USA > North Carolina > The history of North Carolina from the earliest period, Volume II > Part 2
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bonds that no tobacco, sugar, cotton, wool, indigo, dye woods, molasses, tar, turpentine, hemp, masts, yards, bowsprits, copper ore, skins or fur, would be exported with the rice.
During the summer, governor Burrington visited the settlements of cape Fear, which began to extend to some distance along the stream and its branches; he returned to meet the legislature, in the town of Eden- ton, where he arrived on the 3d of November. He repeated his requisitions, and found the lower house totally unwilling to grant them. He, shortly after their meeting, prorogued them, observing he refrained from laying any business before them, on account of the indisposition, which they manifested, to comply with the king's wishes; that he judged it improper to proceed upon business with them, until he received the king's com mands, having laid before him the undutiful beha- viour of the lower house last year, and concluded by assuring them that, in the mean while, he would take good care that the business of the province should be faithfully conducted, and good order preserved.
The Irish, obtained this year, a statute of the British parliament, allowing the exportation of non-enumerated commodities, from the king's American colonies to Ireland.
Rope-walks, having been established in some of the northern provinces, and most of their shipping being supplied with cordage of their manufacture, measures were taken in parliament, to depress these rising estab- lishments, and it was enacted, that no drawback should be allowed on foreign unwrought hemp, exported to the American colonies.
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In the latter part of the month of November, the precinct of Carteret, was divided by an act of the gov- ernor in council, and the western part of it was erected into a new precinct, called Onslow, in honor of Arthur Onslow, speaker of the British house of commons.
With a view to the farther security of the province of South Carolina, and the relief of indigent people in Great Britain and Ireland, the settlement of a new pro- vince, between the rivers Savannah and Alatamaha, was projected in England. Public spirit and private com- passion conspired in the promotion of this excellent design, several persons of humanity and opulence united and formed a plan for raising money for trans- porting poor families, to this part of America, and on the 9th of June, obtained a charter of incorporation: the new province was called Georgia, in honor of the king, who greatly favored the undertaking. The cor. poration, which consisted of twenty-one persons, was styled the trustees for settling and establishing the colony of Georgia.
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In the month of November, one hundred and fifty settlers, led by James Oglethorpe, one of the trustees, embarked, at Gravesend, for Georgia.
The facility with which furs were procured in most of the American provinces, the trifling stock, the cheap apparatus, which are required in the manufacture of hats, had induced some of the colonists to employ their time and industry in this branch of business. Its success had been considerable, and the exportation of American made hats, to the West India islands, Portugal and Spain, became so extensive as to give great uneasiness to, and consequently excite the clamours of the com- pany of hatters in London. In order to check the
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enterprising spirit of the Americans, in this respect, parliament torbade the exportation of hats from the conti- nental provinces, to the West India islands and from one province to the other, and made other severe regulations: no person was allowed to work at, or carry on, this kind of manufacture, without having served an appren- ticeship of seven years; no master was allowed more than two apprentices at the same time, or to employ any negro. The statute had the intended effect, it consi- derably prevented the establishment or employment of hat manufactures for distant sale, and confined the industry of the colonists, in this respect, to very narrow limits, To guard against the partiality of a jury of the vicinage, the heavy penalties, by which these regulations were enforced, were made recoverable in any of the provinces, or in any part of Great Britain, in which the defendant might be convicted, or the goods brought and seized.
For assisting British creditors, in the recovery of the debts due them in America, a statute was passed this year, authorizing the admission of ex parte testimony, taken before the mayor, or chief magistrate of any city, borough, or town corporate, in Great Britain, and lands andfhouses were made liable to seizure and sale, as goods and chattels.
Frederick V. of Denmark, purchased the island of St Croix, from Spain, in 1733.
In the month of April, a new precinct was established, by a resolution of the governor and council, and called Edgecombe, and in the month of October, the precinct of New Hanover was divided, and the western part of it erected into a new one, by the name of Bladen, in compliment to Martin Bladen, one of the lords com- missioners of trade and plantations.
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In the spring, chief justice Smith returned from England, and soon after, the governor took his depar- ture, under the pretence of a visit to South Carolina, from whence he sailed for London, in the month of April. The administration of government devolved on Nathanial Rice, the secretary of the province, who was the councillor, first named in the king's instructions, as president and commander in chief; he qualified at Edenton, on the 17th of April.
During the absence of the chief justice. John Palin, presided, for some time, in the supreme court of the province, and was succeeded by William Little, with whom, John Worley, William Owen, Mackara Scarbo- rough and William Badham, sat as associate justices.
Great Britain took no part in the war, that began in 1733, between France and Austria. The minister, de- pending on the pacific temper of Cardinal de Fleury, whom war too much perplexed by the difficulties of the time, to reap too great an advantage, from the first success of the French arms.
Chalmers-Brickle-History of S. C .-. Records.
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CHAPTER IL.
PRESIDENT Rice's administration was of very short duration, for, during the summer, Gabriel Johnston was appointed governor of the province.
This gentleman was a native of Scotland, and had re- ceived his education in the university of St. Andrews : he had spent a few years in the acquisition of medical knowledge, and soon after his reaching manhood, was appointed professor of the oriental languages, in the seminary in which he had been reared. This office be- ing a mere sinecure, he removed to London, where he was employed in writing some numbers of " The Crafts- man," a periodical paper, supported by the ablest po- litical writers of the day, (lord Bollingbroke and Mr. Pultney being of the number,) in which the measures of the administration were attacked with equal animosity and argument. On the succeeding change in the mi- nistry, governor Johnston had obtained his appointment principally through the recommendation of Spence Compton, baron of Wilmington.
He arrived in the river of Cape Fear late in October ; on the second day of November he took the oaths of office, at the court house of the precinct of New Hano- ver, in the town of Brunswick, and shortly after met the legislature at Edenton. H> communicated to them, in his speech, at the opening of the session, the king's de-
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sire, that provision should be made for an adequate and permanent revenue for the support of the govern- ment of the province, and for a fixed salary for the chief magistrate, for the time being.
The bills of credit which had been emitted in 1729, under the authority of the lords proprietors, were stamp- ed and exchanged, and their future circulation limited to. a period of ten years; a duty on liquors was laid, for the support of government; and the poll tax, on the poorer inhabitants of the province, was lessened; the qualifications of the electors and of the members of the lower house were defined; new regulations were made for the improvement and extension of roads; the pre- cincts of Onslow and Bladen, which had been established by an order of the late governor in council, were con- firmed, and a grant of fourteen thousand pounds was made to the king, for the service of the province, and for the more immediate payment of part of it, an emis- sion of bills of credit, to the amount of ten thousand pounds, was directed; provision was made for defray- ing the expenses of the council and assembly, but none for the support of the chief magistrate.
In the course of the following year, a court of ex- chequer was established : it held its first session at New- ton, a small village lately built on Cape Fear river, on the 13th of May : chief justice Smith was appointed chief baron, and James Innes and William Forbes, barons.
It does not appear, that there was any meeting of the legislature, in the course of the year 1735.
The war, which had lately commenced, and was now carried on with great fury, by the united powers of France, Spain and Sardinia, against the emperor,
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threatened the tranquility of the other European powers ; and although the king of Great Britain was in no ways engaged in it, his subjects could not be regardless of the passing events, or unconcerned for the future conse- quences of a war, undertaken and supported by so pow- erful an alliance. The situation of the southern-British provinces in America, excited a lively degree of alarm ; to the south and south-west was situated the strong castle of St. Augustine, garrisoned by four hundred soldiers, who had several nations of Indians in their sub- jection, besides several other settlements or garrisons, some of which were not eighty miles distant from the province of Georgia. To the south-west and west, the French had erected a considerable town, near fort Conde, on the river Mobile, and other forts and garri- sons, some not above three hundred miles distant from the settlements in the province of South Carolina, and at New Orleans. Since the conclusion of the war under queen Anne, they had increased their trade and traffic, and had now many forts and garrisons on both sides of the Mississippi, for several miles up that river ; and since the king of France had taken the government of the country from the Mississippi company, the French from Canada came daily down in shoals to settle along the river, where regular forces had lately been sent to strengthen the garrisons ; they had five hundred men in pay, constantly employed as wood rangers, to keep their neighboring Indians in subjection, and to prevent those at a distance from coming on and destroying their settle- ments; they had been so successful in their intrigues, that they had completely under their control and influ- ence the numerous nations of Indians that dwelt near the . Mississippi; one of them, the Choctaws, who were al-
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ways deemed a very warlike people, and who were able to bring into the the field five thousand warriors, was at the distance of four hundred miles only from the back settlements in the province of South Carolina; among them, as among several other nations of Indians, many French Europeans had been sent to settle, and were en- couraged by their priests and missionaries to take Indian wives, and other alluring means were used, the better to attach the Indians to the French alliance. Thus the French had become thoroughly acquainted with the In- dian mode of living, warring and dwelling in the woods ; and a great number of them were among the Indians, able to perform a long march with an army of those people, upon any expedition.
There was room to apprehend, that, in case the mea- sures of France should provoke Great Britain to a state of hostility in Europe, the French and Indians on the Mississippi settlements, would invade the Carolinas and Georgia.
They had already paved the way for a design of this nature, by erecting a fort, called the Alabama Fort, or Fort Toulouse, in the middle of the upper Creek Indians, upon a navigable river leading to Mobile, which they kept well garrisoned and mounted with fourteen pieces of cannon ; they had lately attempted to build one nearer the British settlements. The upper Creeks were a bold and active nation, and had about twenty-five hun- dred warriors ; they were about one hundred and fifty miles distant from the Cherokees, and although the Bri- tish had heretofore traded with, and looked upon them as in their alliance, yet the French, on account of the fort, and a superior ability to make them liberal presents, had been for some time too successfully striving to draw
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them to their interest, and had effected their purpose with some of the towns : they were the only nation which the southern provinces could consider as a barrier against the attempts of the French, or their confederate Indians.
Hitherto the French at Mobile, unable to gain the Indians to their interest, without buying their deer skins, the only commodity which the Indians had to procure ne- cessities with, and having no means of disposing of them in France, had found means to encourage vessels from the British provinces, particularly from New York, to truck the skins with them for Indian trading goods, especially the British woollen manufactures, which they disposed of to the Creeks, Choctaws, and other Indians, by this means alienating them more easily from the Bri- tish interest.
Besides the many dangers to which the southern pro- vinces were exposed, from so many enemies in rear of their settlements, their sea coast was in the most defenceless condition, their ports and harbors, lying open to the invasion of any enemy by sea, there not being in any of them a fortification, capable of making much resistance.
Governor Oglethorpe, having brought a number of heavy guns with him, began to fortify the province of Georgia, at the place which is now known as the town of Augusta, he erected a fort on the bank of the river Savannah, excellently situated for protecting the Indian trade, and holding treaties with several of the nations of the Indians ; on an island, near the river Alatamaha, ano- ther fort with four bastions was erected, and several pieces of cannon mounted in it; the place was called Frederica ; ten miles nearer the sea, a battery was raised,
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commanding the entrance of the sound, through which all armed vessels must come, that might be sent against Frederica. To keep garrisons in these forts, and reim- burse the expenses of their erection, parliament made a grant of ten thousand pounds.
While governor Oglethorpe was thus employed in fortifying the province under his command, he received a message from the Spanish governor at St. Augustine, acquainting him that a commission from the king of Spain had arrived there from Spain, in order to make certain demands of him, and would meet him at Fre- derica, for that purpose. A few days after, the com- missioner came to Georgia by water, and governor Oglethorpe, unwilling to permit him to proceed to Frederica, sent a sloop to convey him to Jekyl sound. Here he unfolded the object of his mission; it was to summon the governor, in the name of the king of Spain, to evacuate the country, to the thirty-third de- gree of north latitude, which his master claimed, and to which he was determined to maintain his right. The governor endeavored to convince him that the king had been misinformed, but to no purpose: the instructions of the commissioner were peremptory, and the confer- ance broke up without their coming to any agreement.
Governor Johnston met the legislature on the 21st day of September, in the town of Edenton. In ad- dressing the houses, he began by bewailing the deplora- ble situation of the province, in which no provision ex- isted for keeping up the sense and awe of the Deity on the minds of the people, nor any care was taken to in- spire the youth with generous sentiments, worthy principles, or the least tincture of literature-in which the laws were diffused up and down, in different places,
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on loose papers, many of them contradictory, others unintelligible, appearing under ridiculous titles, couch- ed in a childish style, and offending the common rules of grammar. He observed, that from the best and plainest of these laws, the vilest malefactors, not only might, but did actually escape, with impunity, on ac- count of the insufficiency of the jails. He besought the members of both houses, to consider themselves as the representatives of such a country, possess- ing the power and means, and earnestly solicited to remedy these calamities, and then laying their hands on their hearts, think how they could answer it to God and their own consciences, if they neglected the opportunity of relieving the province, or suffered themselves to be diverted from it by the arts of designing men. He complained of the insufficiency of the militia law, and recommended to the consideration of the houses, the propriety of giving encouragement to a direct trade with Great Britain.
He complained of notorious untruths and impudent falsehoods, which, with a design of keeping the country in confusion, had been industriously propagated by a party, remarkable for nothing more than their indefatiga- ble efforts in spreading the basest calumnies, and for their want of shame when detected. He flattered himself, he had no occasion to say much on this subject, because it was pretty well known, that if those men had been permitted, as in former times, to injure the king's reve. nue, and oppress their fellow subjects, the province would not have been troubled with their complaints. He wished every planter would bring the matter home to himself, make the case his own, and suppose that in the late times, when no legal title could be obtained,
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he had sat down with his family on a vacant tract of land, and with great expense and labor, built upon and culti- voted it for several years, and after all a person (unac- quainted, perhaps, with the bounds of the tract, but by the survey the occupant had paid for) and with an inso- lent air, by virtue of a patent, which, likely, a few hours before was a blank sheet of paper, rob him of his land, and of the fruit of his labor of so many years. After asking whether there would not be just and real cause of complaint, against a government which would con- nive at proceedings like these; he observed, that the case he had put, was not an hypothesis, but had actually happened several times, and no one could tell how often it would have happened, if a seasonable stop had not been put to it. He said that, for his own part, he thought he might say, without vanity or ostentation, that he had been at great expense, and even risked his health, to do justice to the people, by going on the spot to hear their different pretentions, and, on all occasions, relieving the poor industrious planter, from the oppression of his more powerful and crafty neighbor; and as he heartily despised the poor, trifling efforts of those men, to his pre- judice, as well as the scandalous method they took to make them effectual, if any artifice should pre- vail with the houses, to lose this favorable opportu- nity of settling the country, he would still have the satisfaction of reflecting, that he had performed his duty. He concluded by observing, that as he had been obliged by his instructions, vigorously to maintain the rights and just revenue of the crown, he should be glad, on all occasions, to show a tender regard for the privileges, happiness and liberties of the people, not being appre- hensive, that they were in the least inconsistent with one
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another. The address of the upper house echoed the sentiments in the speech; the members did not, how ever, all approve of it; two out of six, Cullen Pol- lock and Edward Moseley, prayed leave to enter their protest against the address, but the house did not allow it. The address of the lower house has not reached us, it is believed to have been of a different complexion; both houses continued in session during three weeks, withoutany bill of importance being introduced. On the 12th of October, the governor came to the upper house, and sent a message to command the attendance of the lower; they declined coming up, and the message was reiterated, without success. The governor then pro- rogued the legislative body, without having had any bill presented for his assent.
A considerable contraband trade was carried on by the British American colonies, with the Spanish do- minions; remonstrance having been often made, with- out success, the court of Madrid increased their guar- das costas, and the most rigorous orders were given to the officers commanding them. In consequence of these, British vessels were often stopped, carried into Spanish ports, sometimes detained for examination, and at others condemned. A committee of the mer- chants of London, trading to America, presented a pe- tition to the king, beseeching his interference in this respect.
With a view to give encouragement to British man- ufactures, parliament passed a statute requiring every vessel, built in America, to be supplied, on her first sailing out, with a complete suit of sails, made of Bri- tish sail cloth
N. CARO. II. 1.
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This year, commissioners appointed by the legisla- tures of North and South Carolina, began to run the dividing line between the two provinces. The king had fixed its beginning at the north-east end of Long bay, and directed it to run thence, north-westwardly, to the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude, and thence, westwardly, to the south sea. It was run to the dis- tance of sixty-four miles, and it was agreed that the eas- tern and northwestern frontiers of the lands. of the Ca- tawbas and Cherokees, should, till the line was further extended, be considered as the dividing line of the pro- vinces.
The extension of the population of the province, to- wards its southern boundary, and the width of Albe- marle sound, rendering the attendance of the members of the legislature at Edenton, inconvenient, the general assembly was convened at Newbern, on the sixth of March.
A poll tax of five shillings per head on all the tithe. able inhabitants of the province was granted to the king, and regulations were adopted to prevent frauds in the assessment and collection of taxes. Two thousand pounds sterling were appropriated for the building of a jail and also, an office, for the safe keeping of the records of the general court, in the town of Edenton, and for the repairing the court-house; circuit courts were ap- pointed to be holden in the town of Newbern and. village of Newton, on the river of Cape Fear. An act was passed for providing a rent roll and securing the king's rents, for the remission of the arrears of quit rents, for quieting the inhabitants in their possessions, and for promoting the better settlement of the province: it was, however, repealed by the king's order in council.
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1738]
The population of the province having much increased, and being spread through a vast territory, often in dis- tinct settlements, scattered at a great distance from each other, and sometimes separated by a trackless wild, the inconvenience of having the fiscal affairs, and the minis. terial duties in the judicial department, under the direc- tion of a single individual, began to be severely felt. His deputies not only often neglected, but at times ab- solutely refused, to perform their duties; their con- duct in many other respects, occasioned great murmurs, discontents and a delay of justice, greatly injurious to the tranquility and prosperity of the province. This evil was remedied by the abolition of the office of pro- vost marshal of the province, which Robert Holton, a member of the king's council, had held since the arrival of governor Burrington: the loss which this gentleman was to sustain, by the abolition of his office, was com- pensated by a sum of two thousand pounds sterling. The primary division of the province, into the three counties, Albemarle, Bath and Clarendon, was abo- lished, and the precincts were denominated counties; a sheriff was directed to be appointed in each, chosen by the governor out of three persons, recommended by the county court, out of their own body; the office was made biennial. Provision was made for facilitating the navigation of the principal rivers, for placing buoys and beacons in the main channels, and procuring skilful pilots; regulations were adopted for the preservation of game, and the destruction of vermin; a town was established on the west side of Matchapungo river, in the county of Hyde and called Woodstock.
As the sovereigns of Great Britain and Spain, were both anxious for peace, their differences were soon ad-
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