USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 6
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In 1675, commissions naming a surveyor and a collector of customs were sent to Governor Jenkins, accompanied by instructions that if the men named were not in the colony he should appoint others in their stead. In these orders the New England skippers trading in Albemarle read the ruin of their business and promptly set on foot a report that, if the duties were collected, they would be compelled to double the price of their wares; "Upon weh the people were very muti- nous and reviled & threatened ye Members of the Councell that were for setleing ye sª duty." George Durant and his follow- ers, whose interests lay in maintaining commercial relations with the New England men, supported their cause. As neither the surveyor nor the collector named in the commissions of 1675 was in the province, it became the duty of Governor Jen- kins to fill the vacancies. Accordingly he appointed Timothy Biggs surveyor and Valentine Byrd collector. The selection of Biggs was a blind, the selection of Byrd a fraud. The sur- veyor had nothing to do with the enforcement of the customs act. Control of that office, therefore, was of less importance than control of the collectorship, and the Durant party will- ingly relinquished it to Biggs, a partisan of the Eastchurch faction, whose selection gave an appearance of good faith to the whole transaction. The selection of Byrd as collector,
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on the other hand, placed the enforcement of the act in the hands of the party that was interested in nullifying it. Byrd fully met the expectation of his friends; he reduced the whole thing to a farce by deliberately closing his eyes to violations of the law, permitting many hogsheads of tobacco to leave the wharves of Albemarle planters marked as "bait for the New England fishermen."
In the meantime the affairs of Albemarle were going from bad to worse. Factional feuds grew more and more bitter, and each party when in power carried things with a high hand. Conspiring with John Culpepper, Jenkins attempted to use his official power to destroy their personal enemy, Thomas Miller, whom he had arrested and thrown into prison; while John Willoughby, a justice of the General Court and an ad- herent of the Durant faction, arrogantly asserting that his "court was the court of courts and the jury of juries," per- emptorily denied to Thomas Eastchurch the right of appeal from his decision to the Lords Proprietors. The Assembly party in turn, under the leadership of Eastchurch, were quite as arbitrary. Accusing Jenkins of "several misdemeanors," they deposed him from office, without any pretence of legal right, and threw him into prison. Hastening to justify their action, they drew up a statement of their proceedings and dispatched it, together with a petition for redress of griev- ances, to the Lords Proprietors by Miller who, at the com- mand of Sir William Berkeley, had been acquitted of the charges against him and released. Miller arrived in England in the summer of 1676 where he met Eastchurch who had gone thither to seek redress of his own grievances.
The Lords Proprietors, greatly perplexed over the situa- tion in their colony, and sincerely desirous of promoting its interests, conferred freely with Eastchurch and Miller. Both impressed them favorably. Eastchurch seemed to be not only "a gentleman of a very good family," but also "a very dis- creet and worthy man," and much concerned for the "pros- perity and wellfaire" of Albemarle. As he was speaker of the Assembly, and Miller the bearer of important dispatches from the Assembly, the Lords Proprietors naturally looked upon them as representatives of the people and argued that if anybody could straighten out the tangled affairs of Albe- marle, Eastchurch and Miller were the men. Accordingly they appointed Eastchurch governor and procured the ap- pointment of Miller as collector feeling confident that both
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appointments would be acceptable to the people of Albemarle and taken as evidence of their solicitude for their colony.
Eastchurch and Miller sailed for Carolina in the summer of 1677. Coming by way of the West Indies, their ship touched at the island of Nevis where Eastchurch "lighting upon a woman yt was a considerable fortune took hold of the opper- tunity [and] marryed her," and sent Miller on to Albemarle with a commission as president of the Council to "settle affayres against his coming." Although Eastchurch exceeded his authority in appointing Miller president of the Council, nevertheless Miller was quietly received by the people who submitted without question to his authority both as collector and as acting-governor. As collector he discharged his duties with zeal, demanding an accounting from Byrd, his predeces- sor, appointing deputies, among them Timothy Biggs, and making "a very considerable progress" in collecting the king's customs. By his own statement, his collections amounted to "the value of above £8,000 sterling." But as governor, Miller showed himself totally unfit to exercise the power and responsibility with which he had been entrusted. His enemies, omitting "many hainous matters," charged him with corruption, vindictiveness, and tyranny; and the Lords Proprietors were compelled to admit that he "did many extravagant things, making strange limitations for ye choyce of ye Parliamt gitting powr in his hands of laying fynes, wch tis to be feared he neither did nor meant to use moderately sending out strange warrants to bring some of ye most con- siderable men of ye Country alive or dead before him, setting a sume of money upon their heads." To support his tyranny, he organized and armed a band of his partisans upon pre- tense of their being for defence against the Indians; and by this "pipeing guard," as it was called, not only kept the peo- ple in terror but also imposed a heavy debt on the already bankrupt colony. Consequently, wrote the Lords Proprie- tors, Miller soon "lost his reputation & interest amongst ye people."
By the beginning of winter the people were in a rebellious frame of mind, and only an overt act and a leader were needed to produce an explosion. Both came soon enough. On December 1, 1677, the Carolina, "a very pretty vessell of some force," Captain Zachariah Gillam in command, arrived from England and cast anchor in Pasquotank River. Gillam had scarcely stepped ashore when Miller arrested him on a charge of having violated the Navigation Act and held him to
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bail in £1,000 sterling. Here was the overt act; and Gillam shrewdly took advantage of it. He threatened to weigh anchor and carry his cargo out of the country, but the people, aroused to action by the prospect of losing such an oppor- tunity for trade, beset him with entreaties to stay, pledging their support against the governor. The leader too was at hand, for on board the Carolina, returning from London, was George Durant. While in London, Durant had heard with astonishment of the appointment of his enemy, Eastchurch, as governor and had boldly "declared to some of ye Prop's that Eastchurch should not be Governo" & threatened to revolt." News of his threat had probably preceded him to Albemarle; at any rate, in his presence Miller scented danger and determined to forestall it. At midnight of the day of Durant's arrival, Miller forced his way into the cabin of the Carolina, armed "with a brace of pistolls," and "present- ing one of them cockt to M'. Geo. Durants breast & wth his other hand arrested him as a Traytour."
The assault on Durant was the signal for revolt. Byrd, Culpepper, and other leaders hastened aboard the Carolina where, in conference with Durant, they planned to overthrow Miller and seize the government. About forty "Pasquotan- kians," armed by Gillam from the Carolina, rallied to their support and surrounding Miller's house, made him a pris- oner, seized the tobacco he had collected on the king's account, and took possession of the public records. They then dispatched armed parties throughout the colony to arrest other officials, among whom was Deputy-Collector Biggs, and issued a "Remonstrance," or an appeal for support to "all the Rest of the County of Albemarle." They had arrested Miller and seized the public records, they declared, "that thereby the Countrey may have a free parlemt & that from them their aggrievances may be sent home to the Lords"; and they urged the people to choose representatives to an Assembly which should meet at once at Durant's house. To Durant's plantation, therefore, the victorious rebels with their prisoners proceeded by water, and as the little flotilla which bore them to the place of rendezvous dropped down the Pasquotank River, the Carolina, lying at anchor off Craw- ford's wharf, exultantly flung her flags and pennons to the breeze and fired a triumphant salvo from her great guns.
The appeal of the rebels, to the people met with a ready response, and from all parts of Albemarle armed men flocked to Durant's plantation. Among Miller's effects the rebels
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had found the Great Seal of the province, the use of which gave color of authority to their acts, and while Gillam kept the crowd in a good humor by a free distribution of rum and whiskey which he had brought from the Carolina, Durant and other leaders proceeded to organize a government. First of all, the Assembly consisting of eighteen delegates chosen by the people, met and elected five of their members who, together with Richard Foster, who alone of the Lords Pro- prietors' deputies had adhered to the rebels, were to form the Council. Before this Council Miller and the other prisoners were brought for trial. 'In all their proceedings, the rebels scrupulously observed the usual legal forms. Culpepper was appointed clerk, Durant attorney-general, a grand jury was summoned, indictments were presented and true bills returned with due formality. They were proceeding to impanel a petit jury when a bomb was suddenly thrown into their camp. This was nothing less than a message from Eastchurch who, with his bride, had arrived in Virginia and learning of the situa- tion in Albemarle, had sent his proclamation which, as Miller feelingly said, came "at ye very nicke of tyme," commanding the rebels to disperse and abandon their illegal proceedings. This sudden turn of affairs presented a serious question to the rebels. Whatever justification they may have had for revolt against Miller, they could not charge Eastchurch with tyranny and oppression, nor could they deny his legal title and authority as governor, for he bore a commission from the Lords Proprietors. Nevertheless, resolved to carry their revolt through to a successful issue, they hastily "clapt Miller in irons," declared that if Eastchurch attempted to come to Albemarle "they would serve him ye same sauce," and sent an armed force to the Virginia border to prevent his enter- ing the province. Eastchurch appealed to the governor of Virginia for military aid which was readily promised him, but his sudden death before assistance could be given removed all danger to the Albemarle rebels from that quarter.
Now that the rebels had a free hand, prudence character- ized their conduct. They dropt the proceedings against Mil- ler and the other deposed officials ; convened a free Assembly, organized courts, and conducted the government "by their owne authority & according to their owne modell." To secure funds for the support of the government, the Assembly ap- pointed Culpepper collector and instructed him to take pos- session of the revenues which Miller had collected. The colony had quieted down and everything was running smoothly when
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the escape of Timothy Biggs and his flight to England, brought sharply to the attention of the rebels the necessity of having their case properly presented to the Lords Proprietors. The Assembly, therefore, commissioned Culpepper to go to Eng- land to assure the Lords Proprietors of their allegiance, but at the same time to "insist very highly for right against Mil- ler." They denied the authority neither of the Proprietors nor of the Crown, and did not regard their conduct as rebel- lion. The Lords Proprietors, for reasons to be explained, were willing to accept this view, and Culpepper was on the point of returning to Albemarle in triumph, when the situa- tion took a sudden and more serious turn.
Miller having escaped from prison had hastened to Lon- don and laid his case before the king in Council. Inasmuch as Miller in his capacity as collector, was a crown official, his arrest and removal from office, the appointment of Culpepper in his stead, and the seizure of the customs, were offences against the royal authority which the crown officials were not willing to overlook. The Privy Council accordingly ordered that Culpepper be held without bail in England pending a full investigation of the affair; and directed the Lords Proprie- tors to present a complete account of the rebellion in Albe- marle together "with an authentick Copy of their Charter." Apprehensive that this might mean a suit to void their char- ter for failure to maintain an orderly government in their colony, the Lords Proprietors were anxious to minimize the rebellion as much as possible. Accordingly, though compelled to admit the fact of rebellion, they enlarged upon the crimes of Miller and his lack of authority to administer the govern- ment. They could not, however, gloss over the resistance to the king's collector, and the seizure of the king's revenues, for Culpepper acknowledged the facts and threw himself upon the mercy of the king. But the commissioners of cus- toms urged "that no favor may be shewed him unless he make or procure satisfaction for the Customs seized and embeseled by him," and recommended that he be arrested and brought to trial for embezzlement and treason. Thereupon the Lords Proprietors came to his rescue on the first charge, by agreeing "to procure by their authority and influence in Carolina" a satisfactory settlement of the debt; and Shaftes- . bury, undoubtedly with the sanction of his associates, suc- cessfully defended him against the charge of treason on the plea that at the time of the rebellion there was no legal gov- ernment in Albemarle.
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On the whole, the Lords Proprietors met this crisis in their affairs wisely. Amid the clamor of contending factions, they found it impossible to discriminate between truth and false- hood, to distinguish the innocent from the guilty, to pro- nounce judgment with impartial justice; and as they were much more eager to restore peace and the reign of law in their province than they were to punish those who had disturbed its repose, they declined to follow the advice of Biggs and Miller who urged them to employ force in suppressing the rebellion; and they found an excuse if not a justification for the conduct of the rebels not only in the crimes and tyranny of Miller, but also in the fact that he had attempted to act as governor "without any legall authority." Considering the disorders in Albemarle the result of factions, they were desir- ous of finding a governor who was not a partisan of either side, and who possessed the character and position to com- mand the respect of both. Such a man they thought they had in Seth Sothel who had recently became a Lord Proprietor by the purchase of Clarendon's interest. His associates thought him "a sober, moderate man," "no way concerned in the fac- tions and animosityes" of Albemarle, and possessed of the ability to "settle all things well" in their turbulent colony; and as he was willing to undertake the task, they appointed him governor and at the same time procured his appointment as collector. But on his way to Carolina, Sothel was captured and held to ransom by Algerian pirates.
Pending Sothel's release, the Lords Proprietors commis- sioned John Harvey governor and the commissioners of the customs appointed Robert Holden collector. Both were satis- factory to the people of Albemarle who "Quyetly and cherefully obeyed" them. After a brief official life, Har- vey died in office, and the Council selected John Jen- kins as his successor. In this selection the Lords Proprie- tors acquiesced. It was a clear victory for the Durant party, now completely in the ascendancy. "Although Jen- kins had the title [of governor]" the other faction truth- fully asserted, "yet in fact Durant governed and used Jen- kins but as his property." It was fortunate for the colony that this was so. The Durant party was the only group in the colony strong enough to administer a government suc- cessfully and to assure order, and George Durant, its leader, possessed many of the qualities of statesmanship. Under his leadership, order was restored, the laws were enforced, the king's customs were collecte l "without any disturbance
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from the people," a tax was levied on the colony to refund the revenues seized and used by the rebels "in the tyme of the disorders"; and the Assembly passed an act of oblivion cov- ering offenses committed during the rebellion. Miller, Biggs, and their followers complained bitterly of the conduct of the government and endeavored to stir up resistance to it, but the people had had enough of strife, and the Lords Proprie- tors were wearied with factious complaints. They stood squarely behind the constituted authorities in their colony, with the result that in November, 1680, they were able to report that in Albemarle "all things are in quyet and his Majtyes Customes quyetly paid by the People."
Unhappily this state of affairs was destined to be of short duration. In 1683, Seth Sothel, who had been released from captivity, arrived in Albemarle bearing a commission as gov- ernor. John Fiske is guilty of no exaggeration when he says of Sothel: "In five years of misrule over Albemarle he proved himself one of the dirtiest knaves that ever held office in America. " 3 As a Lord Proprietor, he considered himself above the law. He disregarded the instructions of the Lords Proprietors; appointed deputies illegally and "refused to suffer any to act as Deputy who had deputations under the hand and seale of the Proprs"'; and acted "contrary to all the fundamental Constitutions." He had been in office but a short time when he received a sharp reprimand from his asso- ciates, who informed him that no man could "claime any power in Carolina but by virtue of them [Fundamental Con- stitutions] for no propor single by virture of our patents hath any right to the Governm' or to exercise any Jurisdic- tion there unless Impowered by the rest." Complaints soon began to pour in upon them from the people charging Sothel with corruption, robbery, and tyranny. He withheld from subordinate officials and put into his own pocket the perquis -. ites of their offices. He accepted bribes from criminals. He seized without ceremony and appropriated to his own use whatever pleased his fancy, whether a plantation, a negro slave, a cow, or a pewter dish; and if the owner had the ef- frontery to object he locked him up. He arrested and impris- oned two traders arriving in Albemarle on pretense of their being pirates, although both produced proper clearance papers showing them to be lawful traders, threw them into prison, and seized their goods. One of them died in prison
3 Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, Vol. IT, p. 286.
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leaving a will naming Thomas Pollock as executor; but Sothel refused to admit the will to probate, and when Pollock threat- ened to appeal to the Lords Proprietors, he "Imprisoned him without showing him any reason or permitting him to see a copy of his mittimus." George Durant indignantly denounced such unlawful proceedings, whereupon Sothel threw him into prison and confiscated his whole estate "without any process or collor of law and converted the same to yo' [ his ] owne use."
The people of Albemarle endured Sothel's tyranny until 1688. Then doubtless inspired by the Revolution in England they rose against the tyrant, deposed him from office, and prepared to pack him off to England for trial. But Sothel, who feared the wrath of his associates more than the ven- geance of the colonists, begged that he might be tried by the General Assembly of Albemarle. He felt sure that the As- sembly, though it might remove him from office, would not venture to impose a prison sentence, and in this he calculated correctly. The Assembly found him guilty, banished him from the province for one year, and declared him forever incapable of holding office in Albemarle. The prudence of the Assembly brought its reward. The Lords Proprietors, worn out with the everlasting strife and disorders in their colony, were at first inclined to censure the Assembly, and veto its proceedings, which they declared to be "prejudicial to the prerogative of the Crown and the honor and dignity of us the proptors"'; but afterwards, becoming convinced of Sothel's guilt, they removed him from office and wrote to the people of their colony: "Wee were extremely troubled when wee heard of the sufferings of the Inhabitants of North Caro- lina by the arbitrary proceedings of Mr. Seth Sothel which un- just and Illegal actions wee abhor and have taken the best care wee can to prevent such for the future And that all men may have right done them who have suffered by him."
Seth Sothel was the last governor of Albemarle; his suc- cessor, Philip Ludwell, was commissioned "Governor of that part of our Province of Carolina that lyes north and east of Cape feare." In the letter to the Assembly, quoted above, the attentive reader will have observed that the Lords Proprietors referred to the people of that region as the "Inhabitants of North Carolina." The phrase is significant. It indicates not only the growth and expansion of Albemarle, but also points to a change in the policy of the Lords Proprietors. They had abandoned their original plan of erecting several separate and distinct governments in their province; henceforth there were
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to be but two,-one, of which the Ashley River settlement was the nucleus, was to be the colony of South Carolina; the other, developing out of Albemarle, was to be North Carolina. With the expulsion of Sothel, therefore, the history of Albemarle ends and the history of North Carolina as such begins.
CHAPTER V
GROWTH AND EXPANSION
With the appointment of Philip Ludwell as governor, North Carolina entered upon a brief period of order and progress. Ludwell's instructions reflected the purpose of the Lords Proprietors "to take care of the quiet and safety of the provinces under our [their] Governmt." The first task, therefore, which they imposed upon him was to bring order out of the chaos into which the colony had been plunged by the misgovernment of Seth Sothel. He was to see that their letter to Sothel removing him from office was "carefully delivered to his own hands"; to inquire into the causes of the revolt against him ; and to appoint a commission of "three of the honestest and ablest men" in the province not concerned in the revolt to hear and determine "according to Law" all complaints "both Civill and Criminall" growing out of his conduct. If Ludwell found anything in his instructions "de- ficient or Inconvenient to ye Inhabitants," he was to report it to the Lords Proprietors who promised to "take due care therein." Their readiness to hear and redress the grievances of their people had a good effect, the result of which was seen at the very beginning of Ludwell's administration in the fail- ure of a Captain John Gibbs, a rival claimant to the governor- ship, to arouse any popular sympathy with his cause.
Under other circumstances, Gibbs' bombastic pronuncia- mento, now thought of only as a ludicrous and amusing inci- dent, might easily have led to serious results. The grounds upon which "Governor Gibbs" based his claims are not cer- tain; one plausible suggestion is that he had been elected by the Council upon the expulsion of Sothel; another is that he had been appointed by Sothel himself as his deputy. But whatever his grounds, he was not backward in asserting his claims which he set forth in a remarkable proclamation dated "Albemarle, June ye 2ª 1690." He asserted his right to the office of governor, denounced Ludwell as a "Rascal, imposter, & Usurp"," and commanded "all Persons to keep the Kings
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peace, to consult ye ffundamentals, and to render me [him] due obedience, & not presume to act or do by Virtue of any Commission or Power whatsoever derived from ye above sª Ludwell, as they will answer itt, att their utmost perill." His claim, he declared, would "be justified in England and if any of the boldest Heroe living in this or the next County will undertake to Justifie the said Ludwell's illegal Irregular proceeding, let him call upon me wth his sword, and I will single out & goe with him into any part of the King's Dominions, & there fight him in this Cause, as long as my Eyelids shall wagg."
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