USA > North Carolina > Memorials of North Carolina > Part 3
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Mr. Randolph's plantation, then, was not upon this stream, and remembering his ridiculous squeam- ishness as to the title of Roanoke, the world may well exclaim, where then was it? It was on a creek which courses through the county of Charlotte, emptying its waters into the Stanton, and which said creek has been dignified with the name of " Little Roanoke River." Such was Mr. Randolph's claim to the title which he assumed, and the reader will not fail to remember the story of the 4th of July orator in Rome, New-York, who boasted that the village around him had been the city of the Cæsars, nor of the lunatic of Sparta, in Georgia, who insist- ed that he was the countryman of Lycurgus and of the heroes of Thermopyla.
I will now come to the second point of this con- troversy, viz :- Was Jamestown settled under the immediate auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, and was the country adjacent thereto called by him Virginia in honor of the virginity of Queen Elizabeth ? The correspondent of the American is a lady distinguish- ed for her love of letters ; and her personal as well as mental charms are, in my view, more than poeti- cal. No man yields to her more of the homage of
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his heart than myself; but it would be unbecoming in me to sacrifice the history of my country to the enthusiasm of my feelings. She has enclosed to me an extract from a recent publication of Wash- ington Irving, Esq. which fully sustains her in the position she has taken against me ; and it being ad- verse to my principles to war against a beautiful woman, I shall accept the substitute she has offered, and thus welcome the strife.
The extract from the work of Mr. Irving is the second paragraph of the Creole Village-a contribu- tion from his pen to the Magnolia for 1837, and is as follows :- " In the phraseology of New England might be found many an old English provincial phrase-long since obsolete in the parent country -with some quaint relics of the Round-heads, while Virginia cherishes peculiarities characteristic of the days of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh."
Mr. Irving might as well have said that Virginia cherished peculiarities characteristic of the days of Herodias and John the Baptist ; for if she retains any memorials of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, it would puzzle even Mr. Irving's profound reading to tell how she obtained them. The Queen died on the 24th of March, 1603, and the very first expedition for the settlement of Virginia sailed from England on the 19th of December, 1606,-nearly four years after the death of that famous princess. (See Smith's History of Virginia, vol. 1, p. 150.) Sir Walter Raleigh, too, was entirely out of the way of imparting any peculiarities to Virginia at the date
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of her earliest settlement, for he had been convicted of treason on the 17th of November, 1603, and was sent to the Tower, where he remained, (if in political durance, still in literary glory,) for the space of twelve years. How then is it possible that Virginia should have any memorials of the days of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter to cherish ? A more gross assault upon the truth of history can no where be found than in this short sentence of Mr. Irving, which is the less excusable in him, from the fact that he de- voted many years of painful study to the composi- tion of a work which has linked his name with the discovery and settlement of the whole continent of America ; and it is difficult to conceive how a scholar of such maturity of research, could have studied so closely the history of that age without retaining, as the fixed stars of his memory, those great events in the life of the noble Sir Walter, which have indisso- lubly connected his name with the history of the Anglo-American race.
If Mr. Irving is curious on the subject of peculia- rities characteristic of the days of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, he should go to North Caro- lina. I will ensure him a rich field for the exertion of his antiquarian zeal: and there, too, he can ope- rate without any apprehension of mistaking the date of Elizabeth's existence, for the shores of that State were really occupied in the name of the Queen and of Sir Walter on the 13th of July, 1584 .- [See Hak- luyt, vol. 3, p. 246.]-If, therefore, in the course of his researches, he should perceive any fashions
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among the people of North Carolina, bearing the re- motest resemblance to the age of Queen Bess, he might very plausibly set them down as “ peculiari- ties characteristic," &c .; for in that case the good Queen would not have been dead some four years, nor the gallant Knight in the Tower some three years, previous to the very existence of a colony.
The truth is, North Carolina is full of feeling for the memory of Sir Walter, and it would be impos- sible for the most inattentive traveller to put his foot upon the shores of that State without hearing from the first islander he might encounter, the fact that the country around him was sacred to the services of Raleigh. He would be reminded of it by the thou- sand traditionary stories he would hear-by the very names of the hills, the valleys, and the streams around him; and I may venture to assert that there is no portion of the whole Union so illustrious in le- gendary lore as Roanoke Island-illustrious, indeed, from the very fact that it is linked with the magic name of Raleigh.
His memory sparkles o'er the fountain, The meanest rill-the mightiest river Rolls-mingled with his name forever.
There is the beautiful tradition of Sir Walter Raleigh's Ship, which has descended from the ear- liest history of the island, and which is still cherished with a religious veneration by the good matrons of the land. There is the capital of the State, situated in the centre of a county named in honor of a beauti-
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ful woman, Miss Esther Wake-constituting perhaps the most appropriate memorial of her founder ; and if Sir Walter himself could revisit the earth, and be- hold the magnificent palace which now crowns the summit of the city of his name, his ambition to be re- membered as the Romulus of a new people would be fully realized.
To the Editor of the New-York American :
SIR,-In one of your late papers I observe a long article from the able pen of Mr. Joseph Seawell Jones of Shocco, by which I find that worthy and excellent historian to be involved in much vexatious contro- versy with certain writers of Virginia, on the subject of the claims of their respective States to associate the names of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh with their early history. As this controversy is ar- riving at that unhappy point where hard names and bitter epithets begin to fly about, let us try, Mr. Edi- tor, whether you and I cannot accommodate the matter, and restore the parties to harmony.
According to Mr. Jones, the coast of what is now called North Carolina was colonized under the au- spices of Sir Walter Raleigh on the 13th of July, 1584, and Roanoke and the contiguous islands of that State were known under the name of Virginia for more than twenty years before the settlement of Jamestown.
On this he appears to found the claims of North
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Carolina to a monopoly of the " glorious associations" before mentioned.
Now, it appears to me that these " glorious asso- ciations," though a very valuable and substantial property, and well worth quarrelling about, are ca- pable of being much dilated and extended, especially when connected with the shifting boundaries of ill- defined discoveries, and the fluctuating fortunes of early colonies. Let us try, then, if we cannot stretch them in the present instance so as to satisfy the rea- sonable wants of both parties, and so put an end to this unhappy controversy.
As to the expeditions fitted out under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, they embraced a wide extent of coast, from the West Indian Islands to Newfound- land; for we find his step-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, at St. Johns, in June, 1583, with ships partly fitted out by Sir Walter Raleigh, when he takes pos- session of Newfoundland and its fisheries for the Bri- tish Crown.
It was a year afterwards that another expedition, sailing under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, swept the West Indian Islands and the coast of Flo- rida, and colonized the coast of North Carolina, as aforesaid.
So much for the scope of Sir Walter Raleigh's ex- peditions. Now, as to the extent of country original- ly known as Virginia. This really appears at first to have been indefinite, and to have extended even to the northern limits of what has since been called New England.
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In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold sailed for the " northern part of Virginia," and when that worthy navigator was baffling and perplexing himself with cruizing about Cape Cod, Point Gammon, Onky Tonky,* Buzzard's Bay, and other places of classic name, he evidently considered himself coasting the country called after the Virgin Queen, and brought to light by the enterprises of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Furthermore, we find James I. of England, by let- ters patent, dividing that part of America lying be- tween the 34th and 45th degrees of north latitude into North and South Virginia ; the latter including all the coast between 34° and 40°.
In 1630 further modifications took place affecting the names of these regions. In that year Charles I. granted to Sir Robert Heath all the territory be- tween 30° and 36º north latitude, under the name of Carolina. This, in 1761, was subdivided into North and South Carolina.
It would appear from all these premises, Mr. Edi- tor, that North Carolina, after all, forms but a small portion of the vast country originally called after the Virgin Queen, and considered as discovered by the enterprises set on foot by Sir Walter Raleigh. If, therefore, we would observe strict justice in portion- ing out these "glorious associations " exclusively claimed for North Carolina, we ought not merely to give Virginia a full share, but to extend them far along the coast to the north, so that the remote rays
* Since vulgarized into Uncle Timmy .- Ed. N. Y. Amer.
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might even gild the names of Cape Cod, Point Gam- mon, Buzzard's Bay, and Onky Tonky.
I must confess, Mr. Editor, I was somewhat sur- prised, in reading the article of Mr. Jones, to find Mr. Washington Irving mixed up in the unhappy contro- versy, and that gentleman charged outright with " a gross violation of the truth of history." I was at a loss to imagine how Mr. Irving had run foul of these litigated points, and how he had made himself ame- nable to so heavy a charge; whether in his history of the voyages of Columbus, or in his history of the Dutch dynasty of the Manhattoes. In both I knew he had much to do with questions of discovery and coloniza- tion, and that in both he laid claim to the most scru- pulous attention to historic truth. I found, however, that it was in none of his historical works, but in a paragraph of a comic sketch called the " Creole Vil- lage," published in one of the late Annuals.
Now, I have no idea of taking up the gauntlet for Mr. Irving. If he will write comic sketches without profound historical research, and, above all, will at- · tempt to give them the weight and authority of one of those grave depositories of learned lore, the Annu- als, let him be outlawed beyond the pale of courtesy, and abandoned to the mercy of all aggrieved histo- rians. But, as his offence seems, in some measure, connected with the question in dispute, let us ex- amine it more particularly.
Mr. Irving stands clearly convicted of having said, in his comic sketch aforesaid, " that the State of Vir- ginia cherishes peculiarities characteristic of the
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days of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh." This, to be sure, points to no precise historic date or event, and seems to be a mere general observation on the state of society. Mr. Jones, however, indig- nantly denounces it as "a gross violation of the truth of history," and demands of Mr. Irving how Virginia " could obtain such peculiarities ?"-the Queen having been dead nearly three years, and Sir Walter Raleigh being in prison at the time of the settlement of Jamestown (in 1607).
Now, really, Mr. Editor, though-Queen Elizabeth had been dead, and Sir Walter was in prison at the time, it does not follow that the peculiarities cha- racteristic of their days had either expired with the one or been shut up in the prison of the other.
But how did Virginia obtain them ? Perhaps they were imported in the early expeditions to James- town. The first expedition, commanded by the gal- lant Captain Smith, and which founded that town, was set on foot by an association of noblemen, gen- tlemen, and merchants who had flourished under the reign of Elizabeth : on board of Smith's ship sailed Percy, a brother of the Earl of Northumberland. Several young gentlemen, accustomed to polite and genial life, and whose hands, unused to labor, blis- tered on wielding the axes, sailed on this expedition. In a subsequent expedition, in 1609, we find the names of Lord De la Warre, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Dale, and others,-men of rank and distinction, who had been subjects of Queen Elizabeth, and were contemporaries, if not
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associates, with Sir Walter Raleigh. These men held distinguished stations in the enterprise to Vir- ginia : but there are many others, not specifically named, cavaliers of sanguine temperament and swel- ling hope, who had caught the romantic views of Sir Walter Raleigh, and expected to find a perfect El Dorado in the wilds of Virginia. These were the men from whom Virginia obtained peculiarities characteristic of the days of Elizabeth and Sir Wal- ter Raleigh; these were the men that may have stamped the Virginian character with that open, ge- nerous, hospitable, dashing spirit, which it retains to the present day. I do not, therefore, see, after all, that Mr. Irving has committed the gross outrage upon history of which he stands accused.
But, says Mr. Jones, "if Mr. Irving is curious on the subject of peculiarities characteristic of the days of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, he should go to North Carolina."
Wishing Mr. Irving a pleasant journey, and a merry christmas into the bargain, if he should arrive about this time, we will now see how North Carolina " obtained " those peculiarities ? Was it from the colony formed upon her coast in 1584, by the expe- dition fitted out under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh ? Hardly, Sir. The whole term of exist- ence of that colony was not above half a dozen years. Some of the colonists were slain by the In- dians ; others returned, disheartened, in their ships ; of the fate of others nothing was ever heard. In 1590 the place was found in ruins, the houses demo-
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lished, part of the stores buried in the earth, the colonists gone. Sir Walter Raleigh himself gave the matter up as desperate, and turned his thoughts to other enterprises.
In subsequent years, when Jamestown, in Virginia, had been settled, an expedition was sent from thence to see if any thing remained of the colony of Sir Walter Raleigh; but no traces were to be found.
While Virginia went on to increase and multiply her settlements, North Carolina appears to have re- mained a perfect wilderness. The first permanent settlement from which her population took its rise, was founded, we are told, about the year 1650 on Chowan River, principally by emigrants from Vir- ginia ; and the proprietors of the Carolina grant au- thorized Berkeley, the Governor of Virginia, to take the settlement under his government and protec- tion.
It would appear, therefore, that the characteristics of the days of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, which Mr. Irving is invited to go to North Carolina to study, must have been derived at second hand from Virginia, and actually imported from En- gland by the way of Jamestown.
Thus, I trust, Mr. Editor, we have without any profound research, settled the matter, not merely to our own satisfaction, but to the satisfaction of the belligerent parties ; and that the North Carolinians being offsets, as it were, from the generous stock of Virginia, and inheritors, through her, of the peculiari- ties characteristic of the days of good Queen Bess
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and Sir Walter Raleigh, will not flout their parent State; but that both parties will divide in peace that inheritance of glorious associations, so justly prized by Mr. Joseph Seawell Jones, of Shocco; but which, if much more harped upon, will become in the public ear as a " sounding brass and a tink- ling cymbal."
Your constant correspondent, PACIFICATOR.
To the Editor of the American :
I beg the use of your columns to rejoin to some animadversions in your last Saturday's paper over the signature of " Pacificator," in which the history of North Carolina is misrepresented, for the especial pur- pose of sustaining Mr. Irving's Virginian "peculiarities characteristic of the days of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh." I myself, too, as the historian of North Carolina, am threatened with " a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal," if I dare say anything more about the absurdity of these aforesaid peculiarities ; and we are gravely told by the apologist of Mr. Irving -although Queen Elizabeth had been dead, and Sir Walter had been in prison some years before the settle- ment of Virginia-that still the peculiarities characte- ristic of their days had neither expired with the one nor been shut up in the tower with the other; and that of course it was to certain straggling peculiarities- certain ghost-like characteristics-which had surviv-
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ed the death and the encasement, and which had been stained and corrupted by a four years' amalga- mation with the Scotch hirelings of James the First, that the author of the Creole Village alluded, when he said " Virginia cherishes peculiarities characteris- tic of the days of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh."
This, then, is the defence of Mr. Irving, founded, the reader will perceive, upon the ancient doctrine of the transmigration of souls; for it plainly intimates that the spirit of Queen Bess animated the reign of her Scotch successor, and, in defiance of the strong contrast between their characters, carried out the " peculiarities characteristic " of her own days. But, unfortunately, the history of England contradicts the defence on this point. The characteristics of the reign of James are utterly at variance with those of the days of the Queen ; and so this eccentric appli- cation of the doctrine of Pythagoras to historical re- search is another outrage upon history.
So-I beg the gentleman's pardon-I must insist that the " peculiarities characteristic," &c. did expire with the death of Elizabeth and with the imprison- ment of Sir Walter ; and I appeal to the history of England. Raleigh was, indeed, the very personification of the great characteristics of the reign of the Queen. In his gallantry every where-in the field as well as the ocean-he was ever the best representative of the ambition and the courage of his sovereign. In his frequent captures of the fleets and the island cities of Spain, he was but ministering to the bitter
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national hatred of his mistress. In his literary pur- suits, her desire to be surrounded by men of letters was realized; and the magnificence of his dress crowned the completeness of his personification of almost every peculiarity characteristic of the age of Queen Elizabeth. But still, so unsuited, from the very gallantry of his whole life, was this hero of his age, to the tame, pedantic, and cowardly genius of the Scotch king ; so perfectly uncongenial were those splendid characteristics which were embodied in the character of Raleigh, with the low duplicity and insolent bigotry of James; that in less than one year after the succession of the latter to the throne, the gallant Knight was in the tower in disgrace, with all the laurels which the hand of his fairy Queen had bound about his brows, faded and " withered as if in the dark and silent grave."
The position of Mr. Irving is altogether untenable. The whole history of the English monarchy does not present a stronger contrast of character than be- tween James and Elizabeth; and the idea of disco- vering, in a colonial establishment of the former, any " peculiarities characteristic" of the latter, is really too preposterous for serious consideration.
But, says the gentleman, speaking of certain ad- venturers in Virginia-" These were the men from whom Virginia obtained her peculiarities character- istic, &c. ; these were the men who may have stamped the Virginian character with that open, ge- nerous, hospitable, dashing spirit, which it retains to the present day !" It has been so long a profitable
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investment of pen, ink, paper, and unmeaning servile language, wherewith to scribble flattery to the lead- ing politicians of Virginia, by ascribing to them these (in the United States) very common virtues, that I shall express no surprise at their present abused application. We have heard almost as much of the frankness, the generosity, hospitality, &c. of the Virginians, as if they were the only people in the Union inclined to the cultivation of the kindnesses of polite intercourse ; and lo! here we have them paraded before the public as those grand " peculiari- ties characteristic " of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, which was discovered by Washing- ton Irving, Esq .- illustrated by the soft lullaby of his apologist, and which Mr. Jo. Seawell Jones, of Shocco, had the impudence to mock, deride, and condemn, as outrages upon the truth of history .- The Virginians are no more remarkable for these household virtues than the people of Massachusetts or any other state. They are the common qualities of every American gentleman, and exceptions are as numerous in Virginia as any where else.
But I am told that the memorials of Sir Walter Raleigh, in North Carolina, " were derived at second hand from Virginia, and actually imported from En- gland by the way of Jamestown." This is a question which I can very easily settle, and if the apologist of Mr. Irving had been capable of "any very pro- found researches," he might have done so himself. I mentioned expressly the legend of " Sir Walter Raleigh's ship," which is one of the most striking
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and beautiful memorials of the Raleigh colony, and which is worth more than all the mongrel "pecu- liarities characteristic," &c. which Mr. Irving could discover, were he to become as profound in the life of Sir Walter as he undoubtedly is in that of our dis- tinguished countryman, John Jacob Astor. This legend of Raleigh's ship is noticed by Lawson, the first edition of whose history was published in 1809, and is brought up in connection with the tradition of the Hatteras tribes of Indians, that they were de- scended from the white people of Sir Walter, who were left on Roanoke Island and afterwards aban- doned by Governor White. The poor colonists were, doubtless, throughout their whole lives, expecting one of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships as their only means of relief; and as by degrees they amalga- mated with the savages, the rising mixed generation caught the hope, and handed it down to the days of Lawson. The Hatteras Indians, in 1703, were a mixed and somewhat more civilized race, and the practice of intermarrying with the whites continued at that day. After a most rigid scrutiny into their subsequent history, I have achieved one remarkable fact-that in thus gradually losing the " peculiarities characteristic " of American savages, they brought down with them the tradition of " Sir Walter Raleigh's ship," and perpetuated it upon the very spot of its birth.
This, then, is one memorial of Sir Walter in North Carolina, which could not have been imported from Jamestown. Let us now try another.
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When Governor White left the Raleigh colony on Roanoke Island in 1587, he enjoined it upon them, that in case they removed, they should carve upon a tree the name of their new place of abode. On his return, in 1590, he found the island abandon- ed; but, on reaching the tree, he found the word Croutan carved without the sign of the cross, which had been agreed upon as a secret signal of distress. I have collected much curious matter as to the ve- neration of the Indians for this tree, which I cannot here throw out; and it is sufficient at present to state, that I have encountered two persons of very advanced years who remembered and deplored its death ; and to this day the last remains of its stump are pointed to you, and the poor Islander-ignorant he may be of every thing else-tells you proudly that it was Sir Walter's Tree. -
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