Gloria est consentiens laus bonorum, incorrupta vox bene judicantium de excel- Hic simiolus persuaserat nonnullis invidis meis.-Cic. Fam. epist. 2. Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1834, by CHARLES BOWEN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. ΤΟ MAJOR WILLIAM GIBBS MCNEILL, U. S. A., OF NORTH CAROLINA. MY DEAR MCNEILL, Tremont House, February 1, 1834. I dedicate to you this volume, written in the defence of the State of North Carolina, a portion of the Union, to us consecrated by the most endearing recollections of birth and childhood. She is the mother country of your sires as well as of yourself, and thus doubly deserves that devoted affection, which it is your boast so long to have cherished for her. In thus dedicating the work, I own, I am anxious publicly to acknowledge my heavy obligations to you, for a long, sincere, and social friendship, and to congratulate my countrymen, that they are represented in the polite society of Boston, by a gentleman, distinguished, not only for his unwavering and honorable deportment in every crisis, but for the highest professional attainments, and for the space which he fills in the affectionate regard of so many of the most eminent gentlemen of the eastern metropolis of our country. I shall embrace the present occasion to offer a few remarks on the history of North Carolina, which could not find an appropriate page in the body of the work, and which would perhaps be considered as of rather too personal a nature, for a prefatory address to the reader. To you as a friend and fellow-citizen, they may be properly addressed, and thus published to the people of the State. Who, even in North Carolina, recurs to the characters of our illustrious dead? Of those who stood forth for their country in the darkest hour of the war, and who fought with a courage worthy of the glory of their cause? Of Harvey, Johnston, Harnett, Hooper, Jones, and Iredell, in the cabinet; of Howe, Lillington, Ashe, Caswell, Moore, and Rutherford, in the field? men whose zeal but increased with the thickness of the dangers that clouded the destiny of the New World. Statesmen and festival orators, alike with the school-boy declaimer, are mute as to their valor, virtue, or fame. The character of Mr. Jefferson is a more fruitful source of panegyric than that of Harnett, Hooper, or Harvey, and the reputation of a zealous idolater a more enviable prize than that of a defender of the State. I do bewail this indifference to the superior claims of our own sires; for it is by appealing to their sacrifices and hardships that public spirit is best kept alive, and a laudable pride to elevate the character of our government is best sustained. Extinguish this feeling of veneration for the character of our ancestors, and you vitally assail the honor of the State, corrupt and degrade the people, and by degrees inure them to the control of a foreign demagogue. In the winter of 1775 and 1776, when the armies and fleets of Lord Dunmore infested the streets and harbour of Norfolk, General Howe of North Carolina marched to its relief, and repelled the invader. The soldiers of the State contributed to the defence of Charleston against the armament of Sir Peter Parker, in June 1776; and yet the descendants of those heroes must appeal to the history of the adjacent States, for bright examples of American valor. Is there nothing in the victories achieved by Howe, Lillington, and Caswell, or in the Mecklenburg Declaration of Indepen |