USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina V. I, Pt. 1 > Part 29
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At a subsequent session held in November, 1760, there was a purpose to send five hundred men to co-operate with Virginia and South Carolina against the Cherokees; but in the aid bill then passed the Assembly had named the agent at London, whom the governor disapproved of, and for this reason he rejected the bill and prorogued the Assembly, which c. R., VI, reconvened in its fifth session on December 5th to recon- 513 sider its action ; but the house was firm in resisting the blan- dishments of the governor, who then dissolved it. The tide of war had rolled away from the borders of the province and the necessity for harmonious action had passed.
In February, 1761, information being received of the acces- George III sion to the throne of the young king, George III, he was
1761 King C. R., VI, 520
302
DOBBS'S ADMINISTRATION. 1754-65
1761
proclaimed with great enthusiasm amid the firing of cannon on the Cape Fear, and writs for a new election of assembly - men were at once issued, and the body convened on March 31st.
C. R., VI, 552
When the Assembly met it lost no time in upbraiding the governor with his defeat of the aid bill, and because he had called the Assembly together at Wilmington instead of at some more convenient point, and the disagreement was pro- nounced. Rev. Mr. Moir wrote April 13th, while the Assembly was in session: "The misunderstanding between the governor and leading men of this province still subsisting. we are as unhappy as ever." But in the end the Assembly became more complaisant; a committee of correspondence was appointed embracing members of both houses, and a new agent was named, probably not objectionable to the gov- ernor-these, as at the previous session, being features of the aid bill, which the governor now approved. At the same session the tax to pay the salaries of the chief justice and attorney-general was increased.
C. R., VI, 539
In the meanwhile the Board of Trade had written to Gov- ernor Dobbs that he had no right to interfere with the appointment of the agent by the Assembly, but that he should urge the house to conform to the instructions of the Crown and recognize fifteen members as constituting a quorum, and to pursue the same method in regard to paying out moneys and auditing accounts that was in use at home.
The Assembly sustained
Ashe speaker
A new election was called, the Assembly meeting in April, 1762. At that session Sam Swann, who had since 1743, with a single interruption. been the speaker, retired from that office, and his nephew, John Ashe, succeeded him. In all the controversies with Johnston and Dobbs. Swann had been the great leader. Indeed, on one occasion Johnston had silenced him as a lawyer, and Dobbs felicitated himself that as extreme as had been his own action he had never gone to that length.
The council
Differences between the Assembly and council, whose mem- bership since the purchase by the Crown thirty years before had been changed only on the death of its members, and which was now composed of Hasell. Rutherford. DeRosset, Spaight, Sampson and McCulloh, led those gentlemen to say
303
INTERNAL CONDITIONS
to the Assembly: "We apprehend ourselves as nearly con- cerned in the blessings of liberty and property as any other inhabitants of this province, and shall ever with cheerfulness concur with you in every measure that to us shall appear con- ducive to the securing of these most valuable blessings." A new court law was passed that year. in which provision was made for an associate justice at Salisbury.
In conformity with political and religious conditions, it was considered that efforts should be made to maintain the Church of England as the national church in the province. From 1701 there had been parishes and vestrymen and some provision made for supporting clergymen of the established church. But so little effort was made to carry the law into effect that often there were only one or two clergymen in the province. As the province grew and the policy was introduced to fashion the government on the model of the mother country, renewed efforts were made in this respect. The vestry act of 1760 being repealed by the king. in 1762 another act was passed, which, however, was also disallowed because the appointment or employment of the ministers was conferred on the vestry and not allowed as a privilege of the Crown, although under that act all ministers employed had to hold the license of the Bishop of London. Thus it hap- s.R., XXIII. pened that in the autumn of 1762 all the vestries in the 605 province were dissolved and the entire church system dis- organized. Two years later. however, a new act was passed, in which the vestries were given power to levy a ten-shilling tax toward building churches, maintaining the poor. paying the readers and encouraging schools in each county.
Under Pitt's able administration the war had been so vigorously and successfully pressed that in the fall of 1760 Canada was conquered and the Indians brought into peaceful relations with the English. Three years later a treaty of peace was signed, by which the British Empire extended from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi; and the colonists, now freed from fears of foreign foes, could devote themselves more exclusively to home affairs. The tide of immigration that ten years earlier was setting so strongly to western Carolina was, however, checked because of the Indian war. Yet at the conclusion
---
The vestry act
Peace of Paris,
C. R., VI, 1027, 1040
304
DOBBS'S ADMINISTRATION, 1754-65
I762
C. R., VI. 1030
of peace North Carolina had a population of about 100,000 whites and more than 10,000 negroes. On the Cape Fear were forty saw-mills producing some 30,000,000 feet of lum- ber annually, and there were exported from that river 36,000 barrels of naval stores.
Indians C. R., VI, 616
The Indian aborigines had nearly disappeared. On a reservation of ten thousand acres on the Roanoke were con- gregated all that remained of the Tuscaroras, the Saponas, and Meherrins. Of the first there were one hundred braves, of the last two only twenty each. The Catawbas had num- bered three hundred warriors, but in 1761 so many were swept off by smallpox that only sixty braves remained, an equal number of women and hardly more than one child to each pair.
C. R., VI, 1041
C. R., VI, 995
The remnants of the Hatteras Indians appear to have joined the Mattamuskeets on their reservation in Hyde, where were only some seven or eight Indian men. Originally it was said that the Indians had a violent antipathy to the negro, but in time that repugnance seems to have subsided, and there was some admixture of the two races.
The free schools
C. R., VI, 1006
C. R., VII, 73, 106, 132
Educational facilities in the province were limited. In 1749 John Starkey introduced a bill making an appropriation of £6,000 for a free school, but in 1754 that money was used for other purposes. Another appropriation of £6,000 was, however, then made. But there was some objection in Eng- land to this bill and it was disallowed. Four years later the Assembly prayed the king that a part of the sum allowed the province by the Crown in return for its aids might be used to establish churches and a free school in each county ; but there was always an objection. Frequent applications were made for this permission, and as late as 1763 the request and denial continued, the Board of Trade merely saying that until the Assembly should be sufficiently compliant as to remove the original objections it would not consider the subject. Eventually, in 1765, Governor Tryon, probing the matter, could get no light on the subject otherwise, and formally asked the Assembly what the cause of difference was, receiv- ing the answer that the Assembly did not know, as the objec- tion had never been communicated to that body. On again representing the matter to the Board of Trade he was advised
305
RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS
that "some complaints had been made against the original act by some merchants." And so because of Governor Dobbs's wilfulness in not communicating to the Assembly those objections in order that they might be removed or answered, "the complaints of some merchants" resulted in depriving the province of the benefit of free schools. Such was one of the results of the colonial system of government.
The court system provided for a superior court, with a chief justice appointed in England, and three associates. who, in 1761, were Marmaduke Jones, William Charlton and Stephen Dewey-all good lawyers ; but in 1762 the new act divided the province into five districts, in each of which, except the Salisbury district, an associate justice was ap- pointed, who in the absence of the chief justice had juris- diction to hear and determine all cases. except mere matters of law. For the Salisbury district an assistant judge was appointed. He was to be a learned lawver and his juris- diction was as ample as that of the chief justice himself. These court laws were to endure only for two years unless approved by the king, so there were constant re-enactments. Parochial
Notwithstanding the provision made for the maintenance of an orthodox parochial clergy, there were in 1764 not more than six established clergymen in the province, and only three or four churches then finished. But the Presbyterians had their ministers, and the Quakers had again become flour- ishing. The Baptists also were numerous.
Paul Palmer in 1727 gathered together a congregation of Baptists Baptists in the Albemarle section, and about 1742 William Sojourner settled on Kehukee Creek, where later the Kehukee Baptist Association was formed, and early in 1755 Shubeal Stearns, a native of Boston, settled on Sandy Creek, where he soon drew into his communion more than six hundred members; and these churches became mother churches of the Baptist associations in North Carolina.
A new sect, too, had sprung up, calling themselves Meth- C. R., VI, odists, zealous and enthusiastic religionists, but disclaimed Methodists 1061 by Mr. Whitefield, then on his passage through the province, as the followers of Wesley and himself. yet doubtless owing their origin to Whitefield's teachings in New England.
Governor Dobbs was loud in his denunciation of all oppo-
1762 --
S. R., XXIII 550
C. R., VI, 621
The Judicial System
clergy C. R., VI, 1039
306
DOBBS'S ADMINISTRATION, 1754-65
1763 Republican- ism rife C. R., VI,
304-309
C. R., VI, 32
sition to his measures and schemes, and ascribed the antag- onism of the leaders in the Assembly to a spirit of republi- canism, which he declared was more rife in this province than in any other. He insisted that Speaker Swann, his two nephews, John Ashe and George Moore, and John Starkey, who formed the committee of correspondence, composed a junto, whose object was to lessen the prerogatives of the Crown and absorb the administration into their own hands and extend the power of the Assembly. That the Assembly under its leaders was ever determined in the assertion of its right to hold the purse and maintain the freedom of the people as subjects of Great Britain is sufficiently plain. How far any of the inhabitants were disaffected toward the monarchical system does not appear. Proud of their birth- right as British subjects, they never contemplated the relin- quishment of self-government under the constitution of the province; but they were loyal to their king and had no expectation of any change until at length, to their dismay, changes came.
The colonies had cheerfully made great appropriations to aid the king in the prosecution of his wars and to relieve the necessities of the Crown. But these were voluntary offer- ings. In England it was held that the general government of the mother country had a right to something more-to exact by law a fund for the purposes of the Empire. The regiments stationed in America were to be supported by the American colonies. The colonial governments were to be reformed and a surer provision made for the compensation of the governors and other officers. Quickly following the treaty of peace, these and other matters of similar import were discussed in England, and on October 10, 1763, Henry McCulloh, who for thirty years had been concerned with the American colonies, proposed a stamp act to raise the necessary funds. In January, 1764. Governor Dobbs wrote to the Board of Trade: "I apprehend the British Parliament may lay duties upon goods imported into the several colonies to support the troops necessary to secure our great acqui- sitions on this continent, as also to support the additional
British views with reference to America
McCulloh
C. R., VI, 1021
The right to tax claimed
307
RISE OF THE FOURTH ESTATE
officers of the revenue." Such was the drift of official 1764 sentiment.
The Assembly of 1764
At the session of the Assembly held in Wilmington in February, 1764, that town began to be regarded as the seat of government for the province. Andrew Steuart, a printer located there, was employed to publish the laws. printer Brunswick and Bute counties were erected. An act was passed for building a school-house and a residence for a. schoolmaster in New Bern, and John Starkey and Joseph Montfort were appointed the public treasurers for the term of three years. John Ashe was again elected speaker of the Assembly.
The early newspapers
Perhaps the conflicting interests of New Bern and Wil- mington, or the more personal ambitions of two printers, in the summer of 1764 led to the revival of Davis' newspaper, now under the name The North Carolina Magasine, or Universal Intelligencer. And in September Andrew Steuart began at Wilmington the publication of The North Caro- lina Gasette and Weekly Post Boy. The Post Boy, how- ever, was short-lived, and ceased to exist in 1767, being succeeded two years later by The Cape Fear Mercury, pub- lished by Adam Boyd.
Tryon appointed to relieve Dobbs
Governor Dobbs, who was now nearly fourscore years of age and very infirm, asked leave to return to England; and to relieve him, William Tryon, a young officer of the Queen's Guards, was, on April 26, 1764, appointed lieutenant-gov- ernor, and in July received his final instructions. On Octo- Arrives ber roth he arrived at Brunswick, expecting to enter at once on his duties ; but to his disappointment he found that Gov- ernor Dobbs would not depart until the coming spring.
It was expected that there would be warm disputes when the General Assembly should meet in October, 1764. In the previous March the suggestion of McCulloh had been acted on and a resolution had passed Parliament, without question,
Steuart public
Weeks'Press of North Carolina in Eighteenth Century, 32
Oct. 10, 1764
The public agitated
308
DOBBS'S ADMINISTRATION, 1754-65
The power to tax
1764 -- that it was expedient to lay stamp duties on the colonies, and the public mind was greatly agitated. For a century England had restricted and regulated the commerce of her colonies, and in recent years Parliament had exacted heavy duties on trade with the adjacent French and Spanish settlements, while no manufactured goods could be imported except alone from English ports. But that had been for the expansion and regulation of commerce. Now a different interest was to be subserved, and Parliament proposed to tax the colonies for purposes of revenue. In England no one disputed the right ; in America it was a question so novel and so momen- tous that at first public opinion was not pronounced. The omnipotence of Parliament had never been disputed. But on the passage of the resolution in March came an examina- tion into the subject. The illumination was gradual. The power to tax was the power to destroy, and America became enshrouded in a turmoil of anxious thought. Such were the conditions when the Assembly met in October.
The firm stand of the Assembly Oct., 1764
C. R., VI, 1314-1318
As if to emphasize the spirit of the house, the governor and council having appointed a printer "under the sounding appellation of his Majesty's printer," the house declared it knew of no such office, and it resolved that James Davis should print the laws; and when the governor claimed for himself as a representative of the Crown, in conjunction with the king's councillors, the right to direct payment out of the funds allowed the province by the king, the house re- solved "that the treasurers do not pay any money out of any fund by order of the governor and council without the concurrence or direction of this house." It proposed to hold the purse strings.
Claims the exclusive privilege of imposing taxes C. R., VI, I261
And in reply to the opening address of the governor the house said: "It is with the utmost concern we observe our commerce circumscribed in its most beneficial branches, diverted from its natural channel, and burdened with new taxes and impositions laid on us without our privity and consent. and against what we esteem our inherent right and exclusive privilege of imposing our own taxes."
Assembly concurs with Massachu- setrs Bancroft, V, 204
As yet no other Assembly in any other colony had made so positive a declaration. Incidentally the power of Parlia- ment was flatly denied. Massachusetts had addressed a cir-
309
THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO TAX
cular letter to the other colonies asking concert of action in making a representation to the Crown and desiring "their united assistance." The speaker, John Ashe, on Novem- ber 17th laid this letter before the house, and it was resolved that "Mr. Speaker, Mr. Starkey, Mr. McGuire and Mr. Har- nett and Mr. Maurice Moore be a committee to answer the above letter," and "to express their concurrence with the sentiments of the House of Representatives of Massachu- setts." Such was the first movement on the surface of the troubled waters. The house asserted its exclusive right to lay taxes, and to direct payment out of the public funds, and it sent to Massachusetts its concurrence in the proposed remonstrance.
1764 ---
C. R., VI, 1296
Martin, North Carolina, II, 188
THE FIFTH EPOCH-1765-75 CONTROVERSIES WITH THE MOTHER COUNTRY
CHAPTER XXI
TRYON'S ADMINISTRATION-1765-71 : THE STAMP ACT
Governor Tryon's administration .- Unrest in Mecklenburg .- The cause of complaint in Orange .- The Assembly of May, 1765. -The vestry act .- The stamp act passed .- Desire for inde- pendence imputed to the colonists .- Popular ferment .- Speaker Ashe declares the people will resist to blood .- The Assembly pro- rogued .- Patrick Henry in Virginia .- Barre's speech in Parliament. -Sons of Liberty .- An American congress called .- Dr. Houston stamp-master .-- North Carolina not represented .- Famine and dis- ease in the province .- The people set up looms .- Action at Wilming- ton .- Liberty not dead .- Dr. Houston resigns .- Governor Tryon feels the people .- Deprecates independence .- The reply .- Desire for independence disclaimed .- The act not observed .- Non-importation. -The people united .- Conditions in England .- British merchants and manufacturers clamor for repeal .- Pitt .- Camden .- Conditions in America .- No business transacted .- The West settled .- In Gran- ville's territory .- Judge Berry commits suicide .- The rising on the Cape Fear .- The people form an association .-- They choose directors. -Fort Johnston seized .- Tryon's house invaded .- The act annulled. -Business resumed .-- The Assembly prorogued .- The stamps stored. -The act repealed .- London rejoices .- America grateful .- Mayor DeRosset's manly sentiments .- Judge Moore suspended.
Governor Tryon
On March 28, 1765, Governor Dobbs, who was then pre- paring to depart for England, died at his villa at Brunswick, and William Tryon assumed the reins of government as lieutenant-governor, he having qualified as such in the pre- ceding November. An officer of the army and a cultured gentleman, just turned thirty-six years of age and in the flush of vigorous manhood, and in many respects a master- ful man, he at once gained the esteem of the people. To the Assembly on its meeting he promised his best endeavors to render acceptable service to the province, and declared that
1765
C. R., VII,
44
-
311
MUTTERINGS OF DISCONTENT
he should ever decm it equally his duty "to preserve the people in their constitutional liberty as to maintain inviolable the just and necessary rights of the Crown"; and to the lower house in particular he said: "In the integrity of my heart I must declare I look for neither happiness nor satis- faction in this country but in proportion to the assistance I meet with in my endeavors to promote the prosperity of its inhabitants." Events, however, were happening that sorely perplexed him. A condition of unrest pervaded the province. In Mecklenburg County, where Selwyn had large tracts of land obtained from McCulloh, many settlers had located without deeds and would not acknowledge his claim of ownership, and when his agent undertook to survey a tract for widow Alexander a mob assembled under the leader- ship of Thomas Polk and severely whipped and abused the surveyor, John Frohock, Abraham Alexander, and several others who were running the line, destroyed the compass. and threatened young Henry Eustace McCulloh with death.
Toward the northern frontier there was trouble brewing of a different character. After the adjournment of the Assembly in November, 1764, reports reached Governor Dobbs of serious disturbances in the county of Orange result- ing from the exactions of the county officers, and Governor Dobbs issued a proclamation forbidding any officer from taking illegal fees. But this did not arrest the evil, and the agitation soon extended to Granville. "A Serious Address to the Inhabitants" of that county was issued in June, 1765. In it the authors declared that "they were not quarrelling with the form of government, nor yet with the body of their laws, but with the malpractices of their county officers 89 and the abuses of those who managed their public affairs." While the frontier settlements were thus agitated over their local matters, on the seaboard the people were disquieted because of the purpose of Parliament to tax the colonies.
Immediately on entering upon his duties Governor Tryon Tryon's reconvened the Assembly, the meeting being held at New action Bern on May 3, 1765. He urged that body to institute a strict examination into the condition of the public funds, and recommended the re-enactment of the vestry act free from the objections made to it ; but in doing so he professed
1765
C. R., VII. 37
Riot in Mecklen- burg
Martin, North Carolina, 11, 191
Unrest in Orange
C. R., VII,
C. R., VII, 41 et seq.
312
TRYON'S ADMINISTRATION, 1765-71
1765 C. R., VII, 41 et seq.
C. R., VII, 205
himself the warm advocate of toleration as well as of prog- ress. Among other improvements, he suggested the estab- lishment of a post route from Suffolk to Wilmington, where it would connect with one to Charleston. In 1763 provision had been made for one year for a post between Suffolk and Wilmington. Now, at the instance of the governor, the Assembly raised a committee to make this post route perma- nent, but for some cause the committee was not progressive and did not carry out the purpose.
Agreeably to the governor's suggestions, a new vestry act was passed. The selection of ministers of the established church was to be no longer with the vestries, but with the governor, who also had the power to suspend them. On his appointment the ministers were to be received into their parishes as incumbents. The vestry were to pay the salary and lay the taxes for that purpose. At this session contests again arose between the two houses.
Agent suspended
In 1759 the Board of Trade had instructed Governor Dobbs that the committee of correspondence ought to consist of members of both houses, which the lower house would not agree to. In 176; the council asked that all correspond- ence should be submitted to it. and the house hotly denied the request. Referring to this episode, Governor Tryon represented to the Board of Trade that if the house persisted in that course the agent ought not to be recognized. The house, nevertheless, maintained its right; so the agent was suspended and was not recognized by the Board; and it was not until 1768 that a new agent was appointed.
There was another contest over the appointment of a treasurer. John Starkey having died, the lower house nom- inated Richard Caswell, while the upper house desired Louis Henry DeRosset, one of the councillors. Their disagree- ment was not composed when, on the morning of May 18th, the Assembly was suddenly prorogued.
The stamp act
In England
A year had elapsed since Parliament had passed the reso- lution that it was expedient to tax the colonies. At length, in February, 1765, the bill prepared by the ministry was introduced in the House of Commons, where some oppo-
313
THE STAMP ACT
sition was encountered, fifty votes being cast in the negative ; but in the House of Lords there was no division. On March 25th the bill received the royal assent .* To the peti- tions of the colonies in opposition to the measure it was constantly replied that their antagonism was founded in a desire to sever their connection with the mother country, and that the issue should then be met and the dissatisfied Americans should be reduced to submission. This. however, was not the spirit that animated the colonies. Indeed, while remonstrating, there was no other thought but of acqui- escence. In April New York was still tranquil and Massa- chusetts was not aroused. Otis, the Boston leader, indig- nantly repelled the imputation that America was about to become insurgent. and declared it to be "the duty of all humbly and silently to acquiesce in all the decisions of the supreme legislature." No one will "ever once entertain a thought but of submission." "They undoubtedly have the right to levy internal taxes on the colonies"; and he solemnly declared. 'From my soul I detest and abhor the thought of making a question of jurisdiction."
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