their own deputies, and invited the assembly to choose as many more. While they praised the good disposition of the North Carolinians to administer "fair justice among themselves," they added: "We utterly dislike trying or condemning any person, either in criminal or civil causes, without a jury; and evidence clandestinely taken can be of no validity otherwise than to cause the criminal person to be secured, where the crime is of a high nature." They desired to connect their own interests with those of the colony, and were willing to approve any measures that the assembly might propose for extending colonization on the Pamlico and the Neuse, and opening connection by land with plantations in South Carolina.

They attempted to restrain the scattered manner of life of the colonists. "Without towns," they wrote, "you will not long continue civilized, or even be considerable or secure." Miller, who had been the bearer of their letters, was appointed secretary of the province; while the complaints which he had made were referred to the council and assembly in the place. Miller received from the crown a commission as collector of the customs.

The new officers embarked for Carolina by way of the West Indies, where Eastchurch remained for a season; while Miller, in July, 1677, proceeded to the province to hold the triple office of president or governor, secretary, and collector.

The government had for about a year been left in what royalists called "ill order and worse hands; " that is, it had been a government of the people themselves. The suppression of a fierce insurrection in Virginia had been followed by vindictive punishments; and "runaways, rogues, and rebels ❞—— that is to say, fugitives from arbitrary tribunals, non-conformists, and friends to liberty-" fled daily to Carolina, as their common subterfuge and lurking-place." Did letters from Virginia demand the surrender of leaders in the rebellion, Carolina refused to betray the fugitives.

The presence of such emigrants made oppression more difficult than ever; but here, as throughout the colonies, the navigation acts were the cause for greater restlessness and more permanent discontent. And never did national avarice exhibit itself more meanly than in the relations of English

legislation to North Carolina. The district hardly contained four thousand inhabitants; a few fat cattle, a little maize, and eight hundred hogsheads of tobacco, formed all their exports; their humble commerce had attracted none but small craft from New England; and the mariners of Boston, guiding their vessels through the narrow entrances of the bay, brought to the doors of the planters the few foreign articles which the exchange of their produce could purchase. And yet this inconsiderable traffic, so little alluring, but so convenient to the colonists, was envied by the English merchant; the law of 1672 was to be enforced; the traders of Boston were to be crowded from the market by an unreasonable duty; and the planters to send their produce to England as they could.

How unwelcome, then, must have been the presence of Miller, who levied the hateful tribute of a penny on every pound of tobacco exported to New England! It was attempted to foster a jealousy of the northern colonies. But never did one American colony repine at the prosperity of another. The traffic with Boston continued, though burdened with a tax which produced an annual revenue of twelve thousand dollars, an enormous burden for the petty commerce and the few inhabitants of that day.

men.

The planters of Albemarle were tranquil when they were left to take care of themselves. Any government imposed from abroad was hard to be borne. The attempt at enforcing the navigation acts hastened an insurrection, which was fostered by the refugees from Virginia and the New England Excessive taxation, the change in the form of government with the "denial of a free election of an assembly," and the unwise interruption of the natural channels of commerce, were the threefold grievances of the colony. Its leader in the insurrection was John Culpepper, one of those very ill men" who loved popular liberty, and whom the royalists of that day denounced as having merited "hanging, for endeavoring to set the poor people to plunder the rich." One of the counsellors joined in the rebellion; the rest, with Miller, were imprisoned; "that thereby the country may have a free parliament, and may send home their grievances." Having deposed and imprisoned the president

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and the deputies of the proprietaries, and set at naught the acts of parliament, the people recovered from anarchy, organized a government, and established courts of justice. Eastchurch arrived in Virginia; but his commission and authority were derided, and he himself was kept out by force of arms; while the insurgents, among whom was George Durant, the oldest landholder in Albemarle, having, in 1679, completed their institutions, sent Culpepper and another to England to negotiate a compromise.

The late president and his fellow-sufferers, having escaped from confinement in Carolina, appeared in England with adverse complaints. To a struggle between the planters and the proprietaries, the English public would have been indifferent; but Miller; as the champion of the navigation acts, enlisted in his favor the jealous anger of the mercantile cities. Culpepper, just as he was embarking for America, was taken into custody, and his interference with the collecting of duties, which he was charged with embezzling and which there is no reason to believe he had applied to other than public purposes, stimulated a prosecution; while his opposition to the proprietaries was held to justify an indictment for an act of high treason, committed without the realm.

A statute of Henry VIII. was the authority for arraigning a colonist before an English jury, an act of tyranny against which Culpepper vainly protested, claiming "to be tried in Carolina, where the offence was committed." "Let no favor be shown him," said Lauderdale and the lords of the plantations. But, when in June, 1680, he was brought up for trial, Shaftesbury, who at that time was in the zenith of popularity, courted every form of popular influence, and penetrated the injustice of the accusation, appeared in his defence and procured his acquittal. The insurrection in Carolina was excused by the verdict of an English jury.

It was a natural expedient to send one of the proprietaries themselves to look after the interests of the company; and Seth Sothel, who had purchased the rights of Lord Clarendon, was selected for the purpose. But Sothel, on his voyage, was taken captive by the Algerines. In the temporary government of Carolina, I find the name of Robert Holden, Culpep

per's associate and colleague, as receiver-general, while "the traitor, George Durant," quietly discharged the duty of a judge. "Settle order amongst yourselves," wrote the proprietaries; and order had already been settled. Would the disciples of Fox subscribe to the authority of the proprietaries ? "Yes," they replied, "with heart and hand, to the best of our capacities and understandings, so far as is consonant with God's glory and the advancement of his blessed truth;" and the restricted promise was accepted. In 1681, an act of amnesty, on easy conditions, was adopted.

In 1683, Sothel, on reaching the colony, found tranquillity established. His arrival changed the scene.

Sothel was of the same class of governors with Cranfield of New Hampshire. He had accepted the government in the hope of acquiring a fortune, and he cheated his associates, as well as plundered the colonists. To the latter he could not be acceptable, for it was his duty to establish the constitutions and enforce the navigation acts. To introduce the constitutions was impossible, unless he could transform a log cabin into a baronial castle, a negro slave into a herd of leet-men. And how could one man, without soldiers, and without a vessel of war, enforce the navigation acts? Sothel had no higher purpose than to grow rich by exacting illegal fees and engrossing traffic with the Indians. The people of North Carolina, already experienced in rebellion, having borne with him about five years, deposed him without bloodshed, and appealed once more to the proprietaries. It is proof that Sothel had committed no acts of wanton cruelty, that he preferred a request to submit his case to an assembly, fearing the colonists, whom he had pillaged, less than the associates whom he had betrayed. His request was granted; and the colony condemned him to a twelve months' exile and a perpetual incapacity for the government.

Here was a double grief to the proprietaries; the rapacity of Sothel was a breach of trust, the judgment of the assembly an ominous usurpation. The planters of North Carolina recovered tranquillity as soon as they escaped the misrule from abroad; and, sure of amnesty, esteemed themselves the happiest people on earth. They loved the clear air and bright

skies of their "summer land." Careless of religious sects, or colleges, or lawyers, or absolute laws, they possessed liberty of conscience and personal independence, freedom of the forest and of the river. From almost every homestead they enjoyed a prospect of spacious rivers, of primeval forests. For them unnumbered swine fattened on the fruits of the forest; for them cattle multiplied on the pleasant meadows. What though Europe was rocked to its centre by commotions? What though England was changing its constitution? Should the planter of Albemarle trouble himself for Holland or France? for James II. or William of Orange? for a Whig party or a high church party? Almost all the American colonies were chiefly planted by those to whom the uniformities of European life were intolerable; North Carolina was planted by men to whom the restraints of other colonies were too severe. They dwelt in lonely granges; there was neither city nor township; there was hardly even a hamlet, or one house within sight of another; nor were there roads, except as the paths from house to house were distinguished by notches in the trees. But the settlers were gentle in their tempers, enemies to violence. Not all their successive revolutions had kindled in them vindictive passions; freedom was enjoyed without anxiety as without guarantees; and the spirit of humanity maintained its influence in the paradise of Quakers.