USA > North Carolina > The history of North Carolina from the earliest period, Volume II > Part 24
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He pressed them, laying aside all passion and preju- dice, calmly and with one accord, to pursue such a line of conduct, in those points of general concern to Ame- rica, as might be most likely to heal the unhappy differs ences now subsisting between Great Britain and her co- lonies ; to consider, how great an opportunity they now . had to serve their country, manifest their loyalty to the best of kings, and demonstrate their attachment to the British constitution, the most free and glorious system in the whole world. He hoped, it would be their glory to record to the latest posterity, that, at a time when the monster, sedition, dared to rear his impious head in America, the people of North Carolina, inspired with a just sense of their duty to their king and country, ani- mated by the example of her legislature, stood forth among the foremost of the king's subjects, to repel the fell invader of their happiness: thus redeeming their sinking country to posterity, and acquiring to them- selves immortal honor and renown; while a contrary conduct must, at once, plunge a once happy land, into horrors beyond all imagination, whence nothing could recover it, but the generous hand of Britain.
In addition to the powerful motives he had detailed, he observed, he was authorized to say, that the unwar- rantable measure of appointing delegates to attend a con- gress at Philadelphia, then in agitation, would be highly offensive to the king.
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He next drew the attention of the houses to the par- ticular state of the province.
The exhausted state of the treasury, the large de. mands on it that remained unsatisfied, the dues of public officers that remain unpaid, he said, called loudly fir their attention, to the ill condition of public credit and the finances of the province.
He congratulated them on the fair opportunity which: they had, of restoring to the province a permanent esta- blishment of courts, as he had received the king's de- termination, on the proposed regulations, with regard to proceedings by attachment, which would be commu- nicated in a special message.
In the address, which was prepared to this speech, the house began by observing, that they had met, with minds superior to private dissentions, determined calmly. unitedly and faithfully, to discharge the sacred trust re- posed in them by their constituents, and, actuated by these sentiments, it behoved them to declare, that the assembly of the province had the highest sense of their allegiance to the king of Great Britain, to whom alone, as their constitutional sovereign, they acknowledged it to be due, and to whom they so cheerfully and repeat. edly had sworn it; that to remind them of it, was unne- cessary. This allegiance. all past assemblies had, upon every occasion, amply expressed, and the present repre- sentatives of the people should always be ready with pleasure to testify ; sensible, however, that the same constitution, which established that allegiance and en- joined the oath, in consequence of it, had bound majesty under as solemn obligations, to protect subjects invio- late in all their just rights and privileges, wisely intend-
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ing, by reciprocal dependence, to secure the happiness of both.
They contemplated, with horror, the unhappy state of America, involved in the most embarrassing difficulties and distresses, by a number of unconstitutional invasions of her rights and privileges, by which the inhabitants of the continent, in general, and of the province, in particu- lar, had been precipitated into measures, extraordinary perhaps in their nature, but justified by necessity : from whence, among many other measures, the appointment of committees, in the counties and towns, took its birth, to prevent, as much as in them lay, the operation of such unconstitutional encroachments, and they expressed themselves unconscious of any step, taken by those com- mittees, but such as they were compelled to resort to, for that salutary purpose.
They added, that, as it was not to be controverted, that the people had a right to petition for a redress of grievances, or to remonstrate against them, and as it was only in a meeting of the people, that their sense, upon such petitions and remonstrances. could be obtained, the right of assembling was undoubted : to attempt, therefore, under the mask of authority, to prevent or forbid a meeting of the people, for such purposes, or to interrupt their proceedings, when met, would be a vain effort to exercise power, in direct opposition to the constitution.
Far be it from us, continued they, even to wish to prevent the operations of the convention, now held in Newbern, or to agree with you in bestowing on them the injurious epithet of an illegal meeting. They are the representatives of the people, appointed for a special and important purpose, and to which, though our constitu-
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ents might have thought us adequate, yet as our meet- ing depended on the pleasure of the crown, they would have been unwise to have trusted to so precarious a contingency, especially as the frequent and unexpected prorogations of the assembly, one of them in particular. as if all respect and attention to the convenience of the representatives had been lost, was proclaimed but two or three days, before the time which had been appointed for their meeting, left the people without the hope that the assembly would have been permitted to sit, till it was too late to appoint delegates to attend the continen- tal congress at Philadelphia, a measure, which, they joined the rest of America, in thinking essential to its interests.
The house observed, they neither knew nor believed, that any base arts had been practised on the people, in order to lead them from their duty; but they knew with certainty, that the steps they had taken, proceeded from a full conviction that the parliament of Great Britain had, by a variety of oppressive and unconstitutional pro- ceedings, made those steps absolutely necessary; they thought it, therefore, a duty which they owed to the people, to assert, that their conduct had not been owing to the arts of designing men, and had it much to lament, that the governor should have added his sanction to so groundless an imputation, as it had a manifest tendency to weaken the influence, which the united petitions of the king's American subjects might otherwise have upon their sovereign, for a redress of the grievances, of which they complained.
. They added, they should feel inexpressible concern, at the information he had given them, of his being au- thorized to say, that the appointment of delegates to
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attend the congress at Philadelphia, then in agitation, would be highly offensive to the king, if they had not been recently informed, on the best authority, of his very gracious reception of the united petition of his American subjects, addressed to him, by the continental delegates, lately convened in Philadelphia; from which they could not have the least reason to suppose, that a similar application to the throne would give offence to the sovereign, or prevent his receiving a petition for the redress of grievances which his American subject had a right to present, separately, or unitedly.
They assured the governor they should ever receive with pleasure, the information of any mark of loyalty to the king, given by any of the inhabitants of the province, but they expressed their great concern lest the manner in which he had thought proper to convey that infor- mation, should excite a belief that a great number of the people of the province were disaffected to their sove- reign; to prevent this, they judged it incumbent on them solemnly to testify to the world, that the king had no subjects more faithful, than the inhabitants of North Carolina; none more ready, at the expense of their lives and fortunes, to protect and support his person, crown and dignity. They added, that if, however, by the sig- nal proofs he spoke of, were meant the addresses lately published in the Gazette, and said to have been presen- ted to him, they could receive no pleasure from his con- gratulations on that subject, but what resulted from the consideration, that so few had been found, in so popu- lous a province, weak enough to be seduced from their duty and prevailed on by the base acts of wicked and designing men, to adopt principles so contrary to the
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sense of all America, and so destructive to those just rights and privileges, it was their duty to maintain.
They improved the opportunity, the first that had 'been given them, of expressing their warm attachment to their sister colonies, and their heartfelt compassion for the deplorable fate of the town of Boston, and to declare the fixed determination of the province to unite with the others, in every effort to retain their just rights and privileges, which, as subjects of a British king, they pos- sessed, and which it was their duty to transmit unini- paired to posterity.
In contemplating the exhausted state of the public treasury, the concern that they felt, was, they said, alle- viated, from the consideration, that it was not owing to any misconduct of the assembly, who had hitherto been disallowed to pass any inferior court law, but upon such terms which their duty rendered it impossible for them to accept; by which means no list of taxables could be taken for 1773; and consequently no money collected to defray the charges of government for that year, and as the governor had not thought proper to meet the legislature, at the usual time, in the fall of the year 1774, the treasury, deprived of the collections of two years, was unable to enforce the great demands on it, till some law could be passed to replenish it.
Convinced of the necessity of courts of justice, they expressed their willingness to adopt any plan for the es- tablishment of them, consistent with the circumstances of the colony, which might promise judges of capacity and integrity, for such they would, with pleasure, libe- rally provide.
The house passed resolves, approving the proceedings of the deputies of the continental congress; and expres-
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sed their determination, as members of the community in general, to adhere to those resolutions shortly, and use what influence they have, to convince every individual in the colony to observe them.
The governor having laid the journal of the assembly before the council, they unanimously expressed an opin- ion, that the existence of such a house of assembly was incompatible with the honor of the crown and the safety of the people, recommended the governor to dissolve it.
On the 8th of April the governor dissolved the assem- bly by proclamation.
The convention came to a resolution, that as the hap- piness and prosperity of every state, greatly depends on providing within itself, articles necessary for subsistence, cloathing and defence, from common prudence and regard for the colony, they would encourage arts, manufactures, agriculture and every kind of economy, and use their influence with their constituents, and all persons connected with them to provide them.
They recommended to the committees of the several counties, to propose premiums to be given to the in- habitants, whose industry may appear a proper subject for their bounty.
They asserted the undoubted right of the people to meet and petition the throne for a redress of grievances, and that such a right necessarily included that of ap- pointing dele gates for that purpose, and resolved that the governor's proclamation forbidding their meeting, and the subsequent one commanding them to disperse, were illegal, an infraction on their just rights and ought to be disregarded, as a wanton and arbitrary exercise of power.
They declared their unqualified approbation of the proceedings of the late continental congress, and elected
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the gentlemen attending it, on the part of the province, as its representatives, in the next.
Thomas M'Night, a delegate from the county of Cur- rituck, being called upon to subscribe, with the other members of the convention, the association recommen- ded by the continental congress, refused and with- drew; whereupon the convention declared him inimical to the cause of the liberty of America, holding him up as a proper object of contempt, and recommending to every person to break off all connexion, and cease to have any intercourse with him.
The governor having drawn the attention of the coun- cil to the conduct of John Harvey, the speaker of the late assembly, who had summoned the deputies to attend a convention, and had filled the chair of that body, the hoard recommended, that his name should be stricken off the list of justices of the county of Perquimans, as a mark of their indignation for the conspicuous part he had acted, in what they termed the most dangerous and un- lawful proceedings.
On the separation of the deputies, the governor, find- ing the tide of events strongly running against him, col- lected a few pieces of cannon, which were scattered about the town, and placed them,before the palace, with a view to intimidate the people. He despatched messengers to Cross creek, in the county of Cumberland, in the neigh- , borhood of which, a number of emigrants, from the Highlands of Scotland, had lately settled; he greatly de- pended on their assistance: others were sent farther to- wards the mountains, with a view to pursuade the peo- ple, who had been concerned in the commotions, during the administration of governor Tryon, that their exemp- tion from the punishment, to which he represented them
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as still liable, would depend on their ready assistance against the present unlawful opposers of the king's go- vernment,
In the meantime, committees were kept up, and met weekly, in every county and in the principal towns; the militia, every where, voluntarily turned out, to be train- ed, and furnished themselves with arms nnd ammuni- tion, and every measure was taken to prepare for what- ever opposition they might be 'called upon to make, to the adherents of Great Britain.
Governor Martin's conduct gave great cause of alarm to the people of Newbern: a letter of his, to general Gage, at Boston, of the 16th of March, had been inter- cepted; the object of it was to solicit a supply of arms and ammunition: it mentioned, that many of the inhabi- tants of the province began to find, that they had been misled, and seemed inclined to disengage themselves from the arbitrary power of the continental congress and their committees! A watchful eye was kept on his mo- tions; at last the committee of the town interposed, seized and carried off, from the palace, six pieces of ar- tillery. Unable to effect any thing, finding himself sus- pected and insecure, he now made a precipitate retreat to Fort Johnson, on the river of Cape Fear.
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In the beginning of July, some disaffected persons. improving the opportunity which the suspension of or- der and government seemed to afford, made an attempt to induce a number of negroes, on Tar river, to rise, with a view to lead them on and effect a massacre of the white people. The plan was very near succeeding; but was fortunately disclosed to Thomas Respiss, of the county of Beaufort, by one of his slaves. A captain Johnston, of White Haven, in Connecticut, who had
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lately come to Bath, for a cargo of naval stores, had been made use of to stir up the black people. Nothing had transpired till the evening of the 7th of July, the eve of the day, on which the tragedy was to have been acted. On the information reaching the committee of the coun- ty of Pitt, expresses were sent in different directions, to alarm the people of the neighboring counties. Forty negroes were taken up in the course of a few hours; they all nearly agreed in the account which they gave: they had been directed to fall, on the night of the 8th, on the white people of the family, in which they resided, and. after destroying them, to set fire to the buildings, and . proceed thus, from plantation to plantation, till they reached the back counties, where they were promised to be received by persons, sent thither, and armed by go- vernment for their protection, and, as a reward for their exertions in the king's cause, they were to be enfran .. chised and settled beyond the mountains, in a free govern- ment of their own. In disarming them, a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition was secured.
The inhabitants of the town of Wilmington, appre- hending that the governor might strengthen Fort John- ston and prepare it for the reception of a force which might be employed to distress them, or that he might encourage their slaves to repair and take shelter there, and afterwards arm them against their masters; assem- bled under the command of John Ashe, who had re- signed his commission of colonel of the militia of the county of New Hanover, which he held under the king, they proceeded to the fort, to remove the artillery from it; (but found, on their arrival, that the cannon and stores had been taken on board the sloop of war the Cruizer, and on board of which the governor had sought shel-
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ter. They entered the fort and set the buildings in it on fire.
The committee of the town of Wilmington, by some of their resolves, which they published and circulated through the province, charged the governor with fomen. ting a civil war, and endeavoring to excite insurrection among the negroes: they declared him an enemy to his country and the province, and forbade all persons to hold any communication with him.
That of the town of Newbern, came to similar resolutions: they prohibited all persons from remo- ving from Core sound, or any piace near which the governor might be, without leave from the nearest committee, under pains of not being suffered to return.
The governor, in a letter of the 24th of June, to Lewis Henry de Rossett, one of the council, awk- wardly attempted to vindicate himself of the charge of his having given encouragement to the negroes to revolt. He assured that gentleman he had never conceived a thought of that nature, and added his opinion, that "nothing could justify such a measure, but the actual and designed rebellion of the king's subjects, and the failure of all other means to main- tain his government."
The continental congress met in the city of Phil- adelphia, on the 10th of May. In addition to the delegates of the twelve provinces, which had before been represented in congress, a delegate from the parish of St. John, in the province of Georgia, took his seat.
On the 15th of June, George Washington, one of the delegates of the province of Virginia, was ap-
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pointed commander in chief of the American for- ces. The congress declared they would maintain, assist and adhere to him, with their lives and their fortunes.
Continental paper money was emitted, to the amount of three millions of dollars.
On the 26th of June, the congress having takeu the state of the province of North Carolina into consideration, and taking notice, that the enemies of the liberties of America, were adopting measures to divide the good people of that province, and defeat the American association, recommended to all in that province, who wished well to the liberties of America, to associate for the defence of Ameri- can liberty, and to embody themselves as militia, under proper officers, and resolved that, in case the assembly or convention of the province should think it absolutely necessary, for the support of the Ame- rican association and the safety of the province, to raise a body of men, not exceeding one thousand, the congress would consider them as an American army and provide for their pay.
The 20th of July was observed, throughout the province, as a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer, in pursuance of a recommendation of the continental congress.
This body ended its session on the first of the fol- lowing month.
To the woeful catalogue of oppressions which first aroused the American people, were now superadd- ed additional insults and injuries: the humble and dutiful petitions of the continental congress, flatter- ed at first, with a gracious reception, jupon thier intro-
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duction to the throne, had been afterwards buried in a mass of useless papers. upon the table of the house of commons, and shared the common fate of American petitions and remonstrances, to be reject- ed or forgotten. Bills had been passed for pro- hibiting the fishery of the New England provinces, and restraining the trade of the other provinces to Great Britain, Ireland and the British West Indies; the minister still continued to pour troops into the town of Boston, reducing that once flourishing city, to a garrison, dealing out from thence, his instru- ments of tyranny and oppression, to overawe and influence the other provinces. His designs had hitherto proved unsuccessful, and heaven seemed to have assumed the protection of the injured and · insulted colonies, and signally to have appeared in their favor, when, in the late battle of Lexington, six hundred raw, undisciplined provincials had de- feated treble that number of regular troops and pur- sued them into their camp.
The provinces of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut, in imitation of their brethren in Massachu- setts, had enlisted bodies of troops, preparing for the last extremity, and determined to live free, or not at all ; that of New York had, to the disgrace of those who re- presented her, as inimical to the liberties of America; boldly stood forth, determined to brave every danger, rather than to submit to the edicts of the minister, or desert the protection of their constitutional rights and privileges ; New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the provinces to the southward had taken an honorable share in the line of defence, armed and equipped themselves, toavert the im- pending calamity. The latter, in addition to the com-
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mon danger, dreading a civil war, as the most awful scourge of heaven, had a most dangerous enemy in their own bosom ; and, after the measures which the minister had condescended to, in order to carry into effect his daring scheme, there was but little room to hope, he would hesitate to raise the hand of the servant against the master. Dr. Johnston, a pensioned tool of the minis- try, in a late pamphlet, entitled Taxation no Tyranny, had spoken the intention of the administration, in a lan- guage too plain to be misunderstood: " The slave should be set free, an act which the lovers of liberty must surely commend, if they are furnished with arms of defence and utensils of husbandry, and settled in some simple form of government, within the country, they may be more honest and grateful than their masters," were the words of this prostituted court favorite."
In these circumstances, the utmost efforts being ne- cessary to get and keep the province in a state of defence. Samuel Johnston of the county of Chowan, in pursu- ance of a resolve of the late convention, John Harvey, the moderator of that body, having died, summoned a meet- ing of delegates, to be holden in the town of Hillsbo- rough, on the 20th of August. Soon after the appear- ance of this summons, governor Martin issued a pro- clamation of uncommon length ; he began, by advert- ing to the proceedings of the committee of the town of Wilmington, in which he said, "the basest, most scandalous, seditious and inflammatory falsehoods, were asserted, evidentiv calculated to impose upon and mis- lead the people of the province, and to alienate their affec- tion from the king and his government, and concluding in the true spirit of licentiousness and malignity, charac- terising the productions of those seditious combinations,
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with the resolve, declaring him an enemy to the interests of the province in particular, and America in general ; an impotent and stale device, which the malice and false- hood of these unprincipled censors had suggested, and which was the last contemptible artifice resorted to, and employed to calumniate every man, in every rank and station of life, who opposed their infamous and noto- rious proceedings."
He represented the conflagration at Fort Johnston, as a deed of " wanton barbarity, that would disgrace human nature, in the most savage state, and was an overt act of treason, which would have justified his immediate ven- geance, restrained by pity for the innocent, misguided and deluded people, whom he considered, as the blind in- struments of their atrocious leaders, who, defeated in the still more flagitious designs they meditated, and of which he had the fullest evidence, and already involved in guilt of the blackest die themselves, it might be presumed, urged on the people to every enormity that might make them appear principals, in their own treason, instead of the blind instruments of them, and by extending the guilt among many, save themselves from the penalties they had wantonly incurred."
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