USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 12
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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 Gent™ 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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ST. THOMAS' CHURCH AT BATH The Oldest Church in North Carolina
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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. H. U. 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.
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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
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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 their maintenance; while for the encouragement of inter-colonial
4 Church and State in North Carolina, p. 11.
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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.
CHAPTER 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
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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 abt 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
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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 Pyrates 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-
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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 many 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
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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. Tlie 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 "Blackbeard" and over- powered his followers. Of "Blackbeard'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
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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 done) 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 triumplied, 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.
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