USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 34
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would become Mr. Speaker Harvey * * and gravely receive his Excellency's message." 6
Neither body accomplished much. The Congress declared
6 Saunders: Prefatory Notes to Colonial Records of North Caro- lina, Vol. IX, p. xxxiv.
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the right of the people themselves, or through their repre- sentatives, to assemble and petition the throne for redress of grievances, and concluded, therefore, that "the Governor's Proclamation issued to forbid this meeting, and his Proclama- tion afterwards, commanding this meeting to disperse, are illegal and an infringement of our just rights, and therefore ought to be disregarded as wanton and Arbitrary Exertions of power." The Continental Association adopted by the Con- tinental Congress was approved, signed, and recommended to the people of the province; Hooper, Hewes, and Caswell were thanked for their services in the Continental Congress and re-elected; and John Harvey, or in the event of his death Samuel Johnston, was authorized to call another congress whenever he considered it necessary.
The Assembly had time only to organize and exchange messages with the governor when it, too, came to an end. Its first offense was the election of Harvey as speaker. His election was a bitter pill to the governor and he winced at having to take it, but held his peace. He wrote to Lord Dartmouth, secretary of state for the colonies, that he had hoped the Assembly after hearing what he had to say would secede from the Congress, although he knew many of its mem- bers were also members of the Congress, "and this hope," he added, "together with my desire to lay no difficulty in the way of the public business, induced me on the next day to admit the election of Mr. Harvey, who was chosen speaker of the Assembly, and presented by the House for my approba- tion. Indeed to say the truth, my Lord, it was a measure to which I submitted upon these principles not without repug- nance even after I found the Council unanimously of opinion that it would not be expedient to give a new handle of dis- content to the Assembly by rejecting its choice if it should fall as was expected upon Mr. Harvey, for I considered his guilt of too conspicuous a nature to be passed over with neg- lect. The manner however of my admitting him I believe sufficiently testified my disapprobation of his conduct while it marked my respect to the election of the House." The fol- lowing day the Assembly again offended by inviting the dele- gates to the Congress who were not also members of the As- sembly to join in the latter's deliberations. The governor promptly issued his proclamation forbidding this unhallowed union, which was read to the Assembly by the sheriff of Craven County. "Well, you have read it," exclaimed James Coor, member from Craven, "and now you can take it back to the governor"; and except for this contemptuous exclama-
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tion no notice was taken of it. "Not a man obeyed it," wrote Martin, who thus far had succeeded in keeping his temper ad- mirably. But on the fourth day of the session the Assembly adopted resolutions approving the Continental Association, thanking the delegates to the Continental Congress for their services, and endorsing their re-election. This was more than Martin had bargained for; his wrath boiled over, and on April 8, 1774, he issued his proclamation putting an end to the last Assembly that ever met in North Carolina at the call of a royal governor.
In a letter to Lord Dartmouth describing these events, Martin wrote: "I am bound in conscience and duty to add, My Lord, that Government is here as absolutely prostrate as impotent, and that nothing but the shadow of it is left. I must further say, too, my Lord, that it is my serious opinion which I communicate with the last degree of concern that unless effectual measures such as British Spirit may dictate are speedily taken there will not long remain a trace of Britain's dominion over these Colonies." Before this dispatch had found its way to its pigeon hole in the Colonial Office, Martin was a fugitive from the Governor's Palace seeking protection from the guns of Fort Johnston, revolutionary conventions and committees were in full control . throughout the province, in every community companies of rebels were organizing, arming, and drilling for war, and British rule was at an end forever in North Carolina.
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Vol. I-23
CHAPTER XX
COMMITTEES OF SAFETY
In order to provide an executive authority to enforce its policy, the Provincial Congress of August, 1774, recommended that "a committee of five persons be chosen in each county" for that purpose. The Continental Congress in October recom- mended a similar system throughout the thirteen colonies. In North Carolina the plan as finally worked out contemplated one committee in each of the towns, one in each of the counties, one in each of the six military districts, and one for the prov- ince at large. In all our history there has been nothing else like these committees. Born of necessity, originating in the political and economic confusion of the time, they touched the lives of the people in their most intimate affairs, and grad- ually extended their jurisdiction until they assumed to them- selves all the functions of government. They enforced with vigor the resolves of the Continental and Provincial Con- gresses, some of which were most exacting in their demands and burdensome in their effects. They conducted inquiries into the actions and opinions of individuals, and not only "deter- mined what acts and opinions constituted a man an enemy of his country, but passed upon his guilt or innocence, and fixed his punishment." They raised money by voluntary subscrip- tions, fines and assessments for the purchase of gunpowder, arms, and all the other implements of war. The militia had to be enlisted, organized, equipped and drilled. In short, a revolution had to be inaugurated and it fell to these committees to do it. "Usurping some new authority every day, executive, judicial or legislative, as the case might be, their powers soon became practically unlimited." Governor Martin character- ized them as "extraordinary tribunals." In every respect they were extraordinary, insurrectionary, revolutionary. Ille- gally constituted, they assumed such authority as would not have been tolerated in the royal government and received such obedience as the king with all his armies could not have exacted. Yet not only did they not abuse their power, they voluntarily
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resigned it when the public welfare no longer needed their services. They were the offspring of misrule and rose and fell with their parent.
Records are extant, in some cases complete, in others very meager, of the organization of committees in eighteen counties and four towns. Especially active and effective were the com- mittees of New Hanover, Rowan, Tryon, Pitt, Craven and Surry counties. The people were thoroughly alive to the importance of the step they took in organizing these com- mittees. The men whom they selected represented the wealth, the intelligence, and the culture of their communities. Some of them achieved eminence in the history of North Carolina. The chairman of the Wilmington-New Hanover committee was Cornelius Harnett. Among his colleagues was William Hooper. Joseph Hewes, like Hooper, a signer of the Declara- tion of Independence, was a member of the Edenton com- mittee. The dominant spirit of the Halifax committee was Willie Jones, for many years the most distinguished of the radical leaders in the colony. Among the members of the Craven committee was Abner Nash, afterwards governor. Robert Howe, afterwards a major-general in Washington's army, served on the Brunswick committee. Benjamin Cleave- land, famous as one of the "heroes of King's Moun- tain," was chairman of the Surry committee. Many others scarcely less distinguished served on these "extraordi- nary tribunals." They were men of approved character and ability. Entrusted with despotic power, they fulfilled their trust with fidelity, exercising tyranny over individuals that they might preserve the liberty of the community. They uni- formly discharged their duties with firmness and patience, with prudence and wisdom, and in the interest of the public welfare.
The policy of both the Continental Congress and the Provincial Congress aimed to promote economy and industry, to encourage and stimulate manufactures, to discourage ex- travagance and luxury, and to enforce the non-importation and non-exportation associations. Upon the committees of safety fell the task of making this policy effective. It was neither an easy nor an agreeable task, for some features of the policy were extremely irritating in their operations and at times pro- duced restlessness among the people. It required as much tact as determination for the committees to execute their orders with vigor without at the same time losing the support of their constituents. In this double task they met with a remarkable degree of success. "Agreeable to the Resolves of the Conti- nontal Congress," Surry County undertook to "suppress all
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Immorality and Vice, and all kinds of sporting, Gaming, Bet- ting or Wagering whatsoever." Although the New Hanover committee strictly enforced the resolves against "expensive diversions and entertainments," forbidding horse-races, bil- liards, dancing and other amusements, the people submitted without complaint. "Nothing," declared the committee, "will so effectually tend to convince the British Parliament that we are in earnest in our opposition to their measures, as a voluntary relinquishment of our favorite amusements. * Many will cheerfully part with part of their prop- erty to secure the remainder. He only is the determined patriot who willingly sacrifices his pleasures on the altar of freedom." An interesting experiment was initiated by the committee of Chowan County which undertook to raise a fund to be used "for the encouragement of Manufactures," secur- ing: £80 sterling "for that laudable purpose." Premiums were accordingly offered for the first output in the province within eighteen months of 500 pairs of wool cards and a like number of cotton cards and for the first 2,000 pounds of steel "fit for edged tools," all of which the committee obligated it- self to purchase at a good profit. These premiums, said the committee, were "too inconsiderable" in themselves to induce any person to establish such manufactories but it offered them in the hope that other counties, "stimulated by the same laud- able motives to promote industry," would increase them by offering similar rewards. Many of the committees found it necessary to take a determined stand to prevent profiteering in such essential articles as salt, steel, and gunpowder, not only by fixing prices, but also by seizing for public use such supplies as were found within their jurisdictions.
One of the most important phases of the work of the com- mittees of safety was the enforcement of the Non-Importation Association. Large quantities of goods were imported in vio- lation either of the spirit or of the letter of the prohibition- some by merchants who had ordered them before the pro- hibition became effective, some were brought in only in tech- nical violation of the resolve, while others were imported by disloyal merchants purposely to test the determination of the patriots. All alike was seized and sold at public auction for the benefit of the public fund. "The safety of the people is, or ought to be, the supreme law," wrote a Wilmington merchant whose goods were thus seized; "the gentlemen of the committee will judge whether this law, or any act of Par- liament, should, at this particular time, operate in North Caro- lina." Some Cape Fear planters who thought upon one pre-
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text or another to get around the resolve forbidding the im- portation of slaves, were promptly summoned before the New Hanover committee to "give a particular account" of their conduct, and as promptly required to re-ship their negroes out of the province by the first opportunity. When Parlia- ment, in an effort to break up the Continental Associa- tion, passed an act "to restrain the trade and commerce" of certain colonies, from which North Carolina and some others were exempted, the Wilmington-New Hanover joint- committees at a largely attended meeting "resolved, unani- mously, that the exception of this colony, and some others, out of the said act, is a mean and base artifice, to seduce them into a desertion of the common cause of America"; and there- fore determined "that we will not accept of the advantages insidiously thrown out by the said act, but will strictly adhere to such plans as have been, and shall be, entered into by the Honorable Continental Congress, so as to keep up a perfect unanimity with our sister colonies."
In their work the committees met with just enough opposi- tion to enable them to make a display of firmness and energy. Neither wealth nor position could purchase immunity from their inquisition, neither poverty nor obscurity was accepted as an excuse for disobedience. Social and commercial ostra- cism was the favorite weapon, and few there were with spirit and courage determined enough to withstand it. Andrew Mil- ler, a prominent merchant of Halifax, refusing to sign the As- sociation, the committee though composed of his neighbors and former friends resolved to have "no commerce or dealing" with him and to "recommend it to the people of this County in particular and to all who wish well of their Country to adopt the same measure." Governor Martin cited this inci- dent to the ministry as evidence "of the spirit of these ex- traordinary Tribunals." Three merchants of Edenton, who had imported goods contrary to the Association, were sum- moned before the Chowan County committee, required pub- licly to acknowledge their fault and to promise obedience in the future. Craven County committee ordered that all per- sons who refused to sign the Association be disarmed. The sanctity of the church itself failed to serve as a cloak to cover disaffection and disloyalty. Rev. James Reed, missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and rector at New Bern, refusing to conduct service on the Fast Day set apart by the Continental Congress, the Craven committee se- verely censured him for "deserting his congregation," and requested the vestry to suspend him "from his ministerial
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function"; while the Rowan County committee compelled a Baptist preacher named Cook who had signed a "protest against the cause of Liberty," to appear and express his regret "in the most explicit and humiliating Terms." When the Wilmington committee submitted to the peo- ple of Wilmington a test pledging the signers to "ob- serve strictly" the Continental Association, eleven of the most prominent men in the community refused to sign. They were promptly ostracized as "unworthy the rights of freemen and as inimical to the liberties of their country"; and held up before the public that they might be "treated with the contempt they deserve." There were no braver men than some of those thus cut off from their fellows, but they could not stand out against the open scorn of their neighbors; within less than a week eight of their number gave way and subscribed the test. The committee justified their course as being "a cement of allegiance" to the Crown and as "having a tendency to promote a constitutional at- tachment for the mother country."
But in May, 1775, the last bond of such allegiance was snapped, and the last sentiment of such attachment destroyed, by news that came from Massachusetts. American blood had been shed at Lexington and through the colonies expresses rode day and night, carrying the news of the battle, of the rising of the minute-men, and of the retreat from Con- cord. In no other way did the committees of safety give a better illustration of their usefulness than in the transmis- sion of this news. From colony to colony, from town to town, from committee to committee, they hurried it along. New York received the dispatches at midday, New Brunswick at midnight. They aroused Princeton at 3 o'clock in the morning. Trenton read them at daybreak, Philadelphia at noon. They reached Baltimore at bed-time, Alexandria at the breakfast hour. Three days and nights the express rode on, down the Potomac, across the Rappahannock, the York and the James, through scenes since made famous, and on to Edenton. Edenton received the dispatches at 9 a. m., May 4th, and hurried them on to Bath with the injunction to "disperse the material passages through all your parts." Bath hastened them on to New Bern with a message to send them forward "with the utmost dispatch." "Send them on as soon as possible to the Wilmington Committee," di- rected New Bern to Onslow. "Disperse them to your adjoin- ing counties," echoed Onslow to Wilmington. At 3 o'clock P. M., May 8th, the messenger delivered his dispatches to
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Cornelius Harnett, chairman of the Wilmington committee. Delaying just long enough to make copies, Harnett urged him on to Brunswick. "If you should be at a loss for a man and horse," he wrote to the Brunswick committee, "the bearer will proceed as far as the Boundary House. You will please direct Mr. Marion or any other gentleman to forward the packet immediately to the Southward with the greatest possible dispatch. For God's sake send the man on without the least delay and write to Mr. Marion to for- ward it by night and day." Brunswick received the papers six hours later and although it was then "9 o'clock in the evening" the chairman of the committee urged the bearer on- ward to Isaac Marion at Boundary House to whom he wrote: "I must entreat you to forward them to your community [com- mittee] at Georgetown to be conveyed to Charlestown from yours with all speed." Thus the news was sped to the south- ward, inspiring the forward, stirring the backward, and arous- ing the continent. The committees made the most of their op- portunity. Governor Martin complained that the rebel lead- ers received the news more than a month before he did, and that he received it "too late to operate against the infamous and false reports of that transaction which were circulated to this distance from Boston in the space of 12 or 13 days." The first impression took "deep root in the minds of the vul- gar here universally and wrought a great change in the face of things, confirming the seditious in their evil purposes, and bringing over vast numbers of the fickle, wavering and un- steady multitude to their party."
The battle of Lexington was the beginning of war. For this result the patriots of North Carolina were not wholly unprepared, for the committees had made efforts to be ready for "the worst contingencies." The Rowan committee seized all the gunpowder in Salisbury. Tryon County raised money to purchase powder for the public use. Surry ordered that if any members of the committee "should find out any Am- munition in this county they shall be justifiable in securing the same for the Public Service." Other committees were no less active in this essential work. The most effective work was done by the Wilmington-New Hanover committees which foresaw that the first armed conflict in North Carolina would probably come on the Cape Fear, and determined to be pro- pared for it. They required the merchants to sell their gun- powder to the committees for the public use, they bought it from other committees, imported it from other colonies, and employed agents to manufacture it. They hired men to
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mould bullets. They seized the public arms, and they com- pelled every person who owned more than one gun to sur- render all but one for the public service. They smuggled arms and ammunition from other colonies and the West Indies in such quantities that Governor Martin "lamented that effectual steps have not been taken to intercept the sup- plies of warlike stores that * are frequently brought into this colony", and asked for three or four cruisers to guard the coast, for the sloop stationed at Fort Johnston "is not sufficient to attend to the smugglers in this [Cape Fear] river alone." The committees also undertook to re-organize the militia. Rowan called for 1,000 volunteers to "be ready at the shortest Notice to march out to Action." The Pitt County committee required the militia companies to choose new officers to be approved by the committee. The Wilming- ton committee required "every white man capable of bear- ing arms" to enlist in one of the companies that had been organized; and early in July, 1775, gave as one reason for a provincial congress which Harnett, Ashe and Howe urged Johnston to call, "that a number of men should be raised and kept in pay for the defense of the country." So active and successful were the committees in organizing military companies that Governor Martin issued a proclamation de- nouncing the "evil minded persons" who were "endeavouring to engage the People to subscribe papers obliging themselves to be prepared with Arms, to array themselves in companies, and to submit to the illegal and usurped authorities of Com- mittees."
Nor were the committees unmindful of the necessity of preparing the minds of the people for war. In this re- spect, too, success crowned their efforts. Even historians who think North Carolina did not give "general and heroic support to the cause of independence," declare that at the outbreak of the Revolution the people were "aroused to an extraordinary degree of enthusiasm." 1 This enthusiasm Gov- ernor Martin charged particularly to the committees of safety. To Lord Dartmouthi he wrote on June 30, 1775, that the people "freely talk of Hostility toward Britain in the language of Aliens and avowed Enemies," and later he at- tributed this spirit to "the influence of Committees" which, he said, "hath been so extended over the Inhabitants of the Lower part [Cape Fear section] of this Country, *
1 Dodd, W. E .: "North Carolina in the Revolution," in The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. I, p. 156.
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and they are at this day to the distance of an hundred miles from the Sea Coast, so generally possessed with the spirit of revolt" that the "spirits of the loyal and well effective to Government droop and decline daily" while "the authority, the edicts and ordinances of Congresses, Conventions and Committees are established supreme and omnipotent by gen- eral acquiescence or forced submission, and lawful Govern- ment is completely annihilated."
Martin wrote these dispatches from Fort Johnston at the mouth of Cape Fear River where, frightened from the Pal- ace at New Bern by the New Bern committee, he had taken refuge. His flight was one of the turning points in the revo- lutionary movement in North Carolina; it closed the last door against reconciliation. To trace the events which in- duced him to take this extraordinary step, we must turn back to the beginning of the year 1775. It must not be sup- posed that the people of North Carolina were a unit in sup- port of the revolutionary movement. The movement received its chief strength from the eastern counties where men of English descent, trained in English institutions and imbued with English ideals of government, predominated, and from the counties which had been largely settled by Scotch-Irish immigrants whose religious principles and church organiza- tions had given them training in democratic ideals and insti- tutions. But from the Scotch-Highlanders and the Germans, neither of whom understood what the quarrel was about, it received scant sympathy, while the old Regulators naturally distrusted a cause which counted among its most conspicu- ous advocates the author of the "Riot Act" and those who, acting under its authority, had but recently so completely crushed their own revolt against oppression. By the open- ing of the year 1775 these elements of the population began to make themselves heard. Addresses signed by 1,500 inhab- itants of Rowan, Surry, Guilford, Anson and other inland' counties, expressing the utmost loyalty to the king and utter detestation of all revolutionary proceedings, were sent in to the governor, who received similar assurances from the Scotch-Highlanders along the Upper Cape Fear.
Encouraged by these evidences of loyalty, Martin began to contemplate a more aggressive policy. On March 16th, there- fore, he wrote to General Thomas Gage, at Boston, "if your Excellency shall assist me with two or three Stands of arms and good store of ammunition, *
* I will be answerable to maintain the Sovereignty of this Country to his Majesty if the present spirit of resistance
shall urge mat-
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ters to the extremity that the people of New England seem to be meditating." While Martin was anxiously awaiting Gage's reply, events in North Carolina hastened to a climax. In April met the last royal Assembly and the second Pro- vincial Congress, and in May came news of the battle of Lexington. Rumors were afloat that the governor con- templated armed action against the people, and it was whispered here and there that he was even plan- ning to arm the slaves against their masters. Every- where the people were arming, organizing companies and drilling for war. "The Inhabitants of this Country on the Sea Coast," wrote Martin, from New Bern, May 18th, "are arming men, electing officers and so forth. In this little Town they are now actually endeavouring to form what they call independent Companies under my nose, and Civil Government becomes more and more prostrate every day." While everybody's nerves were on an edge from these events and rumors, Martin's action in dismantling some cannon at the Palace in New Bern so alarmed the New Bern commit- tee that it set a watch over him to report his every movement. In the latter part of May a messenger from the governor of New York arrived at the Palace and sought an interview with Martin. From him Martin learned that Gage had com- plied with his request and ordered arms and ammunition to be sent to him from New York. Whether they would be sent by a man-of-war or by a merchant ship Martin's informant could not say, but thought probably by the latter as the peo- ple of the northern colonies had a mistaken idea of the loy- alty of the people of the South. This information was ex- tremely disconcerting. Martin felt certain that the supplies, unless brought by a war vessel, would be seized by the com- mittees as he himself "had not a man to protect them." He was also greatly perturbed by rumors that the committees in all the colonies were planning to seize the persons of the royal governors. Prompt action, therefore, was necessary to save his military supplies and to assure his personal safety. His decision was perhaps wise from a personal point of view, but disastrous to his cause. Sending his family in haste to New York, and dispatching his secretary to Ocracoke Inlet, the entrance to the port of New Bern, to prevent the supply ship from entering there, he himself fled in secret to the pro- tection of the guns of Fort Johnston.
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