USA > North Carolina > Alamance County > Some neglected history of North Carolina, being an account of the revolution of the regulators and of the battle of Alamance, the first battle of the American Revolution > Part 6
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Stamp Act." (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 7, p. 199.)
Remembering the prompt assistance as Col- onel Commandant of Volunteer Dragoons, judge upon the civil bench and judge in the council of war, rendered by the writer in this campaign of 1768, and at Hillsborough in June, 1771, we confess to astonishment at this public excoriation of Tryon. It came too late, how- ever, either to help the dead or blacken their memory.
In consequence of Judge Moore's letter to Gov. Josiah Martin, so late as January 9, 1776. suggesting accommodation between England and the colony on certain terms (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 10, P. 395 ; Martin's reply, Vol. 10, p. 398), Martin, in a letter home, declares Moore to be "whimsical" in politics and that "caprice and fickleness" were characteristic of the man. (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 10, p. 400. ) As to the correctness of Governor Martin's estimate of Judge Moore's character, the reader will form his own conclusions from the facts in the case.
A number of good men, "in no wise con- nected with the Regulators," assigned as a reason for Hunter's pardon, chief of the Reg- ulators, that he was humane and compassion- ate. The Regulators, a large body of wronged and long-deceived men, embracing every ele-
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ment of society, whipped a few of their oppres- sors, taking the life of not one; but to pass the "infamous" Johnson bill (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 8, p. 481, Appendix C) to shoot down and hand the heroic and the helpless, was reserved for the more aspiring and powerful few. (Life of Caldwell, pp. 163, 166.)
"Criticisms of the patriotic labors of Mr. J. W. Moore are here thus candidly indulged in, because Mr. Moore's work is entitled a History of North Carolina. Being one of the latest and most complete histories of the State extant, it will be accepted as authoritative. It, therefore, becomes important that its errors be corrected if any such it contains." ( Maj. J. M. Morehead. )
Finally, if it had in fact become necessary to suppress with arms these desperate men, the responsibility therefor devolved upon those who administered the fearful corrective. They and those under their control were virtually the legislature as then constituted; and that the necessary physical as well as political power to have redressed all grievance was theirs is manifest. For only five years before this, their own dignity and interests being menaced. they had promptly set at naught Tryon's authority and imprisoned his person ( Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 7, p. 127), and a little later on had driven his successor from his capital and the Province.
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It were a suicidal and most ungracious folly for any North Carolinian wantonly to reflect upon those Revolutionary leaders to whose noble efforts the State is so largely indebted for both its freedom and honorable fame. Never- theless, their treatment of the Regulators was an outrage, and here to justify the guilty is to wrong the innocent and equally meritorious, and to deprive the present generation of a les- son to which it is entitled.
In this controversy men must take sides. They cannot justify both the Regulators and those who made war upon them. Efforts at different times and upon different grounds so to do have failed.
Dr. Caruthers, with the light before him (Old North State. p. 31, Series I), "vindicates Caswell, Ashe." and others, upon the grounds of their ignorance of that true state of affairs which, in his opinion, justified the Regulators. These gentlemen, under Parliament, possessed and tenaciously held to the power, and so vol- untarily assumed responsibility for the conduct of the affairs of the people of the Province. They had ample opportunity to have correctly informed themselves, and if they were in fact ignorant, ignorance under the circumstances was only less criminal than wilful wickedness.
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Caruthers says : "The conduct of these patri- otic men in aiding the Governor to put down the Regulators admits of ample vindication. Of course they could not be expected to know the imposition practiced upon the people further back, and therefore they were justified in lend- ing their co-operation."
Let us inquire how this was. Mr. Ashe was speaker of the Provincial Lower House in 1765, when Tryon assumed the governorship. From October. 1776, to January, 1771, Messrs. Harvey and Caswell successively held that posi- tion. Throughout these years Harvey, Cas- well, Harnet and others continuously sat in the legislature, and a part of the time with Thomas Person. Person was an able, courageous, and from his wealth and other causes. influential man. He was a Regulator, and the represent- ative from Granville of the Regulators. The Nutbush papers were issued from Granville Tune 6, 1765. These published papers. together with the published "advertisements" of the Regulators following on year after year, clearly set forth the grievances of Person's constitu- ents. From these facts alone the plea of ignor- ance will not be entertained.
But we are not left to inference. The stench of corruption and oppression in this country had reached England. Upon his appointment
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to the governorship Tryon received instructions from England to this effect :
"You are hereby strictly enjoined and re- quired forthwith to cause fair tables of all fees legally established within the Province under your government to be fixed up in every public office within your said government [ not effected April 12th, 1772 ; Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 9, p. 279], and also to publish a proclamation-ex- pressing our indignation at these unwarrantable and dishonorable practices and strictly enjoin- ing and requiring all public officers whatever from receiving other than lawful fees."
On the 15th of August, 1765. Tryon wrote home that "they [the legislature] did not enter into an examination of their public funds: I shall, however, recommend again the necessity for such an inquiry."
At the meeting of a new assembly. October, 1766, in his address Tryon recommends "a remedy to prevent further neglect and embez- zlement of sheriffs," etc. November of that session the House appointed Caswell, Person, and Harnet a committee to settle these ac- counts. They were not settled, however, but the bill for building the palace was enacted and further taxes laid for the same. This in No- vember, 1766. And the following January. Tryon writes that through the "embezzlement
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of sheriffs" (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 7, p. 294) "and deficiency of currency" ( Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 7, p. 570; Vol. 7, p. 792 ; Vol. 8, p. 651 ) "two-thirds of the taxes levied were never applied to the purpose for which they were laid."
At a session held December 5, 1767, he urges in his address, "The necessity for making as well your public funds as the embezzlement and irregularites practiced by several collectors of the Province for some time past a principal ob- ject of your important inquiries ; and I humbly submit that no provisions will be found against these abuses as long as a jealousy exists of the Chief Magistrate, being particularly informed of the receipts and disbursements of the public money and until his freedom of inspection and examination into the state of the funds (which cannot imply a possibility of abuse to the public ) is admitted and acknowledged as necessary. Though this opinion is founded on a principle of equity and distributive justice to the public, I shall, nevertheless, on a delicate subject like this, rest my judgment entirely to your wisdom and discretion."
On the reassembling of the legislature, Octo- ber, 1769, in his address the Governor resub- mits a remedy for "expelling that cloud which has ever obscured the public accounts of the
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Province. The community will then cheerfully pay the public levies, satisfied they are fairly adjusted and applied to the services intended." Here in his address to the legislature the Gov- ernor adopts the ideas and almost the identical language of the Regulators in their repeatedly published complaints. If he had not in hand a copy, he certainly had in mind their papers, as doubtless did the several members. He tells these men to do justice by the people and then the Regulators will "cheerfully pay" those taxes which by preconcert among themselves they had quit paying for the identical reasons here endorsed by the Governor. Finally, in dissolving this Assembly, November 6, 1769. declaring his great disappointment at their non- action in this matter, he says :
"The plan I laid before you for your future funds, if adopted by the legislature, will pro- duce the happiest effect to this country ever experienced ; though the act should be the only act passed in that session. But this blessing is not to be obtained for this country while the treasurers, late sheriffs and their sureties can command a majority in the lower house," etc. (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 8, p. 140. )
On the 5th of December, 1770, in his speech to a new legislature-Caswell now being speaker-Tryon addressed them again in this
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language : "I offer in the most urgent manner for your consideration abuses in public funds and general complaint against public officers and offices." (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 8, p. 282.) The justice or injustice to the legislature of the Governor's charge of complicity with late de- faulting "sheriffs and their sureties," who filled the Province, in no wise affects the question of their knowledge or ignorance of the abuses so frequently and earnestly called to their atten- tion. But, like other facts here cited, it pre- cludes the possibility of ignorance on their part. (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 7. p. 570; Vol. 8, p. 114.)
The vindication of those leaders who made war at Alamance upon their wronged fellow- subjects must be based upon other reasons than the necessity of the situation, or their own mis- take of the facts, or their fear of British gov- ernors.
The offensive vaporings of Harmon Hus- band, if such they were, and the publication of a cruel slander upon a good man, if you please, do not excuse a grave and responsible body, clothed with power, for making war upon the homes, the wives, and the little ones of a wronged community.
The fact is, that in Tryon's approach lay the presage of evil for the Province, wholly devoid
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of compensation. His vanity subjected the country to debt and to taxation that took from the plow the workhorse of the poor and stripped from the back of his wife her "homespun dress." John Harvey declared it ruinous. (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 7, p. 570. ) In the County of Orange, and not very far from the present seat of the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, when the sheriff was going over the county distraining and selling property of every man who did not instantly pay his taxes, or the amount demanded, accompanied, too, by his deputies, and perhaps others, well armed and attending him as a life guard, he came to the house of a poor man who was not at home; but, as if determined not to be wholly disap- pointed in his object, and not finding anything else, or enough of anything else to satisfy his demands, he took off the wife's dress, which she had on at the time, and which she had made with her own hands, sold it under the hammer for her husband's tax, and then, giving her a slap with his hand, told her to go and make another. This was related to me some four- teen or fifteen years ago by an old gentleman of respectability in that region; and he gave it merely as illustrative of the course pursued by the "tax gatherers" in that quarter. (Rev. E. W. Caruthers, The Old North State in 1776, pp. 21, 22. )
CHAPTER III
Early Immigrants to North Carolina; Tryon Denounces Harmon Husband as a "Blatant Demagogue"; Husband a Prisoner of Edmund Fanning: His Friendship with Benjamin Franklin; "Sermon on Asses ;" Parentage and Early Life; Location and Es- tates on Deep River; the Organization of the Regu- lators in April. 1767; Petition of Regulators to Gov- ernor and General Assembly; Regulators Go to Court; Copies of Cases as Disposed of at Hillsbor- ough Court; Regulators Enter the Temple of Justice and Take Out Lawyers and Court Officials and Whip Them on Court-house Green : They Compel Edmund Fanning to Plead Law Before a "Mock" Judge; Take Him Out and Whip Him, Then Destroy His Furniture and Burn His Home: Fanning's Nativity and Education; Lord Granville's Land Agents and Their Frauds; Unlawful Taxes and Extortionate Charges ; Rednap Howell-His Nativity, Doggerel Poems, and Teachings as a Regulator; Prepara- tions to Resist Further Oppression and Extortion.
The influx into central and western North Carolina at that time of a most desirable popu- lation-Baptists, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and German Lutherans and Quakers-was unprecedented perhaps in the history of any colony. This Tryon declared it to be, and to it his ambition put an end, for he drove away many excellent men by his war upon the people. (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 8, p. 654.) In the first ad-
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dress to its Assembly by this adroit, aggressive, bold, bad man, he sectionalized the Province and sowed seeds of dissension that bore un- happy fruits for nearly a century. Foreseeing, he foretold the rapidly approaching conse- quences of the heavy immigration just spoken of; he excited the fears and jealousy of the then all-powerful eastern section of North Carolina, political and religious; and to these are due largely the abuse and neglect that nurtured the Regulators.
Tryon, though an ambitious, despotic tyrant, seemed sincerely to have entertained "just ab- horrence" of these peculations practiced upon the people, although he tolerated such. His sin was ambition, as his urgent appeals for the gov- ernorship first of North Carolina and after- wards of New York show; and his evident desire for war and subsequent parade and exag- geration of feats performed before the home government clearly establish the same. (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 8, pp. 694, 754. )
The old scheme of rendering Husband odious by the application to him of "blatant demagogue," etc., with the issue confessedly in his favor, and then seeking by association to cast reflected odium upon all Regulators, will neither longer succeed nor escape detection un- der present light. Nor will the commingling
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of merited praise and adulation with unjust and hurtful criticism of the Regulators confuse the mind and prevent a righteous decision.
Having adduced adequate cause and praise- worthy motive for the course pursued by a large body of men, why does Moore assign their cause to "one base and designing man ?" Moreover. having previously claimed for North Carolina ( Moore's History, Introduction, Vol. I. p. 16) that the "first blood shed in America to resist British tyranny was at the battle of Alamance," the author is estopped from justifying the murder of the patriots who fell upon that field. With this proud and just claim for North Carolina, how can we reconcile the subsequent statement that "upon the heads of his opponents, not Tryon's, lies the guilt of the blood of Alamance" ? ( Moore's History, Vol. 1, p. 132.)
The legislature knew that they themselves, the Governor, and his judges were responsible for the condition of affairs; otherwise their re- jection of the Governor's petition for money with which to suppress "an host of scoundrels" who with strong arm had silenced the courts of the country is inexplicable. (Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 8, p. 525.)
With the original records of the time, or au- thentic copies of the same at hand, intelligent readers will not believe that "Col. Wm. Dry,"
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of the Council, and collector of the port at Brunswick; that "Gen. Thomas Person," that "Governor Alexander Martin," and others of their standing were the "tools of one base and designing man. (Moore's History, Vol. I, pp. 124, 131.) *Nor was Hunter ever his "lieu- tenant."
Of this base man it is recorded: "He had been arrested May the 2d, and notwithstanding all his sermons and speeches urging the people to resist their oppressions, we have his own confessions of what a craven-hearted wretch the noisy demagogue was. It came into my mind that if I made Colonel Fanning some promise he might let me go. So on my notion he was sent for and came to see what I wanted. Says I, 'if I may go home I will promise not to concern myself any more whether you take large fees or not.' It took with him, and after humming a little he repeated what I must promise, which as near as I can remember was to this effect : 'You promise never to give your
*NOTE .- The Regulators had drunk "damnation to King George;" and in his appeal to the legislature of 1770-71 (Tryon's Proclamation, Col. Rec. of N. C., Vol. 8, p. 253) Tryon based it on the ground that they were the enemies of the "Constitution;" and in his address after the battle announced that the "fate of the Constitu- tion had depended on the success of that day." Herein lies the sole possible apology for their crime, for in com- mon with all America at that time our people were at- tached to the crown-the Regulators alone excepted.
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opinion of the laws nor frequent the assembling of yourself among the people, nor show any jealousy of officers taking any extraordinary fees, and if you hear others speaking disre- spectfully or hinting any jealousies of that na- ture, that you reprove and caution them, and that you will tell the people you are satisfied all the taxes are agreeable to law and do every- thing in your power to moderate and pacify them.' All of which I promised." ( Moore's History, Vol. I, p. 117.)
We have already stated that Husband was a friend and kinsman of Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania, with whom he kept up regular communications. Franklin was accustomed to send Husband printed pamphlets, which he copied or printed, and distributed among the people. From one of these entitled "State of Affairs" it has been believed that he concocted his "Sermon on Asses."
This, however, is a mistake. There is a vol- ume entitled "Sermons to Asses," the produc- tion of an English clergyman of republican tendencies, whose name was Murray. This was reprinted in Boston, but neither the Eng- lish nor American edition bore the author's name on the title page. In New England many attributed the work to Franklin. On a comparison of this work with the publication of
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Husband it will be seen that the "Sermons on Asses" are, with slight alterations to adapt them to the latitude of North Carolina, copied from Murray. Will the reader allow us to de- tain him with some extracts from these pro- ductions? They indicate great shrewdness and good sense, and we fear are not without applicability in some respects to our own times ; at any rate, they will furnish him with ma- terials from which his own mind will form a better picture of the times than we can deline- ate (Rev. F. L. Hawks, Rev. His. of North Carolina, p. 19) :
Jacob is the first that is mentioned in scripture who preached to asses; but many have been thus employed since his time. This is a most shameful monosyllable, when applied to reasonable creatures ;- men endowed with reason and understanding to degenerate so basely ; what a falling off is here!
What does these burdens mean, which Issachar couched down so decently under? Civil and religious slavery, no doubt. Strange, that such a number of Ra- tional creatures should bear tivo such insupportable burdens. Ah, I had forgot that they were asses ;- for, to be sure, no people of any rational spirit could endure such grievous bondage.
*
A strong ass, in the original word, denotes strength, but implies leanness. And truly all those who submit to slavery are poor. We have not a word of his notion ;
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-he was strong, but not active to assert his rights and privileges.
Rest was pleasant to him ;- and thus it happens now, we sit still at ease, trusting to the good of the land, and concluding, every one, I can live out my time in peace and quiet :- forgetting our posterity, and mourning not for the afflictions of Joseph.
When men thus degenerate, they will always find some ready to fix burdens on them; for slavery don't come in a day, it is a work of time to make men perfect slaves.
Issachar stooped down ; he well deserved a heavy bur- den for his meanness ;- it is a just reward ;- for such as do not value freedom and liberty, before a little present ease, deserves to be slaves .- They are blessings too val- uable to be enjoyed without care and industry to main tain them.
But Italy and Spain are not the only places where people believe absurdities ;- in the land where freedom has been the privilege and boast of every subject, we may, perhaps, find plenty of asses .- You will say, not in America, a land renowned for all sorts of liberty ;- A nation to which there is none equal upon the face of the earth, as we know of. In some provinces in America this may have been the case ;- but we. in North Caro- lina, are not free ;- yet to the King, or to the plan of our constitution, nothing can be laid that tends to ef- fect our Liberties .- But we have sold that liberty which our ancestors left us by this constitution to such men as have not the least pretensions to rule over us.
Are we free while our laws are disapproved of by nine-tenths of us ?- Are we free while it is out of our power to obtain one law that is our choice ?- Take out our oppressors themselves, and many of our laws are disagreeable to the inhabitants to a man: And worse
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than all this, for bad as our laws are, the practice of them is worse, and our oppressors have got out of reach of them.
Ye who, like Issachar, for the love of ease, or the gratification of some sordid passion, have sold your lib- erties, and submit to burdens, as unnatural as they are unreasonable,-your character is drawn, in the text, to that of asses. And worse than asses you are, who thus give up the cause of your country either to civil or re- ligious dominators.
Issachar, I wish thy children had all died in the first generation ;- for thy offspring is too numerous; they are in church and state; whoever will attend any place of concourse will find many of thy descendants so stupid, that they every day bring themselves under burdens they might easily prevent.
I shall now consider some grievous oppressions that we labor under.
First,-The public taxes is an unequal burden on the poor of this province, by reason the poorest man is taxed as high as the richest. Allowing the taxes to be all necessary, yet there ought to be some regard had to the strength of the beast; for all asses are not equally strong. We ought to be taxed according to the profits of each man's estate. And as we have no trade to circu- late money, this tax ought to be paid in country pro- duce. There would be men enough to be found to fill all posts of office for a salary paid in produce, as any man can afford to officiate in an office for country pro- duce as well as to farm or allow any other calling, the chief of which bring in nothing else.
This is a grievous burden on the poor, as matters have been carried on, for money is not to be had : And when
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a poor man's goods is distrained, the practice has been to take double, treble, yea, ten times the value has.some- times been taken away .- And if they complain, they are not heard; if they resist, they are belabored like asses.
Merciful Lord, would any people rise in mobs to dis- turb a peaceable nation if they could help it! Who is more ready than the poor to venture their lives in time of war for the safety of the nation? Nay, it is pinching hunger and cold, brought on them by abuse of officers, that is the cause.
A few men may rise in a riot without a cause; and disaffected lords and great men may have such ambi- tious views encouraged by some enemy prince ;- but for the generality of the poor of a Province to rise, there must be some cause; I dare say there always is a griev- ous cause.
Neither is it any reflection on the King, to say, the poor are oppressed ; for he don't make our laws :- 'Tis the subjects themselves, like the fish, devouring one another, with this difference, we are devoured by law.
The narrow limits of our inferior court's jurisdiction, and likewise of a single magistrate, is a grievous bur- 'den on both poor and rich; and more so as we are obliged to fee lawyers; and in their demands they have got above the law, and have monopolized the whole power of the courts into their own hands. Our bur- dens exceed Issachar's; for truly we may be said to labour under three,-the lawyers use us as we do our stock, they kill one here and there, or pluck us well, and then let us run a while to feather again.
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