a charm
                         The nerves to brace, the heart to warm,
                         When, thinking on the mighty dead,
                         The youth shall rouse from slothful bed,
                         And vow with uplifted hand and heart
                         Like him to act a noble part."

        Let us all cherish the recollection of talents, services, and virtues, of departed worth, and such faults as are inseparable from our nature, be buried in the grave with the relics of fallen humanity.

        Some pains have been taken with the table of contents and the preparation of the Index.

        Mr. Stevens, in his "Catalogue of his English Library," says, correctly: "If you are troubled with a pride of accuracy, and would have it completely taken out of you, attempt to make an Index or Catalogue."

        Dr. Allibone prints in his valuable Dictionary of Authors (I., 85), extracts from a number of the Monthly Review, which is well worthy of quotation here: "The compilation of an index is one of those labors for which the public are rarely so forward to express their gratitude, as they ought to be. The value of a thing is best known by the want of it. We have often experienced great inconvenience for want of a good index to many books. There is far more scope for the exercise of judgment and ability in compiling an index than commonly supposed. Mr. Oldys expresses a similar sentiment in his Notes and Queries (XI., 309): "The labour and patience; the judgment and penetration, required to make a good index, is only known to those who have gone through the most painful and least praised part of a publication.

        Lord Campbell proposed in the English Parliament (Wheatley on "What is an Index?" p. 27) that any author who published a book without an Index, should be deprived of the benefits of the copyright act." Mr. Binney of Philadelphia held the same views and Carlyle denounces the putting forth of books without a good Index, with great severity.

        The History of Tennessee, by Dr. Ramsay, full of research and philosophy, fails in this respect. A book with no index is like a ship on the ocean without compass, or rudder.

        In the following pages doubtless many worthy characters may have escaped notice--for the field is "so large and full of goodly prospects." Nor would we if we could, exhaust this fair field; but like Boaz, leave some rich sheaves for other and more skillful reapers in this bountiful harvest.

        To you, my dear sir, who have so kindly and repeatedly encouraged these labors, I respectfully commend them and subscribe myself

Very sincerely yours,

JNO. H. WHEELER.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

• Dedication.--Preface.--North Carolina in the Colonial Period.--Memoir of the Author.
• CHAPTER I.--ALAMANCE COUNTY.
  Regulation Troubles. Oppressions and frauds of the officers of the Crown; causes and consequences. Sketch of Judge Ruffin, compared to Thomas Jefferson. Colonel Thomas M. Holt.
• CHAPTER II.--ANSON COUNTY.
  Sympathy with the Regulators, as to unlawful taxation--1768; copy of the oath taken; resolutions that the Sheriffs and Magistrates should be elected by the people, Letter to Governor Martin. Character of James Cotten, a tory. Sketch of Judge Spencer; his singular death. Sketch of Judge Thomas S. Ashe, now one of the Judges of the Supreme Court.
• CHAPTER III.--BEAUFORT COUNTY.
  Character of the nobleman for whom it is named; commissioned the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina. Freemasonry in North Carolina; it saves the life of an officer in battle. Jefferson's opinion of Washington. Sketch of the Blounts of Beaufort. Hon. C. C. Cambreling, long a Member of Congress from New York, a native of Beaufort. Sketch of J. J. Guthrie, drowned off Cape Hatteras. Hatteras described by Joseph W. Holden, and in the National Gazette of Philadelphia, in 1792. Sketch of Edward Stanley; a letter of Judge Badger, his relative, as to his course. Sketch of Richard S. Donnell; of Judge Rodman, who agrees with Hooker in his opinion of the law. James Cook, C. S. N. Adventurous life of Charles F. Taylor, a native of this section; participates in the war in Nicaragua; its stirring events, facts never before published; the policy of Marcey an error; sad fate of Walker; tragic death of Herndon, with whom another North Carolinian (John V. Dobbin) was drowned. Central America described. The Minister of the United States is received. Revolution. Walker captures Virgin Bay, Grenada, and puts the Government to flight. Sketch of Walker and his adventurous life. Scenes at the Capital; the U. S. Minister in jeopardy. The General Commander-in-Chief and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs executed by the invading forces. Letters between the General-in-Chief and the American Minister; the last letter of Walker.

family, and their genealogy. Sketch of Nathaniel Alexander, a member of Congress and Governor of the State. Sketches of Dr. Charles Harris; Robert S. Young; of Daniel Coleman, of Cabarrus County; of Samuel F. Patterson; of James C. Harper; of Clinton A. Cilley and of George Nathaniel Folk of Caldwell County.

MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR,
COLONEL JOHN HILL WHEELER,
Of Hertford County, North Carolina.

BORN AUGUST 2, 1806, DIED DECEMBER 7, 1882,

BY HON. JOSEPH S. FOWLER, EX-SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE.

                         "Exegi monumentum oere perennius,
                         Regalique situ pyramidum altius;
                         Quod non imber edax. non Aquilo impotens
                         Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis
                         Annorum series, et fuga temporum."

--HOR. CAR., XXX.

        FROM Moore's "Historical Sketches of Hertford County," we learn the following:

        Among the early citizens of the village of Murfreesboro, in this county, was John Wheeler. He was of an ancient family, long seated around New York. In the latter end of the 17th century, under a grant of land from Charles II., Joseph Wheeler emigrated from England, and settled in Newark, New Jersey. Like William Penn, he was the son of a gallant naval officer. Sir Francis Wheeler, an English admiral, was his father, and the grant of land from the Crown was in reward for faithful services. He and his young wife had followed soon after the conquest of the New Netherlands by the Duke of York, son of Charles I., afterwards James II.

        To them was born, in 1718, their son Ephraim Wheeler, to whom, and his wife Mary, the first American John Wheeler was born in the year 1744. John had bestowed upon him the best advantages of education--he was educated as a physician. When the Revolutionary war came on, he entered the army under General Montgomery, and accompanied him in the perilous and ill-fated campaign to Quebec, and was in the battle (December 31, 1775,) in which that gallant officer fell. In Toner's "Reminiscences of the Medical Men of the Revolution" he is prominently mentioned. Aaron Burr served also in this campaign. Dr. Wheeler accompanied General Greene in his southern campaign, and was with him in the hard fought and glorious victory at Eutaw Springs, September 8, 1781, and until the close of the war. Pleased with the genial climate of the South, he settled near Murfreesboro and brought his family with him. His wife Elizabeth Longworth, was the neice of Aaron Ogden, afterwards the Governor of New Jersey, and Senator in Congress. He lived near Murfreesboro for years, in the practice of his profession, in which he had great skill and much success.

        His death occurred on October 14, 1814, and he lies buried in Northampton County, near

Murfreesboro. He left several works in manuscript on medical science, which evinced the depth of his acquaintance and his devotion to his profession. His son John was born in 1771. In his early youth he was engaged with his cousin, David Longworth, in business as publishers and booksellers in New York. Here he attracted, by his attention to business, the notice of Zedekiah Stone, who was then in New York, and by whom he was induced to remove to Bertie County, North Carolina. He was there married to Elizabeth Jordan, January 6th, 1796, and after the death of his friend, Mr. Stone, Murfreesboro became his home. At this place he was engaged in mercantile and shipping affairs until the day of his death. From his enterprise, industry, sagacity, and integrity he attained great success, and his memory, to this day, is cherished in that section as "the honest merchant." He was a man of unspotted integrity, so strong that venality and indirection cowered before him. After a long life of industry, usefulness and piety (for he was a consistent member of the Baptist Church for more than forty years) he died, lamented and beloved, August 7th, 1832. His family surviving him, consisted of two sons by his first marriage, John H. Wheeler, late Public Treasurer of the State, and Dr. S. Jordan Wheeler, late of Bertie County. By a second wife (Miss Woods) he left one daughter, Julia, the peerless wife of Dr. Godwin C. Moore; and by a third wife, among others, Colonel Junius B. Wheeler, now Professor of Civil and Military Engineering and the Art of War in the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is the author of several military works on civil and military engineering, and on the art of war, which have been adopted as text books by the War Department. He has thus written his name in the useful literature of the nation and discharged "that debt," which Lord Coke says, "every man owes to his profession."

        Professor Wheeler was born in 1830; educated in part at the University of North Carolina, and when only a boy volunteered as a private in Captain William J. Clarke's company in the Mexican war. He was in every battle from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico. At the fiercely contested affair at the Nacional Puente, one of the lieutenants was killed, and young as he was, he was appointed by the President as the successor, on the report of his commanding officer, now on file, that "he had seen young Wheeler under heavy fire, and he had proved to the command that he was made of the stuff of which heroes are made." On his return from Mexico he could have remained as an officer in the army, but he declined on the ground of want of qualification, he therefore resigned his commission. The President determined to retain him in the service, and he appointed him a cadet at West Point, where he graduated among the first of his class. After serving for several years in the Corps of Engineers in Louisiana, Wisconsin and elsewhere, he was appointed to succeed the late Professor Mahan in the position he now occupies.

        Dr. Samuel Jordan Wheeler, brother of the above, was born in 1810; was educated at the Hertford Academy, and graduated from Union College, Schenectady; he studied medicine with Dr. Nathan Chapman in Philadelphia, and practiced for years with success. He has been an earnest co-laborer in the cause of education and religion, as the Chowan Institute and the Church at Murfreesboro bear witness; he was professor in a college in Mississippi. He recently died in Bertie County, loved and respected for his purity of character. He married Lucinda, daughter of Lewis Bond.

JOHN HILL WHEELER.

        The conspicuous services rendered the State of North Carolina, and her eminent citizens, by this accomplished man, will forever preserve

his memory from oblivion. Born in the dawn of the present century, he has been the witness of the most remarkable events in the history of the republic. In the county of Hertford he first saw the light, August 6, 1806.

        He was prepared for college at Hertford Academy by Dr. John Otis Freeman, an eminent divine. He was then placed at the Columbian University, Washington, D. C., and graduated in the class of 1826. In the year 1828 he took his degree of Master of Arts in the University of North Carolina. He studied his profession, the law, under the direction of Chief Justice Taylor, of North Carolina. He was elected to the Legislature before he was admitted to the bar, in the year 1827. Then State Legislatures were honored bodies, and secured some of the best talent in the States.

        This Legislature contained many eminent and able men, among them were Judges Gaston, Nash and Bailey, George E. Spriuell, John M. Morehead, James Iredell, and many more. To win position in such a body was the promise of a fruitful manhood, in a youth just twenty-one years of age. For an earnest and aspiring mind, it proved a valuable school. Success was not to be hoped for without severe study and thorough preparation. To subside into reverential indifference was not the characteristic of his mind. Independent in his feelings, whilst respecting the ability of his colleagues, he claimed equal rights in the body. Conscientious in the execution of the great trust committed to him by a generous and proud constituency, he could not see their dignity overshadowed. He summoned all his powers to the work, and won for himself a conspicuous and honorable position. So well did he perform the task assigned him, that his approving constituents returned him to the body. In his twenty-fifth year, they nominated him for Congress, but after a severely contested and gallant canvass, he was defeated by the Hon. William B. Shepard.

        In the year 1831, he was appointed Secretary to the Board of Commissioners, under the treaty with France, to adjudicate the claims of American citizens for spoilations under the Berlin and Milan decrees.

        In 1836, he was placed by General Jackson in the position of Superintendent of the Branch Mint at Charlotte, but in 1841 shared the political fortune of his friends and party.

        In 1842, he was elected by the Legislature to be Treasurer of the State, in opposition to Major Charles L. Hinton. After his term had expired, he retired to his rural home on the banks of the Catawba, and, aided by the suggestion of his friend, Governor Swain, he began the patriotic labor of writing "Wheeler's History of North Carolina," on which he was employed for about ten years. How well this duty was performed, will appear from an extract of a letter of General Swain, written not long before his death, now in our possession, in which he says:

        "I have been much urged to write a completion of Hawks' History of North Carolina. The only response I have ever made is that I am too old, and too poor to venture on such an undertaking. Were it otherwise, in my opinion another edition of Wheeler's History would be more useful and acceptable than any work I could write."

        In this work, Colonel Wheeler sought to collect the interesting facts that illustrated the history of the State and give them an enduring place. He proposed to preserve, for all time, a faithful record of the illustrious deeds of a noble and patriotic people, who have characterized their presence in the new world by an intense love of liberty and the most striking individuality. They were, from their presence in the wilderness, a self governing community.

        No authority was sacred that did not eminatefrom themselves. Loyal to the will of the people, they resented indignantly the imposition

of any external authority. They rejected the magnificent plan of government provided by the Earl of Shaftesbury, though he summoned the brilliant talents of the illustrious philosopher, John Locke, for its preparation.

        They adopted a plan drawn from their own experience and their wants, under the circumstances, which surrounded them. They were the first to repel the aggressions of the British parliament and crown. They well knew the rights of freeborn Englishmen and the principles of their constitution, and were determined that no invasion of them should be tolerated.

        Colonel Wheeler gave his work to the public in the year 1851. It was a complete success, and is highly esteemed as a faithful record of a most interesting and remarkable people.

        In the year 1844, he was warmly urged upon by his party as a candidate for governor, but did not receive the nomination.

        In the year 1852, he was elected to the State Legislature, which was fiercely agitated by the contest for a United States Senator.

        The Democratic caucus put forth their favorite man, the Honorable James C. Dobbin, than whom a purer, or nobler man never lived. Notwithstanding his great popularity with his party, and his admitted ability, the friends of the Honorable Romulus M. Saunders refused to support the caucus nominee, and voted for Honorable Burton Craige. The obstinate contest thus made deprived the state of its representation in the Senate for two years. In this contest Colonel Wheeler stood by his party and his warm personal friend, Mr. Dobbin, and did all in his power to secure his election.

        In the year 1853, Colonel Wheeler was appointed, by President Pierce, Minister to Nicaragua, Central America. During his residence there the country was torn by opposing political factions, that sought their ends by the sword. During the revolution General William Walker made his appearance with a company of determined men, to join the liberals, and the position held by Colonel Wheeler became one of much peril and responsibility. It soon became manifest that neither party could be relied on for any permanent and salutary government. The following of Walker, though small, was brave, determined and intelligent; their leader very soon resolved, if he had not from the beginning, to give the country an Anglo-American government. He thus expected to make Central America the seat of a new and progressive civilization, which would convert its fertile soil and generous climate into the uses of the commercial world. For the interesting incidents of this daring and romantic adventure, the reader is referred to the sketches of the incidents and characters connected with the revolution. A thrilling episode of his sojourn in that distracted country, so characteristic of the man himself, is given at pages 22 to 30 of the following Reminiscences.

        As soon as General Walker had established his authority, and his was the de facto government, the American minister promptly acknowledged it. This act was not approved by the Secretary of State, the Honorable William L. Marcy, and he requested his recall. As Colonel Wheeler had a warm friend in the President, and as his earnest and long tried friend, the Hon. James C. Dobbin, was Secretary of the Navy, he was in no danger of being recalled without a hearing. His reply to Mr. Marcy's strictures was triumphant, and the President refused to recall him.

        Colonel Wheeler not only sympathized with the object of this movement, but admired the character of General Walker. He was a quiet, unassuming gentleman, educated under the best instructors of the United States and Europe. In person, he was below the average American, by no means imposing in his presence. A ready, eloquent, and graceful writer, he would have been one of the first journalists of his age. The blood of the Norsemen coursed

through his veins, and he was alive with an enthusiasm of the old Vikings for adventure. He neither estimated the dangers of the enemy, or the climate; his courage was of the purest steel. An ardent Anglo-American, he had only contempt for the Spaniards and those mongrel races, who occupied with indolence and semi-barbarism one of the finest and most productive regions on the continent. He conceived the purpose of planting there another race of men who would open the land to a refinement and civilization that would make it the pathway of nations to the eastern world. Colonel Wheeler readily saw in the advent of this cultivated and revolutionary mind, and his brave and daring followers, the promise of hope for the country so long cursed with degeneracy and mindless inaction. He became the invited guest and welcome friend of the United States minister, who knew the men and the situation far better than General Walker. Had he listened more earnestly to the wise counsel and cautious prudence of Colonel Wheeler, he would, in all probability, have realized the bright dreams of his ardent fancy. He had many of the qualities of a successful leader--sincerity, courage, self-denial and intellectual superiority. He was not a statesman, and failed in making provisions essential to the maintenance of armies. Taking no account of the strength of the foe, or the fatality of the climate, he wasted his forces without the possibility of a supply.

        The United States minister, with far keener apprehension, saw the dangers that threatened and advised the means to insure the success of the promising enterprise. To him it was the introduction of a new civilization by a race whose destiny was to found new nations. His whole heart was with the movement, and his conduct was only limited by his duty to preserve the faith and honor of the republic which he represented. To a courage not less prompt than General Walker's, he added a sound judgment, a cautious foresight, a steady purpose, and a captivating manner. He knew how to husband his resources for the hour of trial. General Walker moved often under the influence of a whimsical impulse, careless of the demands of an insatiable to-morrow. He sought the enemy at too great a sacrifice of men who could not be restored; he took but little account of the profound causes which preserve and destroy armies. His high qualities and noble ambition will cause feelings of regret for his unhappy end, and the failure of his ambitious and magnificent purpose. Not the love of gain, nor the vulgar display, led this refined student to the unequal contest. It was the pride of his noble race and its capacity to rejoice a country blessed by nature with every bounty, and cursed only by an indolent, vicious, and monotonous race. Too soon for the demands of mankind, a more opportune period will, in time, complete the work in which he bravely fell, and vindicate his generous design.

        To the honor of Colonel Wheeler be it recorded that he used his influence to promote a revolution so fraught with unnumbered blessings to civilized man. Nor did he compromise the great republic, that had confided her good faith to his care, though he could not look with composure upon the contest, of an enlightened civilization with a stupid indifference to the demands of an intelligent and progressive age. That one entire continent, and a large portion of another, should be consigned to stolid repose without an heroic effort to unfold their almost boundless possibilities, was to him neither statesmanship nor humanity. He knew it was the destiny of his race to eradicate barbarism, and teach the inhabitants of the wilderness the arts of production, commerce, moral responsibility, social refinement, and intelligent freedom. Before its all-conquering enterprise nature had put off its savage habits for new creations of beauty and

utility. Profoundly versed in its history, he was moved with admiration for its all-creative energy. He did not doubt that its presence would endow, with a new life, that entire isthmus, which could not fail, in a few years, to meet the advance of the United States into Mexico. With prophetic vision he beheld its gloomy forests giving place to the peaceful abodes of cultivated men. Deprecating the erratic impulses of the young leader of this promising mission, he nevertheless hailed it as the harbinger of a glorious future for Central America and the commercial world. Not even the demands of a coldly selfish diplomacy could repress his generous approval, and he gave the benign presence of a creative enterprise his counsel, his sympathy, and his substantial support.

        In the year 1857, Colonel Wheeler resigned his mission, and returned to his abode in Washington City. So long as he lived he claimed his legal residence to be in North Carolina. On his door plate was that name coupled with his own, and over the breast of his encoffined form was engraved that name so dear to him. In all his thoughts, and in all his journeyings, his heart yearned towards North Carolina, and within her borders he would have preferred interment. The amiable and charming English poet, Waller, in his old age, purchased a small property at his birthplace, saying he would like to die, like the stag, where he was roused. This poetic idea has immortality in the lines of Goldsmith:

                         "As the poor stag, whom hound and horns pursue,
                         Pants for the place where at first he flew,
                         I still had hoped my vexations past,
                         Here to return and die at home at last."

        By this time the long agony over the slavery question was culminating. Our republic was rapidly drifting towards a fierce and destructive war. Colonel Wheeler had ever been identified with the Democratic party, and had followed its faith and practices with earnestness through all its meanderings. The change from Pierce to Buchanan brought no change in the purposes or disposition of the party. Under the former, the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, had dissolved the Whig party and introduced the Republican party into the field of action. The conflict between individuals had passed away with the magnificent personages that characterized that period. Principles laying at the foundation of free institutions, and deeply imbedded in the conscience, came into the field. The Republican party planted itself upon the doctrine of freedom for the territories. The Democratic party proclaimed the inviolability of slavery in the States and Territories. The former was a new and revolutionary force, the latter stood firmly by the ancient constitutional rights of slavery. The former was organized to break up and displace it, the latter resisted displacement. Trained in the school of Jackson, Colonel Wheeler's judgment was against war, and adhered to the Union; but this school had disappeared and a new Democracy had arisen, and guided by his sympathies he followed his party, drifting rapidly upon dangerous reefs and quicksands. One of his sons, C. Sully Wheeler, was in the Federal Navy; the other, Woodbury Wheeler, had joined the Confederate Army. Each remained faithful to the cause he had espoused, to the end. To those laboring under the weight of half a century that had seen the republic in the glory of its united power, it seemed now in the agony of inevitable death. The expiring hours of Democratic rule was spent shuddering before the fearful responsibility of the solemn oath "to support and defend the Constitution." The incoming administration, though sustained by an unconquerable enthusiasm in its ranks, was slow to announce any policy. Many unionists to the south, believing all to be lost, hastened into the

ranks of the disunionists. All the companions of Colonel Wheeler's life, all that was dear to him from childhood were enveloped in the fortunes of the Confederacy. His long and strong political bias and the intensity of his friendship drew his sympathy and his hopes with them, and he came back to North Carolina to be with her in the struggle. Too far advanced in life to become an actor in the contest, in 1863, pursuant to a resolution of the General Assembly of the State, he went to Europe to collect material for a new edition of his history. Anxious to gather all that related to the subject which could render it a more perfect chronicle of his beloved people, he sought the treasures of the British Archives and buried himself in that wonderful collection, far from the desolating and sanguinary events of the war. He collected much valuable and interesting matter, which he incorporated in the new edition of his history which he left ready for the press.

        Colonel Wheeler was a sincere believer in the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, of May 20th, 1775. His studies in the Archives left no doubt upon this interesting problem in his mind. The meeting and resolution of the same body of men of May 31st, 1775, are undisputed. They did not go to the point of declaring a separation from the British government, but they went far beyond the expressions of any other colony. The reader of Wheeler's History will mark with what delight he records the resistance of these forest-born republicans to the aggressions of the royal government. The gallant struggles and heroic sacrifices of his revolutionary ancestors are set forth with care and eloquence.

        He was thoroughly versed in the opinions of democratic statesmen, and sincerely devoted to the Jefferson school. He maintained the sovereignty of the states in all local matters, whilst he held to the inviolability of the Federal authority in national affairs. Each was sacred in the realms assigned them by the Constitution. It is difficult to preserve the complicated adjustment of the relations of the states to the general government. In the South, he saw a strong tendency to magnify the powers of the states. In the North, the Federal authority was rapidly assuming new and alarming importance. The effect of the war was to give far greater importance to the nation, and to silence everywhere the principle of state sovereignty. Colonel Wheeler regarded the influence of the central power as dangerous to individual liberty, and constantly tending to imperialism. He beheld with regret the citizen disappearing in the grandeur and power of the nation. Reared among men proud of their honor and influence, he dreaded the decline of personal excellence. Its loss was the grave of liberty, and birth of imperial power.

        The integrity of the state and nation depended upon the sanctity of the ballot, and this upon the responsibility and intelligence of the individual citizen. The presence of powerful monied corporations, and a grand central government, would destroy in time its responsibility. The voter, being entirely overshadowed, would soon begin to look as lightly upon his personal worth, as he did upon his influence in the republic. He relied chiefly on character to preserve the republic through the ballot. Neither education nor wealth could be trusted with the liberties of the people, in the absence of inflexible purpose, and the habit of self government. The only safeguard for the encroachments of power was in the disposition and capacity of the citizen to resist them at the threshold. When the public ceases to be a severe censor of the conduct of officials, the end of our delicately adjusted republic will not be remote. His apprehensions of a gradual change, and a complete undermining of the nature of our institutions, was the result of close observation

for more than half a century, of the most eventful period of the history of the government, actuated by an intense solicitude for the safety of the republic of the fathers.

        Colonel Wheeler was a sincere believer in the salutary influence of labor directed by method. Ardent labor, regulated by reason, is the price of excellence. He that would win the latter, can not dispense with the former.

        Time was a sacred trust that no one could neglect without evil. Thoroughly realizing its demands, with earnest purpose and willing hands he consecrated all to the noblest ends of life. Knowing that the brightest genius, and the most brilliant powers, could avail but little if this trust was not executed with system, he introduced the most convenient order into all his labors, so that he could call up the gleanings of years in a moment.

        A systematic and laborious scholar, he enriched his understanding from the treasures of many tongues. The English furnished him the richest stores, and he had drunk deeply at her purest fountains. Into his tenacious and fruitful memory, were joined the wealth of the prose and poetry of that wonderful people, whose intelligence, more than their arms, has filled the world. He was familiar with all the great dramatists. The great poems of Shakespeare, he could repeat with a power rarely equalled by the first actors of his time.

        His friendships were ardent and sincere, and his devotion to his friends knew no bounds; influence, purse, life itself, if in the right, were at their service. Attachments so strong and pure, insured a loving and faithful husband, an indulgent and devoted father, and a kind and generous neighbor. In all the relations of life he filled the measure of a noble manhood; tender and charitable to the afflicted, cheerful and courteous to the prosperous, he ever sought to mitigate the asperities of life, thoserude blasts that visit too often every home.

        The social qualities of Colonel Wheeler were of the highest order. His warm heart, his classic wit, and mirth-creating humor, made him the favorite of all circles in which intelligence, refinement, and graceful address were desired. Living in that age of the republic which gave the noblest development of individual excellence, he had ample opportunity of mingling in its most delightful associations. Bountifully supplied with instructive and interesting anecdote, his conversation never lost its interest and inspiration. He drew from ancient and modern literature their richest gems, and with consummate taste he pleased and instructed his ever attentive auditors. The fountains of Greek, Roman, English and French history were open to his never flagging memory. It was in the richer developments of American life that he enjoyed the greatest pleasure. Above all periods of human history, he esteemed the characters of our revolutionary era. It had furnished the grandest expression of freedom and integrity, as it had of civil and political institutions. With pious veneration he had collected and preserved every heroic act and noble utterance, unwilling to allow the corroding fingers of time to erase from coming generations the humblest name.

        Not less fortunate in his political associations, he knew personally all the presidents and cabinet officers, from Jefferson to Arthur. He had been the confidential friend of Jackson, Pierce and Johnson, and was by them called to counsel and advice. He did not look to high official station, for the richest manifestation of intellectual and moral worth. He had too often seen the most commanding positions occupied by presuming inferiority, through the labors and merits of the modest and deserving. By the fruits of their lives, he esteemed the actors of the age in which they lived and worked. This volume of reminiscences discloses his estimation of characters

who figured in the moral and political life of the state and nation, far better than any sketch of his life. It also presents with equal force his moral, social and political preferences and appreciations.

        He had been from his first political essay, trained in the Democratic party, and his active affinities drew from the ranks of that party his warmest associations. His democracy was founded upon the lofty plane of integrity and worth. There, all who could come were equals, and entitled to the rights and honors of the state. Neither accident of birth or wealth could push from their seats the true, the industrious, and the brave. Humble worth, bending beneath the weight of sorrows and privations, had an open highway to his respect. He rejoiced to see the virtuous youth, bursting the barriers of pride and caste, and appealing to the just judgment of society for the recognition of its worth. For misfortune he had all sympathy; for unostentatious merit, reverence; for courage, that presses forward in the achievement of great and useful measures, admiration.

        Trained from childhood to industry and action, he knew the value of useful labor. No speculative theorist, he sought substantial results through methods approved of by experience. With reluctance he marked any departure from the way selected by the sages, and lined with countless blessings. The continuity of history described the march of human intelligence and could not be broken with any assurance of safety. Nor was he blindly bound to an irrational and monotinous past. He well knew that every day and every hour makes demands upon the exercise of reason and invention, that can only be appeased by advancement in time and space. A witness of all the greatest discoveries in the useful arts, he well understood their influence upon the refinement of the people. Society was undergoing perpetual change in all its varied aspects. The most venerable and sacred institutions, in time, give place to new ones, better adapted to represent its advancement, and perpetuate its usefulness.

        In all the noble actions of the great and good of the republic, he had an inheritance of imperishable glory. With pious care he has garnared all, and has labored to transmit them to posterity, as an inspiration to emulate the heroic and worthy lives of an illustrious ancestry. The conduct of the great and good is the most valuable legacy that a nation can have. The memories and the glorious deeds of the eminent personages whom North Carolina has contributed to humanity, have been sacredly collected and eloquently described by this faithful historian. They have not been left to perish "unhonored and unsung." The memory of the busy, patriotic and eloquent man, who has rescued from oblivion, so many illustrious names, will be recalled with grateful thanks, from the shores on which break the waves of the Atlantic, to the peaks of the Unaka mountains that mark the western limits of the state. Whenever the sons or daughters of the old commonwealth have escheloned into the west, his labors will be carried and read. They will be to all a reservoir of brilliant names, and a chronicle of illustrious deeds.

        This worthy and learned man attained a ripe age, in the full enjoyment of his intellectual powers, laboring cheerfully to the end.

        Though during his closing years he suffered much, his genial and sunny disposition did not desert him. He continued to receive his friends with that generous welcome, which will be fondly remembered after he has past the "sunless river's flow."

        He was married first to Mary, only daughter of Rev. Mr. O. B. Brown, of Washington City, one of the most accomplished and literary ladies of her day, by whom he had one daughter, married to George N. Beale, a

brother of General E. F. Beale, late United States Envoy to Austria, and, second, to Ellen, daughter of Thomas Sully, one of the most distinguished artists of Philadelphia, by whom he had two sons, Charles Sully and Woodbury, a successful lawyer in Washington City.

        On Thursday, Deeember 7th, 1882, at 12:30 o'clock, a. m., the long sufferings of Colonel Wheeler were ended; and at 2 p. m., on Sunday the 10th, he was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, D. C.

        Eminent citizens of North Carolina then in Washington, met in the National Capitol, and adopted the following resolutions:

        "Resolved, That we, North Carolinians, present in Washington, have assembled to pay a tribute of respect to the memory of our departed friend, Mr. John H. Wheeler, whose private worth and public services have endeared him to our whole people.

        "Resolved, That by his life-work, though to him a labor of love, as the historian of the state, and the collection of vast stores of historical material, he imposed a debt of gratitude upon every North Carolinian, and upon the republic of letters, which will be remembered for generations."

        Eulogiums, attesting the high place the deceased had won in the hearts of his people, were pronounced by the Hons. Z. B. Vance, Samuel F. Phillips, Jesse J. Yeates, A. M. Scales, M. W. Ransom, and T. L. Clingman.

        The following letter of condolence was addressed to Major Woodbury Wheeler, son of the deceased:

"SENATE CHAMBER.
"MAJOR WOODBURY WHEELER.

        "DEAR SIR: We have this moment heard with deep pain, of the death of your father. His death affects us with great sorrow; his loss will be mourned by all the people of the State, which he loved and served so well. Truly a good and great man has left us.

        "We beg leave to express to you and his family our sincerest sympathy. In your sad bereavement you have the consolation arising from the memory of his illustrious life marked by conspicuous virtues.

"Yours sincerely,

"Z. B. VANCE.

"L. C. LATHAM.

"ROB'T V. VANCE.

"W. R. COX.

M. W. RANSOM.

A. M. SCALES.

R. F. ARMFIELD.

C. DOWD."

NORTH CAROLINA IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.

BY DANIEL R. GOODLOE.

        An article by John Fisk, which appeared in the February (1883) number of Harper's Magazine, entitled "Maryland and the far South in the Colonial period," contains statements in regard to North Carolina which have given grave offense to every citizen and native of the State. The writer assumes to portray the condition of the people and the character of their institutions, civilization and government, during the whole period of their colonial existence, while he has presented only an exaggerated and distorted picture of disorders which prevailed among the first handful of settlers on the Northeastern border, before there was a defined boundary, and when that portion of the territory, or a considerable part of it was claimed by Virginia.

        The writer may, also, have had in view the resistance made by the people called Regulators, in the middle and upper counties, at a later period, to the robbery and extortion of the county officers. But the more charitable supposition is, that he has never read a history of the Province.

        The original grant made by Charles II. to the Lords Proprietors, bears date March 20, 1663. This instrument conveyed to the noblemen and gentlemen, named all the territory lying between the parallels of thirty-one and thirty-six degrees of North latitude, and extending from the Atlantic Ocean westward to the South Sea. Wm. Byrd, Esq., the intelligent Virginia gentleman, who was one of the commissioners employed to run the boundary line between the two provinces, states, in his "Westover papers," that "Sir William Berkeley, who was one of the grantees, and at that time Governor of Virginia, finding a territory of thirty-one miles in breadth between the inhabited part of Virginia and the above mentioned boundary of Carolina, (thirty-six degrees) advised Lord Clarendon of it, and his Lordship had influence enough with the King to obtain a second patent to include this territory, dated June 30, 1665."

        It appears from this statement of Mr. Byrd, that North Carolina owes this addition of half a degree to the width of her territory, to the treachery of the Governor of Virginia, to his trust. It was the duty of the Governor to secure, if practicable, the unclaimed territory for Virginia, but it was in the interest of Sir William Berkeley to have it added to the Carolina

Colony. However, the people of North Carolina have no reason to complain of Sir William on this account.

        In reference to this acquisition Dr. Hawks, the historian of North Carolina, remarks: "But though this second charter defined the line that was to divide Virginia and Carolina, and stated on what part of the globe it was to be drawn, viz: 36° 30' North latitude; yet astronomical observations had not fixed its precise locality, and consequently the people on the fronting of both provinces entered land and took out patents by guess, either from the King, or the Lord-Proprietors. The grants of the latter, however. were more desirable, because, both as to terms of entry, and yearly taxes, they were less burdensome than the price and levies imposed by the laws of Virginia. This statement will explain the fact that some of the earliest grants of land, now confessedly in Carolina, but lying near the border are signed by Sir William Berkeley."

        This new boundary line of 36° 30' remained undefined for two-thirds of a century--that is to say, until the year 1728; and in all that period there was a margin of territory several miles in width, in which no one knew, definitely, whether the inhabitants owed allegiance to Carolina or Virginia. The disputed territory lay within and on the southern border of the Dismal Swamp. Practically, for nearly fifty years, the territory west of the Swamp was not in dispute, as the settlements on the Carolina side lay to the east of the Chowan River. To the west of that great stream the Indians still held sway. It was not until after the Massacre in 1711, when one hundred and thirty persons were murdered in their homes in one day, that these savages were made to give place to the advancing tide of civilization. The largest of the tribes, and the most war-like, the Tuscaroras, after that event, were required to vacate their territory, when they emigrated North and rejoined the Iroquois or Five Nations, from whom they were descended. The smaller and less criminal tribes were permitted to remain on reservations.

        During the first sixty years of the colonial history, the population was chiefly confined to the territory north of Albemarle Sound, west of the Chowan River. The settlements between the two sounds, Albemarle and Pamlico, and that about New Berne, were still public, but were represented in the Albermarle Assembly. This body was composed of twenty-seven members, of whom the four counties north of the sound sent five, each. The three counties south of Albemarle had two members each, and New Berne town one. There was little intercourse with the Cape Fear Colony, which had a separate Assembly of its own, as well as a Governor. It was a short-lived enterprise. The colonists came from Barbadoes, in 1665, under the leadership of a gentleman named Yeaman. He was succeeded by a Mr. West, as Governor, who was also made Governor of the Charleston settlement, a few years later, and persuaded the Cape Fear people to follow him. During the year 1690, the last of these Cape Fear settlers abandoned their homes and went to Charleston. The writer, whose statements are complained of, assumes that these Barbadian colonists became a permanent part of the population of North Carolina.

        In 1729 seven of the eight Lords Proprietors surrendered their rights in and authority over the colony, to the crown, for a valuable consideration, of course; Earl Granville retained his claim of right to the soil, and a large strip of country (about half the State) on the northern border was set off to him as his private property, while he surrendered his right to share in the Government of the people.

        Francis Xavier Martin, one of the most judicious historians of the Province, estimated the white population at the date of this transfer of authority from the Lords Proprietors to the Crown (1729) at about 13,000. He gives no opinion as to the number of the blacks; but

there is reason to believe that they were fewer in proportion to the whites than were to be found in either Virginia or South Carolina.

        A reference to the map will show the reader that the original boundary of 36° passes up the Albemarle Sound; and the acquisition made by the new patent of 1665 embraces, therefore, the whole territory north of the Sound. In other words, it embraced three-fourths of the population of North Carolina in 1729. This date of the purchase by the Crown from the Proprietors is, also, coeval with the separation of North from South Carolina, and the incorporation of the whole territory of the former under one Governor and Assembly.

        Besides the small scattered settlements south of Albemarle Sound, the relative importance of which is indicated by their proportion of representation in the Assembly, as above stated, the population had begun to spread out beyond, that is to say, west of the Chowan River; and in the year 1722, the County or Precinct of Bertie was organized; but up to that date, if not later, the people on that side of the river voted as of Chowan Precinct.

        The immigration of Swiss and Palatines under Baron De Graffenreidt and Mr. Mitchell came to North Carolina in the years 1709-10. No definite statements as to their numbers, have come down to us, but it is believed that the two classes of immigrants combined, did not exceed two thousand. Some loose guesses make them larger. They settled in the vicinity of New Berne, which town received its name from the Swiss. Some of these foreigners were murdered by the Indians the next year, after their arrival, when the great Massacre of the whites occurred. De Graffenreidt narrowly escaped being burned at the stake by the Indians, in company with Lawson, the Surveyor General, who had invaded their territory with his compass and chain. It is probable that the massacre was the main hindrance to further immigration from Switzerland and the Palatinate; but De Graffenreidt failed to give them titles to the lands he sold them, which must have greatly added to their discouragements.

        The foregoing preliminary statement as to the nature and extent of the ground occupied by the early settlers of the Province has been thought necessary to a thorough understanding of the character of the aspersions of the writer referred to, and of the answers that will be made to them. But in the first place it will be proper to present them in the language of their author. They form a compact mass of misrepresentation. I understand the writer to be a Massachusetts man. "Prof. John Fisk" of Harvard. He says:

        "At the time of the Revolution the population of North Carolina numbered about 200,000, of which somewhat more than one-fourth were negro slaves. The white population was mainly English, but the foreign element was larger than in the case of any other of the colonies which we have thus far considered. There were Huguenots from France, German Protestant from the Palatinate, Moravians, Swiss, and Scotch, and what we have to note especially is that this foreign population was, in the main, far more respectable and orderly than the English majority. The English settlers came mostly from Virginia, though in the south-eastern corner of the colony there was a considerrble settlement of Englishmen from Barbadoes.

        "Now, the English settlers who thus came southward from Virginia were very different in character from the sober Puritans, who went northward into Maryland. North Carolina was to Virginia something like Rhode Island was to Massachusetts--a receptacle for all the factious and turbulent elements of Society; but in this case the general character of the emigration was immeasurably lower. The shiftless people who could not make a place for themselves in Virginia society, including many of the "poor whites," flocked in large numbers into North Carolina. They were, in the main, very lawless

in temper, holding it to be the chief end of man to resist all constituted authority, and above all things to pay no taxes. The history of North Carolina was accordingly much more riotous and disorderly than the history of any of the other colonies. "There were neither laws nor lawyers," says Bancroft, with slight exaggeration. "The courts, such as they were, sat often in taverns, where the Judge might sharpen his wits with bad whiskey, while their decisions were not recorded, but were simply shouted by the crier from the inn door, or at the nearest market place.

        "There were a few amateur surgeons and apothecaries to be found in the villages, but no regular physicians. Nor does the soul appear to be better cared for than the body, for it was not until 1703 that the first clergyman was settled in the colony. The Church of England was established by Government, without the approval of the people, who were opposed on principle to church rates, as to all kinds of taxes whatsoever. Owing to this dislike of taxation, most of the people were Dissenters, but no Dissenting Churches flourished in the colony. There was complete toleration even for Quakers, because nobody cared a groat for theology, or for religion. The few ministers who contrived to support life in North Carolina, were listened to in a mood like that in which Mrs. Pardigle's discourses were received by the brickmakers, while the audience freely smoked their pipes within the walls of the sanctuary during divine service.

        "Agriculture was conducted more wastefully and with less intelligence than in any of the other colonies. In the northern counties tobacco was almost exclusively cultivated, but it was of very inferior quality, compared with the tobacco of Virginia.

        "All business or traffic about the coast was carried on under perilous conditions: for pirates were always hovering about, secure in the sympathy of the people, like the brigands of southern Italy in recent times. It was partly due to this, no doubt, as well as partly to the want of good harborage, that a very large part of the commerce of North Carolina was diverted northward to Norfolk, or southward to Charleston.

        "The treatment of the slaves is said to have been usually mild, as in Virginia, but their lives were practically, at the mercy of their masters. The white servants fared better, and the general state of society was so low that when their time of service was ended, they had here a good chance of rising to a position of equality with their masters.

        "The country swarmed with ruffians of all sorts, who fled thither from South Carolina and Virginia. Life and property were very insecure, and lynch law was not infrequently administered. The small planters led, for the most part, a lazy life, drinking hard, and amusing themselves with scrimmages, in which noses were broken with blows of the fist, and eyes gouged out by a dexterous use of the long thumb nails. The only other social amusement seems to have been gambling. But, except at elections and other meetings for political purposes, people saw very little of each other.

        "There were no roads worthy of the name, and every family was almost entirely isolated from its neighbors. Until just before the war for Independence, there was not a single school, good or bad, in the whole colony. It need not be added that the people were densely ignorant.

        "The colony was a century old before it could boast of a printing press; and if no newspapers were published, it was doubtless for the sufficient reason that there were very few who would have been able to read them. A mail from Virginia came some eight or ten times in a year, but it only reached a few towns on the coast, and down to the time of the Revolution the interior of the country had no mails at all. Under such circumstances it is not strange that North Carolina was in a great measure cut off from the currents of thought and feeling by which the

other colonies were swayed in the middle of the eighteenth century.

        "In the War for Independence, North Carolina produced no great leaders. She was not represented at the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, and she was the last of the States, except Rhode Island, to adopt the Federal Constitution."

        The reader cannot have failed to note in these statements, supposing the writer to be well informed, a spirit in sympathy with the arbitrary rule of the Lords Proprietors and the Crown of England, and with their persistent efforts to compel an unwilling people to pay taxes for the support of the Church of which they were not members. The whole tenor of the writers criticism would justify this inference; and that his sympathies are also with the corrupt county officials whose illegal exactions provoked and justified the efforts of the Regulators to resist them. But it is charitable to assume that he has only a vague idea of these events, derived from second-hand sources. For he could not read the history of the Province, without being convinced that the causes and grounds of resistance to the constituted authorities were, in the first instance, the efforts of the Lords Proprietors to impose the absurd "Fundamental Constitutions" of Locke, upon the people, followed by the persistent, and never quite successful attempt to establish the Church, with a system of Church rates. Mr. Bancroft has brought out these facts with more distinctness than the historians of the State; and even Dr. Hawks has only paraphrased the lucid statement of the great historian.

        The second great source of disturbance, the robbery of the people in the name of law, by the county officers, at a later period, is equally well attested, and no one acquainted with the history of those times, will venture to vindicate or palliate their conduct. These events will receive further notice in their order, as well as other arbitrary and unjust measures of the British rulers of the Province.

        Another thing observable in this pretentious criticism is a proneness to jump to general conclusions from single instances. The writer has seen the statement that at an out-of-doors religious meeting, in the Albemarle region, in one of the first years of the last century, some rough fellow smoked his pipe while the services were going on; and this fact is sufficient to warrant the statement that such was the universal custom throughout the colonial period, in all parts of the Province. He has read that a noted pirate infested the Sounds before there was so much as a village upon their borders, and that the pirate obtained supplies of provisions from the first squatters on the coast whom he would have exterminated if they had refused compliance with his demands; and, without mentioning that the pirate was at length captured and put to death, the swift conclusion is drawn, that piracy was the order of the day, all along the coast, with the connivance of the people, for the century and more of colonial vassalage; and that the effect was to render legitimate commerce a hazardous and dangerous occupation. To this cause the writer would have the world believe is due the alleged fact that the people of the colony carried their produce to Norfolk through the Dismal Swamp; although there was neither road nor canal. Or else to Charleston through a wilderness two to three hundred miles in width, without roads or navigable waters; whereas, at the period when the pirates infested the coast, the commerce of the colony was chiefly in the hands of New Englanders, who came with their vessels through the Sounds.

        A traveler has at some time witnessed a fight, somewhere in the Province, accompanied by the brutal practice of "gouging," in which the lower class of whites sometimes engage, and this is sufficient to justify the critic in the sweeping statement that "scrimmages" of this sort constituted the favorite amusement of the small planters--"their only other entertainments being

drinking and gambling." It would be as fair to charge the whole body of respectable people in a Northern city, at the present day, with participation in all the vice and crime which are daily and nightly enacted in the dens of infamy that are to be found in every street.

        These are only specimens of the illogical inferences of this writer, with whom the rule seems to be, that every isolated fact warrants a generalization.

        In view of reiterated charges against the people of lawlessness, idleness, "shiftlessness," and general inability to make their way in the world, it is worth while to notice the first statement quoted from the writer, to the effect that at the period of the Revolution, North Carolina contained about 200,000 inhabitants; and if this statement were true, it would afford evidence of an extraordinarily rapid increase of population during the next fourteen years, and especially so, as seven of those years were spent in civil and foreign wars, accompanied by the expatriation of thousands of the conquered, and the escape of not a few of the servile class. The census of 1790, which was taken just fourteen years after the Declaration of Independence, or fifteen years after the commencement of hostilities, showed the population of the State to be 393,000, or nearly 100 per cent. more than the supposed number of 200,000. In consideration of the destructive war through which the people had passed during those eventful years, we are bound to conclude that the population at the beginning of the war was nearer three hundred than two hundred thousand. In 1729, it will be remembered, the total white population was estimated to be only 13,000; and if we add 7,000 for the black, the aggregate forty-six years before the beginning of the Revolutionary War, would be but 20,000. Here, then, is evidence of an extraordinary increase of these "idle," "shiftless," "outlaws" and "renegades" from Virginia.

        We are told that "the foreign population was in the main far more respectable and orderly than the English majority." By the foreign population, the writer means those of non-English origin. There can be no question about the moral worth and respectability of the Moravians and German Lutherans, of the Swiss and Palatine. They all made orderly, good citizens, but they were not more conspicuous for these virtues than were the Quakers, who, in early times, exercised a controlling influence in the Albemarle settlement. Nor were the "foreigners" more distinguished for sobriety and love of learning than the Presbyterians who came to the Colony from Pennsylvania and Virginia, or directly from Scotland and England. Neither is it true that any of these classes were more respectable than the native Virginians and other Americans, mostly of English ancestry, who came in from time to time, during the whole colonial period, and constituted a large majority of the population of the Province; and it is a baseless calumny to say otherwise. They constituted a majority, and a controlling majority of the people. They were part and parcel of the best element in Virginia society--embracing not many of the oldest, or more aristocratic families, but the solid, respectable, and well-to-do classes of planters and farmers--the classes that produced such men as Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Henry Clay, and others who became eminent for talents and virtue; and they imparted these characteristics to their children. Many of the poorer classes came with these planters and farmers. Some were, no doubt, vicious characters, who added nothing to the strength and respectability of the Province. But what country under the sun is free from such a class?

        "North Carolina" we are again told, "was to Virginia something like Rhode Island was to Massachusetts--a receptacle for all the factious and turbulent elements of society." There was, it must be owned, a resemblance in the two situations. Massachusetts expelled Roger Williams

and his Baptist followers, with Quakers and Presbyterians, as heretics; and most good people of the present day are apt to believe that when the exiles shook the dust from their feet, they left not their equals in moral worth behind them. And it was in like manner that Virginia intolerance drove many of her best inhabitants into the wilderness of Carolina, as will now be shown.

        Durant's Neck in Perquimans county, was the first permanent settlement made in the Province, and it was made by Quakers who fled from Virginia and Massachusetts persecution. "The oldest land title that we know of in North Carolina," says Dr. Hawks, "and that which we think was actually the first, is still on record. It is the grant made by Cistacanoe, king of the Yeopim Indians, in 1662, to Durant, for a neck of land at the mouth of Little and Perquimans rivers, which still bears the name of the grantee. In 1633, Berkeley confirmed this grant by a patent under his own signature."

        This patent by the Indian Chief to the Quaker, antidates the first patent given by the king to the Lords Proprietors. It became the nucleus of a large Quaker settlement, which remains to the present day. It is said that a company was formed some years previous to this purchase by Durant, for the purpose of taking up lands and making settlements in the unclaimed territory; and it is probable that the plan may, to some extent, have been carried into effect--or this purchase by the Quakers may have been a part of it. The cautious terms in which the Quakers gave in their adhesion to the "Fundamental Constitutions," show that they were neither illiterate nor reckless vagabonds. Their signature and assent are qualified as follows:

        "Francis Tomes, Christopher Nicholson, and William Wyatt did before me, this 31st July," &c., &c., "and so far as any authority by the Lords constituted, is consonant to God's glory, and to the advancement of his blessed truth, with heart and hands we subscribe, to the best of our capacities and understandings."

        In regard to these earliest settlers of North Carolina, Mr. Bancroft states that the adjoining county in Virginia, Nansemond, had long abounded in non-conformists; and it is certain, he says, that the first settlements in Albemarle were the result of the spontaneous overflowing from this source. A few vagrant families, he thinks, may have been planted in Carolina before the Restoration. Such settlements would have been made voluntarily, as under Cromwell the Church would not have been permitted to persecute Dissenters. But on the restoration of Charles, men who were impatient of interference with their religion, "who dreaded the enforcement of religious conformity, and who distrusted the spirit of the new Government in Virginia, plunged more deeply into the forests. It is known that in 1662, the Chief of the Yeopim Indians granted to George Durant the neck of land which still bears his name; and, in the following year, George Cathmaid could claim from Sir Wm. Berkeley a large grant of land upon the Sound, as a reward for having established sixty-seven persons in Carolina. This may have been the oldest considerable settlement; there is reason to believe that volunteer emigrants preceded them."

        It has already been stated that Sir William Berkeley was Governor of Virginia and one of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina at this time. He was also a Church man, intolerant of dissent--in Virginia; but his pecuniary interests impelled him to be very liberal and tolerant of Quakers, Presbyterian, and other sectarians who would agree to remove to their territory. His proprietary colleagues cordially concurred with him in this left-handed spirit of toleration, by which they hoped to be enriched; and in conformity with it, the Carolina colonists were allowed to indulge in whatever eccentricities of faith and worship their tastes or their consciences might suggest.

        Indeed, it was very plain to the common sense of the Proprietaries, that zeal for the Church north of 36° 30', if enforced by rigorous persecution, was as conducive to the peopling their Carolina territory, as the liberty of conscience which was granted south of that line. These seemingly hostile principles, or moral forces were thus made to work harmoniously for the advantage of their Lordships, while narrow-minded bigots, by enforcing conformity on both sides of the line, would have spoiled everything.

        Howison, the historian of Virginia, describes Sir William, who was appointed Governor of Virginia in 1642, by Charles I, as an accomplished gentleman whose winning manners captivated all hearts, but, "His loyalty was so excessive that it blinded his eyes to the faults of a crowned head, and steeled his heart against the prayers of oppressed subjects. He loved the monarchical constitution of England with simple fervor; he venerated her customs, her Church, her Bishops, her Liturgy; everything peculiar to her as a kingdom; and believing them to be worthy of all acceptation, he enforced conformity with uncompromising sternness.Had Sir William Berkeley descended to his grave at the time when Charles II gained the English throne, we might with safety have trusted to those historians who have drawn him as adorned with all that could grace and elevate his species. But he lived long enough to prove that loyalty when misguided, will make a tyrant; that religious zeal, when devoted to an established Church, will beget the most revolting bigotry: and that an ardent disposition, when driven on by desire for revenge, will give birth to the worst forms of cruelty and malice."

        Yet this excessive zeal for religion and "revolting bigotry," had a practical side to them which the historian overlooked. For they tended rapidly to people Sir William's Carolina plantation with sober and industrious Quakers and Presbyterians &c., who bought land or paid rent at prices fixed by the Proprietaries. The Virginia Assembly, under such a champion of orthodoxy, passed laws of the most stringent character for the enforcement of uniformity. Tithes were imposed and exacted inexorably: the persons of the Clergy were invested with a sanctity savoring strongly of superstition: papists were excluded from the privilege of holding office, and their priests were banished from the Province; the oath of supremacy to the king as head of the Church, was imposed, dissenting ministers were forbidden to preach; and the Governor and Council were empowered to compel "non-conformists to depart the colony with all convenience." It is not surprising that the Carolina Colony, where toleration was established by the Proprietaries, flourished, when the Governor and Assembly of Virginia were so active in stimulating emigration. But it is obvious that these intolerant laws of Virginia, on the subject of religion, were not calculated nor intended to drive out the lawless and vicious classes. On the contrary, wherever Religion is established by law, whether the creed be Protestant or Catholic, the vicious and criminal classes are rarely arraigned for denying the authority of the Church, however much they may disregard its injunctions, and stand in need of its discipline. It is the sober, earnest men who suffer the pains and penalties of heresy, whether those penalties be the rack, the fagot or banishment.

        But the persecuted Dissenters were not the only classes that preferred the free air of North Carolina to the intolerance of Berkeley. Thousands of Churchmen, real and nominal, joined them; and without being eminently religious, they soon became sufficiently numerous to form a strong party in favor of a Church establishment.

        Mr. Bancroft thinks that the first Governor of the Albemarle Colony, Drummond, appointed by Berkeley, and hanged by him without a trial, for alleged participation in Bacon's Rebellion,

was a Presbyterian. If this opinion be correct, it serves to illustrate more fully how tolerant of heresy the bigoted Govenor of Virginia could be, when it tended to advance his pecuniary interests.

        Two or three of the Lords Proprietors were cabinet ministers of Charles II, and they could not only procure a grant of territory half as large as Europe, but they could stipulate the terms of the grant, and the sort of government its future inhabitants were to live under. For the reasons already explained, the Second Charter, dictated by themselves, authorized the establishment of the utmost toleration, without so much as naming the Church, and this liberty was confirmed to the people. They were granted "an Assembly," says Mr. Bancroft, "and an easy tenure of lands, and he (Berkeley) left the infant people to take care of themselves; to enjoy liberty of conscience and conduct, in the entire freedom of innocent retirement; to forget the world till rent day drew near, and quit-rents might be demanded. Such was the origin of fixed settlements in North Carolina. The child of ecclesiastical oppression was swathed in independence."

        It is appropriate in this place to notice the citation of Mr. Bancroft by the critic, as an authority for one of his aspersions. He says: "There were neither laws nor lawyers, says Bancroft, with but slight exaggeration," and he represents the historian as applying this remark to North Carolina throughout its whole Colonial existence. The truth is, that Mr. Bancroft has nowhere made such a remark, for the two-fold reason that he is too well informed, and has too much regard for truth to make it. On the contrary, he has done more to vindicate the character of North Carolina than any of its special historians. And since he is a deservedly high authority throughout the nation and the world, it is worth while to show what he has said on the subject. The statement from which the above garbled quotations are made are but the conclusion of an elaborate account of the settlement of the Colony which every citizen and native of the State reads with pride and pleasure. After mentioning the arrival of emigrants from New England and from Bermuda, he says that the Colony lived contentedly with Stevens as Chief Magistrate, "under a very wise and simple form of government. A few words express its outlines: a Council of twelve, six named by the Proprietaries and six chosen by the Assembly; an Assembly, composed of the Governor, the Council and delegates from the freeholders of the incipient settlements, formed a government worthy of popular confidence. No interference from abroad was anticipated; for freedom of religion and security against taxation, except by the Colonial Legislature, were solemnly conceded. The Colonists were satisfied; the more so, as their lands were confirmed to them by a solemn grant on the terms which they themselves had proposed."

        Mr. Bancroft proceeds to state that the first Legislature, in 1669, enacted laws adapted to the wants of the people, "and which therefore endured," he says, "long after the designs of Locke were abandoned." Again he states that "the attempt to enforce the Fundamental Constitution of Locke, a year or two later, was impossible and did but favor anarchy by invalidating the existing system, which it could not replace. The Proprietaries, contrary to stipulations with the Colonists, superseded the existing government; and the Colonists resolutely rejected the substitute."

        The historian then gives a brief account of the visits of the celebrated Quaker preachers, William Edmundson and George Fox, to the settlements at Durant's Neck; of the favor with which they were received by the people, and by the Governor, and adds: "If the introduction of the Constitution of Locke had before been difficult, it was now become impossible."

        The death of Stevens, says Mr. Bancroft, left the Colony without a Governor; and by permission

of the Proprietaries, the Assembly elected Cartwright, their Speaker, to act as Governor. "But the difficulty of introducing the model (Locke's Constitution) did not diminish; and having failed to preserve order, Cartwright resolved to lay the state of the country before the Proprietaries, and embarked for England." At the same time the Assembly sent Eastchurch, their new Speaker, to explain their grievances. Mr. Bancroft resumes:

        "The suppression of a fierce insurrection of the people of Virginia had been followed by the vindictive fury of ruthless punishments and runaways, rogues and rebels, that is to say, fugitives from arbitrary tribunals, non-conformists, and friends of popular liberty, fled daily to Carolina as their common subterfuge and lurking place. Did letters from the government of Virginia demand the surrender of leaders in the rebellion, Carolina refused to betray the fugitives who sought shelter in her forests."

        Such is the account given by Mr. Bancroft of the refugees from Virginia oppression; and he rejects the idea of our historian Martin, that these fugitives were runaway negroes. Equally does he reject the Tory estimate placed upon them by the Virginia Governor, Smallwood, and other writers of that school, that they were lawless vagabonds and "runagates"--a phrase which our own Hawks applies to these non-conformist refugees from priestly tyranny. These and similar passages in Bancroft occur in his first and second volumes, which were published long before Hawks' history of the State. The latter author, in some places rallies to he defence of the State and the South, against which he deems to be northern injustice; but in dealing with this subject of our early history, he would have done well to follow the lead of the great northern historian, instead of that of the English and Virginia Tories. But no careful reader of Dr. Hawks can fail to see that his patriotic feelings, as a North Carolinian were in this regard overborne by his reverence for the Church of England, and its then feeble off-shoots in the Colonies. This feeling blinded him to the virtues of Quakers and other dissenters, who resisted the attempts to form an establishment, and compel the payment of tithes or Church rates. It is true that he has presented a mass of facts which should convince every wise and dispassionate son of the Church, that the attempt to establish it in the Colony, and by such agencies, in spite of the determined opposition of a majority of the people, did it lasting injury, as well as equal injury to the cause of religion. He has shown, as he could not fail to do, without grossly perverting history, that the Church suffered, as well from the unjust attitude which its friends assumed, of attempting to force it upon the people, as from the character of the clergymen who were sent over from England. Of the seven who came on this mission during the Proprietary government, three turned out to be disreputable in character--drunken, dissolute and knavish. The others were intelligent and good men, whose teaching and example, supported by the voluntary offerings of the Church at home, would have been eminently salutary. But as the representatives of an arbitrary plan of enforcing uniformity of worship, and with their good example off-set by the bad conduct of their associates, their labor was almost in vain. It was unfortunate for the Church, also, that the jealousy of the British Government would not allow America to have a Bishop during the whole Colonial period, but turned a deaf ear to the appeals in this behalf, which were sent up by the Colonists. The consequence was, that there were few native Church clergymen in America, since it was necessary to send them to England, at great expense, to be ordained and properly educated. The clerical "carpet-baggers" sent to the Colonies, were, with honorable exceptions, of course, exact prototypes of the lay species which have visited the South in more recent years.

        Mr. Bancroft has answered so many of the

misrepresentations of North Carolina, that the reader will excuse a few more brief references and citations. He denounces the meanness of the British Government in applying their navigation act, passed in 1672, to the Colonies, accompanied by a tax on their products. Its application to North Carolina was cruel. The population was barely four thousand. Its exparts consisted of a few fat cattle, a little corn and eight hundred hogsheads of tobacco. This trade was in the hands of New Englanders, whose small vessels came into the sound laden with such foreign articles as supplied the simple wants of the people, and exchanged them for the raw products. But the act referred to required that these products should first be sent to England, where a duty was imposed on them, before their re-exportation to the West Indies, or elsewhere. The tobacco was taxed a penny on the pound, which was equivalent to three cents at the present day. From this source these poor people were made to pay twelve thousand dollars per annum, and to receive only British goods, or foreign articles through British ports, in return. A revolt was the consequence of these oppressive measures, incited, Mr. Bancroft says, by the Virginia refugees, who came over after Bacon's rebellion, and by New Englanders who were trading in the Albemarle country. The Deputy Governor and Council were arrested and imprisoned; and Culpepper, an Englishman who had come over some years before, was made Governor. This rebellion, therefore, was on grounds identical with those which moved the American colonies to resistance a century later, and which resulted in their independence. The people of New England, also, resisted the enforcement of this Navigation Act. The motive assigned for this rebellion was, "that thereby the country may have a free Parliament, and may send home their grievances." In connection with these facts Mr. Bancroft remarks:

        "Are there any who doubt man's capacity for self-government, let them study the history of North Carolina; its inhabitants were restless and turbulent in their imperfect submission to a government imposed on them from abroad; the administration of the colony was firm, humane and tranquil, when they were left to take care of themselves. Any government but one of their own institution was oppressive.The uneducated population of that day formed conclusions as just as those which a century later pervaded the country."

        The people rebelled again, a few years later against the misrule of Seth Sothel, one of the Proprietors who was sent over as Governor. This man, says Mr. Bancroft, found the country tranquil, on his arrival, under laws enacted by the people, and under a Governor of their own choice. "The counties were quiet and well regulated, because not subjected to foreign sway. The planters in peaceful independence, enjoyed the good will of the wilderness. Sothel arrived, and the scene was changed. Many colonial Governors displayed rapacity and extortion toward the people; Sothel cheated his Proprietary associates, as well as plundered the colonists." He was deposed by the people, who appealed again to the Proprietaries; and the planters, says Bancroft, immediately became tranquil, when they escaped foreign misrule.

        And here follows a remark of the historian made with reference to the four or five thousand people who constituted the whole population in 1668, but which the maligner of the Province misquotes, and makes applicable to them throughout the one hundred and thirteen years of colonial dependence. Under the marginal date, 1688, which the garbler could not fail to see, and just at the close of the account of the rebellion against Sothel, Mr. Bancroft says:

        "Careless of religious sects, or colleges, or lawyers, or absolute laws, the early settlers enjoyed liberty of conscience, and personal independence; freedom of the forest and of the river."

        By "absolute laws," he clearly refers to the "Fundamental Constitutions" prepared by Mr. Locke for the Lords Proprietors. He could mean nothing else; for he had just completed an elaborate eulogy of the people for their practical wisdom in enacting laws adapted to their own circumstances. This remark about "absolute laws" follows what has been quoted above from his pages. He had also praised the virtue and devotion of the Quakers and non-conformists, who sought refuge in the wilderness from the pers