and rumor added a purpose of inviting the negroes CHAP. to rise.

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The spirit of resistance, quickened by the tidings 1775. July which came in from Bunker Hill, extended itself more and more widely and deeply. On the waters of Albermarle Sound, over which the adventurous skiffs of the first settlers of Carolina had glided before the waters of the Chesapeake were known to Englishmen, the movement was assisted by the writings of young James Iredell, from England; by the letters and counsels of Joseph Hewes; and by the calm wisdom of Samuel Johnston of Edenton, a native of Dundee in Scotland, a man revered for his integrity, thoroughly opposed to disorder and to revolution, if revolution could be avoided without yielding to oppression. The last provincial congress had invested him contingently with power to call a new one; on the tenth of July he issued his summons to the people of North Carolina to elect their delegates. But two days later, Dartmouth wrote from the king: "I hope that in North Carolina the governor may not be reduced to the disgraceful necessity of seeking protection on board the king's ships;" and just then Martin slunk away from land, and took refuge on board the Cruiser. On the eighteenth a party came down, and, encouraged by the presence of John Ashe and Cornelius Harnett, set the fort on fire before his face, and within reach of the guns of the man-of-war.

As soon as the deliberations at Philadelphia would permit, Richard Caswell, a delegate to the general congress, hastened home to recommend and promote a convention, and to quicken the daring spirit of his constituents. He had with reluctance admitted the

CHAP. necessity of American resistance; but having once XLVI. chosen his part, he advocated the most resolute con1775. duct, and even censured the Newbern committee for July allowing the governor to escape.

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On Monday, the twenty-first of August, the people of North Carolina assembled at Hillsborough in a congress, composed of more than one hundred and eighty members. A spirit of moderation controlled and guided their zeal; Caswell proposed Samuel Johnston as president, and he was unanimously elected. In a vituperative, incoherent, interminable proclamation, Martin had warned the people against the convention, as tending to unnatural rebellion; that body, in reply, voted his proclamation “a false and seditious libel,' and ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman. They professed allegiance to the king, but in the plainest words avowed the purpose to resist parliamentary taxation "to the utmost." They resolved, that the people of the province, singly and collectively, were bound by the acts of the continental and provincial congresses, because in both they were represented by persons chosen by themselves. A conference was had with the Regulators, whose religious and political scruples were thus removed. The intrigue of Martin with the Highlanders was divulged by Farquhard Campbell, and a committee, on which were many Scots, urged them, not wholly without success, to unite with the other inhabitants of America in defence of rights derived from God and the constitution. The meditated resistance involved the institution of government; a treasury, which for the time was supplied by an emission of paper money; the purchase of ammunition and arms; an embodying of a

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regular force of one thousand men; an organization CHAP of the militia of the colony; an annual provincial congress to be elected by all freeholders; a committee of 1775. safety for each of the six districts into which the to province was divided; a provincial council, consisting of the president of the convention and two members from each of the six divisions, as the great executive power. Richard Caswell, who, for the combined powers of wisdom and action, stands out as the foremost patriot of North Carolina, efficient in building up society on its new foundation, a financier of skill and integrity, a courageous statesman and a man of capacity for war, was detained by the people in their immediate service; and John Penn, a Virginian by birth, became his successor in the general congress.

The most remarkable subject brought before the convention was Franklin's plan of a confederacy, which, on the twenty fourth of August, was introduced by William Hooper; like Franklin, a native of Boston; trained under James Otis to the profession of the law; now a resident in Wilmington, "the region of politeness and hospitality," of commerce, wealth, and culture. North Carolina was always prompt to respond to the call of her sister colonies; her convention listened with ready sympathy to the proposition, though it included a system of independence and government, and it was about to be adopted. But in the committee of the whole house, the moderating prudence of Johnston interposed; and, by his persuasion, North Carolina consented to forego the honor of being the first to declare for a permanent federal union. On Monday, the fourth of September, it was voted, but not unanimously, that a general confed

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CHAP. eration was not at present eligible; that a further confederacy ought only to be adopted in case of the 1775. last necessity, and then only after consultation with to the provincial congress. Hooper acquiesced, and the house adopted unanimously his draft of an address to the inhabitants of the British empire, most solemnly disavowing the desire of independence, consenting to the continuance of the old injurious and oppressive regulation of trade, and asking only to be restored to the state existing before 1763.

On the eighteenth of October the provincial council held its first meeting. Among its members were Samuel Johnston; Samuel Ashe, a man whose integrity even his enemies never questioned, whose name a mountain county and the fairest town in the western part of the commonwealth keep in memory; Abner Nash, an eminent lawyer, described by Martin as "the oracle of the committee of Newbern, and a principal promoter of sedition;" but on neither of these three did the choice of president fall; that office of peril and power was bestowed unanimously on Cornelius Harnett, of New Hanover, whose earnestness of purpose and disinterested, unquenchable zeal had made him honored as the Samuel Adams of North Carolina. Thus prepared, the people of that colony looked towards the future with dignity and fearlessness. The continent, still refusing to perceive the impending necessity of independence, awaited the answer to its last petition to the king.

CHAPTER XLVII.

EFFECT OF BUNKER HILL BATTLE IN EUROPE.

JULY 25-AUGUST, 1775.

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DURING the first weeks of July the king contem- CHAP. plated America with complacency; assured that, in New York, his loyal subjects formed the majority, 1775. that in Virginia the rebels could be held in check by setting upon them savages and slaves. Ships were to be sent at once; and if they did not reduce the country, the soldiery would finish the work at the very worst in one more campaign. Alone of the ministers, Lord North was ill at ease, and when a friend said to him, "The rebels may make you propositions," he replied with vivacity, "Would to God they may." Neither the court, nor the ministers, nor the people at large had as yet taken a real alarm. Even Edmund Burke, who, as the agent of New York, had access to exact information and foresaw an engagement at Boston, believed that Gage, from his discipline and artillery as well as his considerable numbers, would beat "the raw American troops," and succeed. An hour be